Overview
After the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power in Turkey in 2002, the AKP grew into an authoritarian government as it politically and culturally oppressed citizens and institutions. In Struggle and Survival under Authoritarianism in Turkey: Theatre under Threat, Burcu Yasemin Seybenargues thattheatre was deliberately targeted because theatre institutions and companies embodied the cultural program of the statist and Kemalist cultural policy that has continually excluded Muslims and various religious and ethnic minorities. Although the AKP claimed to be replacing the top-down, discriminatory, and secular statist and Kemalist theatre system with a facilitative and inclusive one, the AKP gradually adapted a more authoritarian system, as evidenced by their efforts to close and defund theatres, ban plays, and force theatre artists to exile. Despite the AKP’s increasing oppression, Seybenstudies contemporary Turkish theatre to establish that a few theatre institutions, companies, and artists have managed to survive and develop democratic cultural policies and strategies that will outlive the AKP government.
Full Product Details
Author: Burcu Yasemin Seyben
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Imprint: Lexington Books
Dimensions:
Width: 16.20cm
, Height: 1.90cm
, Length: 23.70cm
Weight: 0.426kg
ISBN: 9781793608598
ISBN 10: 1793608598
Pages: 198
Publication Date: 25 November 2020
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Manufactured on demand
We will order this item for you from a manufactured on demand supplier.
Reviews
Burcu Yasemin Seyben highlights the importance of analyzing the theatre milieu to give an account of Turkey's transformation from an unconsolidated democracy to authoritarian politics. Struggle and Survival under Authoritarianism in Turkey: Theatre under Threat is a remarkable collection of stories of targeted artists, their resistance, resilience, exiles, and self-exiles. Seyben's book is also a tour d'horizon of the AKP's inability to impose its cultural hegemony on established cultural institutions and the expanding theatre sector. Hence, Theatre under Threat shows that it is inaccurate to portray today's Turkey as a place in which everything is determined by authoritarianism.--OEmer Turan, Associate Professor at Istanbul Bilgi University, Department of International Relations, and Swedish Institute Senior Fellow at Lund University, CMES Burcu Yasemin Seyben offers a timely analysis of a pivotal moment in Turkey's history, where spaces for independent theatre as well as free thinking and expressing of its diverse cultural heritage have become scarce. She records and criticizes with much fervor how political and social processes under the AKP administration are eroding Turkey's once rich cultural scene, forcing theatre artists and academics, including herself, into self-exile. This time document is written with much love, dedication, and resilience that will inspire generations.--Pieter Verstraete, Assistant Professor at University of Groningen, and Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow at Free University of Berlin
""Burcu Yasemin Seyben highlights the importance of analyzing the theatre milieu to give an account of Turkey's transformation from an unconsolidated democracy to authoritarian politics. Struggle and Survival under Authoritarianism in Turkey: Theatre under Threat is a remarkable collection of stories of targeted artists, their resistance, resilience, exiles, and self-exiles. Seyben's book is also a tour d'horizon of the AKP's inability to impose its cultural hegemony on established cultural institutions and the expanding theatre sector. Hence, Theatre under Threat shows that it is inaccurate to portray today's Turkey as a place in which everything is determined by authoritarianism."" --Ömer Turan, Associate Professor at Istanbul Bilgi University, Department of International Relations, and Swedish Institute Senior Fellow at Lund University, CMES ""Burcu Yasemin Seyben offers a timely analysis of a pivotal moment in Turkey's history, where spaces for independent theatre as well as free thinking and expressing of its diverse cultural heritage have become scarce. She records and criticizes with much fervor how political and social processes under the AKP administration are eroding Turkey's once rich cultural scene, forcing theatre artists and academics, including herself, into self-exile. This time document is written with much love, dedication, and resilience that will inspire generations."" --Pieter Verstraete, Assistant Professor at University of Groningen, and Marie Sklodowska-Curie Fellow at Free University of Berlin
Burcu Yasemin Seyben highlights the importance of analyzing the theatre milieu to give an account of Turkey's transformation from an unconsolidated democracy to authoritarian politics. Struggle and Survival under Authoritarianism in Turkey: Theatre under Threat is a remarkable collection of stories of targeted artists, their resistance, resilience, exiles, and self-exiles. Seyben's book is also a tour d'horizon of the AKP's inability to impose its cultural hegemony on established cultural institutions and the expanding theatre sector. Hence, Theatre under Threat shows that it is inaccurate to portray today's Turkey as a place in which everything is determined by authoritarianism. Burcu Yasemin Seyben offers a timely analysis of a pivotal moment in Turkey's history, where spaces for independent theatre as well as free thinking and expressing of its diverse cultural heritage have become scarce. She records and criticizes with much fervor how political and social processes under the AKP administration are eroding Turkey's once rich cultural scene, forcing theatre artists and academics, including herself, into self-exile. This time document is written with much love, dedication, and resilience that will inspire generations.
Author Information
Burcu Yasemin Seyben is a theatre and general education instructor at the College of Southern Idaho.
