Jean Deny and Kemalist linguistics

On Thursday 12 December, Emmanuel Szurek will give a LUCIS/MOS lecture entitled: 'Jean Deny and Kemalist linguistics: The 3rd Turkish Language Congress and the Sun-Language Theory'. Time 15.15-17.00 hours. Location: Matthias de Vrieshof 4, room 008/A.

Emmanuel Szurek

Emmanuel Szurek is a TRI post-doctoral fellow and is working on revising his doctoral dissertation (EHESS, Paris 2013) into a published book.  Titled "Governing with Words: a Linguistic History of Nationalist Turkey," Szurek shows how the Turkish language is a political artifact that owes much of its alphabetical, lexical and grammatical shape to the comprehensive undertaking conducted during the Kemalist period under the label of "language revolution." The particular issues Szurek is interested in are the intellectual elaboration of this standardized and nationalized language by Turkish linguists and its imposition, through political means, on the citizens of the Republic of Turkey.