Gülay Türkmen, Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Göttingen

Gülay Türkmen is a sociologist and current postdoctoral fellow at the University of Goettingen. Her work examines how macro-scale historical and political developments inform questions of belonging and identity-formation in multi-cultural societies. She has published in several academic outlets including the Annual Review of Sociology, Qualitative Sociology, Sociological Quarterly, and Nations and Nationalism. She has written about developments in Turkish politics for Open Democracy and Jadaliyya.

"This is a good, concise account of the dilemma Turks and Kurds face in Turkey. Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty." - R. W. Olson, University of Kentucky, CHOICE

"This is an excellent, exhaustive study of the main social problem of religious nationalism in contemporary Turkey. Türkmen beautifully reveals that the way the current Turkish government privileges religion alone in determining nationalbelonging will not work in the long term, because of the way it silences ethnicity in general and the sizeable Kurdish population in Turkey in particular. A must-read for all interested in religion, ethnicity, nationalism, and globalization." - Fatma Müge Göçek, Professor of Sociology and Women's Studies, University of Michigan

"Religious unity is often presented as a panacea for violent ethnic conflict among Muslim groups. In this well-researched, conceptually innovative, and theoretically engaging book, Türkmen shows how a suprareligious approach fails to take deep sociological root and to offer a resolution to the Kurdish question in Turkey. Her in-depth interviews with both Kurdish and Turkish religious elites reveal how religious beliefs actually serve as the cement of distinct ethnic identities rather than superseding them. Her book is an important contribution to Kurdish studies and politics of religion and ethnicity literature." - Güneş Murat Tezcür, Jalal Talabani Chair of Kurdish Political Studies, University of Central Florida

"Through her analysis of the discourse of Kurdish and Turkish religious personalities on Islam, ethnicity, and nationalism, Gülay Türkmen sheds significant new light on hitherto neglected but important aspects of the Kurdish conflict and the Islamic revival in Turkey." - Martin van Bruinessen, Professor of the Comparative Study of Contemporary Muslim Societies, Utrecht University