Esra Özyürek
Biographic Data
| ID | 95665 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Esra Özyürek |
| GIVEN NAMES | Esra |
| FAMILY NAME | Özyürek |
| SIGNATURE | ÖZYÜREK E |
| AFFILIATIONS | London School of Economics and Political Science |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7311-4928 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 22 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 126 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1997 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Taming Muslim Masculinity: Patriarchy and Christianity in German Immigrant Integration
This article analyzes a growing sector of state-funded pedagogies designed to reform Muslim masculinity in Germany. These programs present Muslim men as suffering from a psychopathology rooted in an alleged Islamic 'honor culture'. They rely on a mix of Christian and non-religious welfare providers to supply Muslim youth with alternative masculine role models. We trace three implications of this arrangement: First, these programs' culturalist app…
Spiritualizing reason, rationalizing spirit: Muslim public intellectuals in the German far right
Muslim, ex-Muslim as well as converted Muslim intellectuals are increasingly prominent figures in the West European far-right movement. By analysing their publications and online presence, we observe that concepts utilized by Muslim-background intellectuals popular in the German far right build on two seemingly contradictory tropes of German national identity—rationality and spirituality—and a civilizationism that oscillates between notions of ra…
What Do We Talk About When We Talk about Antisemitism in Germany
The controversy regarding Achille Mbembe’s disinvitation from giving a keynote lecture at the Ruhrtiennale art and music festival has prompted a major discussion regarding antisemitism in the Germa
Muslim minorities as Germany’s past future: Islam critics, Holocaust memory, and immigrant integration
A new cohort of Turkish- and Arab-background public intellectuals in Germany locate the root of problems of migrant communities in a resemblance between Islamic culture and Nazi ideology. Islam critics promote the idea that if, like the children of Nazis before them, children of Muslims can rebel against their fathers sexually liberate themselves, they will also be able to embrace the democratic values of German society. In their best-seller book…
Civil and civic death in the new authoritarianisms: Punishment of dissidents through juridical destruction, ethical ruin, and necropolitics in Turkey
Since the Turkish government’s recent turn to authoritarianism, tens of thousands of public dissidents and government critics have been subjected to dismissals and revocation of civic rights via emergency decrees. The victims call this process ‘civil death’. We aim to understand the logic behind this form of punishment in Turkey by examining the differential genealogy of civil death in the work of Hannah Arendt, Bertrand Ogilvie, Giorgio Agamben,…
Exile and Plurality in Neoliberal Times
Today thousands of academics from Turkey, along with others from Syria, Iran, and Egypt are deserting their homeland in search of intellectual refuge in Western countries. These exiled academics have been attempting to practice diverse forms of teaching and researching, both in Turkey and in exile. We argue that the struggles of oppositional academics inside and outside Turkey today offer insight into the nature of the global crisis in neoliberal…
Export-Import Theory and the Racialization of Anti-Semitism: Turkish- And Arab-Only Prevention Programs in Germany-Corrigendum
Moving In and Out of Islam
With empirical case studies from Western and Central Europe, the United States, Canada, and the Middle East, this anthology opens a new field of study by exploring people’s rationales for leaving, as well as converting to, Islam.
A Review of Lewis R. Rambo and Charles E. Farhadian’s The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion
This is a review of the Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion. Drawing upon research on Germans converting to Islam and Turks converting to Christianity, converting is understood as complex fusion of individual choice and cultural/political conflict
Rethinking empathy: Emotions triggered by the Holocaust among the Muslim-minority in Germany
In the last decade there has been widely shared discomfort about the way Muslim minority Germans engage with the Holocaust. They are accused of not showing empathy towards its Jewish victims and, as a result, of not being able to learn the necessary lessons from this massive crime. By focusing on instances in which the emotional reactions of Muslim minority Germans towards the Holocaust are judged as not empathetic enough and morally wrong, this …
Contemporary Turkey at a Glance II: Turkey Transformed? Power, History, Culture
Contemporary Turkey at a Glance II: Turkey Transformed? Power, History, Culture
Export-Import Theory and the Racialization of Anti-Semitism: Turkish- and Arab-Only Prevention Programs in Germany
Since the year 2000, remembering the Holocaust and fighting anti-Semitism have come to be accepted as cornerstones of European identity. The flip side of this development has been racialization of Muslims by singling them out as the main contemporary anti-Semites. After discussing the emergence of the concept 'Muslim anti-Semitism,' I scrutinize government-issued reports and anti-Semitism-prevention programs in Germany. I show how the recent wave…
Islamophobia, Religious Conversion, and Belonging in Europe
What a pleasure to take part in this event to welcome Esra Ozyurek's new book, Being German, Becoming Muslim. This book joins the growing repertoire of critical studies about the increasingly compl
Beyond Integration and Recognition: Diasporic Constructions of Alevi Muslim Identity between Germany and Turkey
Christian and Turkish: Secularist Fears of a Converted Nation
In the past twenty years, around three thousand Turkish Muslims converted to a Turkish-speaking Protestant movement. Despite their small number, they have been physically and ideologically attacked by Turkish nationalists. This article asks why it is so difficult for Turkish secular nationalists to accept that one can be a Turk and a Christian at the same time. Based on eight months of ethnographic research among Turkish Christians in Istanbul an…
Convert Alert: German Muslims and Turkish Christians as Threats to Security in the New Europe
At the turn of the twenty-first century two countries—one at the center of Europe and the other at its periphery—officially declared converts to minority religions to be threats to national security. The first is Germany, where since early 2006 Minister of Interior Affairs Wolfgang Schäuble has repeatedly warned against the danger posed by German converts to Islam (e.g., Schmid 2007). Recently, after two German Muslims were caught collecting chem…
Cosmopolitan Anxieties: Turkish Challenges to Citizenship and Belonging in Germany by Ruth Mandel
Nostalgia for the Modern: State Secularism and Everyday Politics in Turkey
The politics of cultural unification, secularism, and the place of Islam in the new Europe
Miniaturizing Atatürk Privatization of state imagery and ideology in Turkey
Since the late 1990s Turkish consumers have purchased pictures of Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey and the most potent symbol of the Turkish state, as popular commodities, displaying them in homes and private businesses. In this article, I argue that these consumer citizens seek to reconcile the memory of Atatürk's state-led modernity of the 1930s with recent international pressure to achieve a market-based modernity. As citizens try to mask…
Feeling Tells Better Than Language: Emotional Expression and Gender Hierarchy in the Sermons of Fethullah Gülen Hocaefendİ
Over the past two years, the televised sermons of Fethullah Hocaefendi have thrust him into the public limelight, lending his name celebrity status as a prominent religious-cum-political figure. His long standing influence as the leader of one of the most powerful Islamic communities in contemporary Turkey,Nur Cemaati, is now common public knowledge. Currently, this group owns one of the largest mass circulating newspapers (Zaman), a TV channel (…
Miniaturizing Atatürk Privatization of state imagery and ideology in Turkey
Since the late 1990s Turkish consumers have purchased pictures of Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey and the most potent symbol of the Turkish state, as popular commodities, displaying them in homes and private businesses. In this article, I argue that these consumer citizens seek to reconcile the memory of Atatürk's state-led modernity of the 1930s with recent international pressure to achieve a market-based modernity. As citizens try to mask…
Rethinking empathy: Emotions triggered by the Holocaust among the Muslim-minority in Germany
In the last decade there has been widely shared discomfort about the way Muslim minority Germans engage with the Holocaust. They are accused of not showing empathy towards its Jewish victims and, as a result, of not being able to learn the necessary lessons from this massive crime. By focusing on instances in which the emotional reactions of Muslim minority Germans towards the Holocaust are judged as not empathetic enough and morally wrong, this …
Convert Alert: German Muslims and Turkish Christians as Threats to Security in the New Europe
At the turn of the twenty-first century two countries—one at the center of Europe and the other at its periphery—officially declared converts to minority religions to be threats to national security. The first is Germany, where since early 2006 Minister of Interior Affairs Wolfgang Schäuble has repeatedly warned against the danger posed by German converts to Islam (e.g., Schmid 2007). Recently, after two German Muslims were caught collecting chem…
Export-Import Theory and the Racialization of Anti-Semitism: Turkish- and Arab-Only Prevention Programs in Germany
Since the year 2000, remembering the Holocaust and fighting anti-Semitism have come to be accepted as cornerstones of European identity. The flip side of this development has been racialization of Muslims by singling them out as the main contemporary anti-Semites. After discussing the emergence of the concept 'Muslim anti-Semitism,' I scrutinize government-issued reports and anti-Semitism-prevention programs in Germany. I show how the recent wave…
Exile and Plurality in Neoliberal Times
Today thousands of academics from Turkey, along with others from Syria, Iran, and Egypt are deserting their homeland in search of intellectual refuge in Western countries. These exiled academics have been attempting to practice diverse forms of teaching and researching, both in Turkey and in exile. We argue that the struggles of oppositional academics inside and outside Turkey today offer insight into the nature of the global crisis in neoliberal…
Muslim minorities as Germany’s past future: Islam critics, Holocaust memory, and immigrant integration
A new cohort of Turkish- and Arab-background public intellectuals in Germany locate the root of problems of migrant communities in a resemblance between Islamic culture and Nazi ideology. Islam critics promote the idea that if, like the children of Nazis before them, children of Muslims can rebel against their fathers sexually liberate themselves, they will also be able to embrace the democratic values of German society. In their best-seller book…
The politics of cultural unification, secularism, and the place of Islam in the new Europe
Civil and civic death in the new authoritarianisms: Punishment of dissidents through juridical destruction, ethical ruin, and necropolitics in Turkey
Since the Turkish government’s recent turn to authoritarianism, tens of thousands of public dissidents and government critics have been subjected to dismissals and revocation of civic rights via emergency decrees. The victims call this process ‘civil death’. We aim to understand the logic behind this form of punishment in Turkey by examining the differential genealogy of civil death in the work of Hannah Arendt, Bertrand Ogilvie, Giorgio Agamben,…
What Do We Talk About When We Talk about Antisemitism in Germany
The controversy regarding Achille Mbembe’s disinvitation from giving a keynote lecture at the Ruhrtiennale art and music festival has prompted a major discussion regarding antisemitism in the Germa
Christian and Turkish: Secularist Fears of a Converted Nation
In the past twenty years, around three thousand Turkish Muslims converted to a Turkish-speaking Protestant movement. Despite their small number, they have been physically and ideologically attacked by Turkish nationalists. This article asks why it is so difficult for Turkish secular nationalists to accept that one can be a Turk and a Christian at the same time. Based on eight months of ethnographic research among Turkish Christians in Istanbul an…
Feeling Tells Better Than Language: Emotional Expression and Gender Hierarchy in the Sermons of Fethullah Gülen Hocaefendİ
Over the past two years, the televised sermons of Fethullah Hocaefendi have thrust him into the public limelight, lending his name celebrity status as a prominent religious-cum-political figure. His long standing influence as the leader of one of the most powerful Islamic communities in contemporary Turkey,Nur Cemaati, is now common public knowledge. Currently, this group owns one of the largest mass circulating newspapers (Zaman), a TV channel (…
Taming Muslim Masculinity: Patriarchy and Christianity in German Immigrant Integration
This article analyzes a growing sector of state-funded pedagogies designed to reform Muslim masculinity in Germany. These programs present Muslim men as suffering from a psychopathology rooted in an alleged Islamic 'honor culture'. They rely on a mix of Christian and non-religious welfare providers to supply Muslim youth with alternative masculine role models. We trace three implications of this arrangement: First, these programs' culturalist app…
Spiritualizing reason, rationalizing spirit: Muslim public intellectuals in the German far right
Muslim, ex-Muslim as well as converted Muslim intellectuals are increasingly prominent figures in the West European far-right movement. By analysing their publications and online presence, we observe that concepts utilized by Muslim-background intellectuals popular in the German far right build on two seemingly contradictory tropes of German national identity—rationality and spirituality—and a civilizationism that oscillates between notions of ra…
Islamophobia, Religious Conversion, and Belonging in Europe
What a pleasure to take part in this event to welcome Esra Ozyurek's new book, Being German, Becoming Muslim. This book joins the growing repertoire of critical studies about the increasingly compl
Feeling Tells Better Than Language: Emotional Expression and Gender Hierarchy in the Sermons of Fethullah Gülen Hocaefendİ
Over the past two years, the televised sermons of Fethullah Hocaefendi have thrust him into the public limelight, lending his name celebrity status as a prominent religious-cum-political figure. His long standing influence as the leader of one of the most powerful Islamic communities in contemporary Turkey,Nur Cemaati, is now common public knowledge. Currently, this group owns one of the largest mass circulating newspapers (Zaman), a TV channel (…
Miniaturizing Atatürk Privatization of state imagery and ideology in Turkey
Since the late 1990s Turkish consumers have purchased pictures of Atatürk, the founder of modern Turkey and the most potent symbol of the Turkish state, as popular commodities, displaying them in homes and private businesses. In this article, I argue that these consumer citizens seek to reconcile the memory of Atatürk's state-led modernity of the 1930s with recent international pressure to achieve a market-based modernity. As citizens try to mask…
The politics of cultural unification, secularism, and the place of Islam in the new Europe
Nostalgia for the Modern: State Secularism and Everyday Politics in Turkey
Beyond Integration and Recognition: Diasporic Constructions of Alevi Muslim Identity between Germany and Turkey
Christian and Turkish: Secularist Fears of a Converted Nation
In the past twenty years, around three thousand Turkish Muslims converted to a Turkish-speaking Protestant movement. Despite their small number, they have been physically and ideologically attacked by Turkish nationalists. This article asks why it is so difficult for Turkish secular nationalists to accept that one can be a Turk and a Christian at the same time. Based on eight months of ethnographic research among Turkish Christians in Istanbul an…
Convert Alert: German Muslims and Turkish Christians as Threats to Security in the New Europe
At the turn of the twenty-first century two countries—one at the center of Europe and the other at its periphery—officially declared converts to minority religions to be threats to national security. The first is Germany, where since early 2006 Minister of Interior Affairs Wolfgang Schäuble has repeatedly warned against the danger posed by German converts to Islam (e.g., Schmid 2007). Recently, after two German Muslims were caught collecting chem…
Cosmopolitan Anxieties: Turkish Challenges to Citizenship and Belonging in Germany by Ruth Mandel
Islamophobia, Religious Conversion, and Belonging in Europe
What a pleasure to take part in this event to welcome Esra Ozyurek's new book, Being German, Becoming Muslim. This book joins the growing repertoire of critical studies about the increasingly compl
Export-Import Theory and the Racialization of Anti-Semitism: Turkish- and Arab-Only Prevention Programs in Germany
Since the year 2000, remembering the Holocaust and fighting anti-Semitism have come to be accepted as cornerstones of European identity. The flip side of this development has been racialization of Muslims by singling them out as the main contemporary anti-Semites. After discussing the emergence of the concept 'Muslim anti-Semitism,' I scrutinize government-issued reports and anti-Semitism-prevention programs in Germany. I show how the recent wave…
Contemporary Turkey at a Glance II: Turkey Transformed? Power, History, Culture
Contemporary Turkey at a Glance II: Turkey Transformed? Power, History, Culture
Moving In and Out of Islam
With empirical case studies from Western and Central Europe, the United States, Canada, and the Middle East, this anthology opens a new field of study by exploring people’s rationales for leaving, as well as converting to, Islam.
A Review of Lewis R. Rambo and Charles E. Farhadian’s The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion
This is a review of the Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion. Drawing upon research on Germans converting to Islam and Turks converting to Christianity, converting is understood as complex fusion of individual choice and cultural/political conflict
Rethinking empathy: Emotions triggered by the Holocaust among the Muslim-minority in Germany
In the last decade there has been widely shared discomfort about the way Muslim minority Germans engage with the Holocaust. They are accused of not showing empathy towards its Jewish victims and, as a result, of not being able to learn the necessary lessons from this massive crime. By focusing on instances in which the emotional reactions of Muslim minority Germans towards the Holocaust are judged as not empathetic enough and morally wrong, this …
Muslim minorities as Germany’s past future: Islam critics, Holocaust memory, and immigrant integration
A new cohort of Turkish- and Arab-background public intellectuals in Germany locate the root of problems of migrant communities in a resemblance between Islamic culture and Nazi ideology. Islam critics promote the idea that if, like the children of Nazis before them, children of Muslims can rebel against their fathers sexually liberate themselves, they will also be able to embrace the democratic values of German society. In their best-seller book…
Civil and civic death in the new authoritarianisms: Punishment of dissidents through juridical destruction, ethical ruin, and necropolitics in Turkey
Since the Turkish government’s recent turn to authoritarianism, tens of thousands of public dissidents and government critics have been subjected to dismissals and revocation of civic rights via emergency decrees. The victims call this process ‘civil death’. We aim to understand the logic behind this form of punishment in Turkey by examining the differential genealogy of civil death in the work of Hannah Arendt, Bertrand Ogilvie, Giorgio Agamben,…
Exile and Plurality in Neoliberal Times
Today thousands of academics from Turkey, along with others from Syria, Iran, and Egypt are deserting their homeland in search of intellectual refuge in Western countries. These exiled academics have been attempting to practice diverse forms of teaching and researching, both in Turkey and in exile. We argue that the struggles of oppositional academics inside and outside Turkey today offer insight into the nature of the global crisis in neoliberal…
Export-Import Theory and the Racialization of Anti-Semitism: Turkish- And Arab-Only Prevention Programs in Germany-Corrigendum
Spiritualizing reason, rationalizing spirit: Muslim public intellectuals in the German far right
Muslim, ex-Muslim as well as converted Muslim intellectuals are increasingly prominent figures in the West European far-right movement. By analysing their publications and online presence, we observe that concepts utilized by Muslim-background intellectuals popular in the German far right build on two seemingly contradictory tropes of German national identity—rationality and spirituality—and a civilizationism that oscillates between notions of ra…
What Do We Talk About When We Talk about Antisemitism in Germany
The controversy regarding Achille Mbembe’s disinvitation from giving a keynote lecture at the Ruhrtiennale art and music festival has prompted a major discussion regarding antisemitism in the Germa
Taming Muslim Masculinity: Patriarchy and Christianity in German Immigrant Integration
This article analyzes a growing sector of state-funded pedagogies designed to reform Muslim masculinity in Germany. These programs present Muslim men as suffering from a psychopathology rooted in an alleged Islamic 'honor culture'. They rely on a mix of Christian and non-religious welfare providers to supply Muslim youth with alternative masculine role models. We trace three implications of this arrangement: First, these programs' culturalist app…
Political science (16 works) · Sociology (15 works) · Law (14 works) · Politics (13 works) · Philosophy (12 works) · Law (11 works) · History (9 works) · Turkey's Politics and Society (9 works) · Islam (8 works) · Turkish (8 works)