Dr. Bora Isyar

Professional Career to Date:

2010 –         Lecturer in Politics, Department of Sociology, National University of Ireland, Maynooth

2009 – 2010 Lecturer, Graduate Institute of Social Sciences, Beykent University, Istanbul, Turkey

2008 – 2010 Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Department of International Relations, Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey

2007 PhD from York University, Toronto, Canada

Research Interests

Citizenship Studies - Republican Citizenship, Citizenship Theory, Acts of Citizenship

Nation and Nationalisms - Genealogy of the Nation, European and Middle Eastern Nationalisms

European Studies - European Citizenship, EU Enlargement

Contemporary Political Theory - The work of Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, Jacques Derrida

Continental Social and Political Thought - The work of Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, and Hannah Arendt, Republican Theory

Genealogy - Nietzsche and Political Thought 

Theories of Democracy

Teaching and Other Activities

Teaching: Democracy and Active Citizenship, Active Citizenship Placement, Political Theory, State and Society, European Citizenship.

Other: Fellow at the Centre for Study of Wider Europe, NUIM and Fellow at the Network on Politics, Power and Socety, NUIM

Selected Publications

Forthcoming – Europe after Derrida: Crisis and Potentiality. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. (Co-edited with Agnes Czajka)

Forthcoming – "The Other and the Foreign: Towards a Critical Encounter between Jacques Derrida and Remi Brague." In A. Czajka and B. Isyar (eds.) Europe after Derrida: Crisis and Potentiality. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. 

Forthcoming – "Revisiting Lausanne, Part II: The Greece-Turkey Population Exchange." Near East Quarterly, 10. (With Agnes Czajka)

2012 – "Revisiting Lausanne, Part I: The Greece-Turkey Population Exchange." Near East Quarterly, 9. (With Agnes Czajka)

2011 – “Multi-Layered Citizenship in Extended European Orders: Kurds Acting as European Citizens.” Journal of Common Market Studies, 49(6): 1295-1316. (With Fuat Keyman and Bahar Rumelili)

2011 – “Turkey’s Conscientious Objectors and the Enactment of European Citizenship.” In Peter Burgess (ed.) A Threat Against Europe: Security, Migration, Integration. Brussels: VUB Press. Pp. 47-62 (With Fuat Keyman and Bahar Rumelili)

2011 – "Turkish Democracy: A Flawed Model." Open Democracy, October 5, 2011. Available at http://www.opendemocracy.net/agnes-czajka-bora-isyar/turkish-democracy-f... (with Agnes Czajka)

2011 – "Turkey's AKP Must Embrace Diversity." The Guardian, June 10, 2011. Available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/10/turkey-akp-diversity

2010 – “Youth Acts of Citizenship in Turkey.” (Report prepared for ENACT: Enacting European Citizenship project funded by the European Commission), www.enacting-citizenship.eu (With Fuat Keyman and Bahar Rumelili)

2009 – “Non-Muslim Acts of European Citizenship.” (Report prepared for ENACT: Enacting European Citizenship project funded by the European Commission), www.enacting-citizenship.eu (With Fuat Keyman and Bahar Rumelili)

2009 – “Kurdish Acts of European Citizenship” (Report prepared for ENACT: Enacting European Citizenship project funded by the European Commission), www.enacting-citizenship.eu (With Fuat Keyman and Bahar Rumelili)

2008 – “The Death of Socrates.” In Engin Isin and Greg Nielsen (eds.) Acts of Citizenship. London: Zed Books.

2008 – “Euthanasia.” In Engin Isin and Greg Nielsen (eds.) Acts of Citizenship. London: Zed Books.

2008 – “Becoming What One Is: Enacting European Citizenship in Turkey.” (Report prepared for ENACT: Enacting European Citizenship project funded by the European Commission), www.enacting-citizenship.eu (With Fuat Keyman and Bahar Rumelili)

2005 – “The Origins of Turkish Republican Citizenship: The Birth of Race.” Nations and Nationalism, 11(3): 343-360.

2005 – “Türkiye’de Ulus-Devlet ve Vatandaşlığın Doğuşu (The Emergence of Nation-State and Citizenship in Turkey).” In Ayhan Kaya and Turgut Tarhanlı (eds.) Türkiye’de Azınlık ve Çoğunluk Politikaları: AB Sürecinde Yurttaşlık Tartışmaları (Majority/Minority Politics in Turkey: Citizenship Debates and Negotiations with the EU). Istanbul: TESEV. (With Engin F. Isin)

Selected Interviews

2011 – Interview with SETimes on Conscientious Objectors in Turkey, July 29, 2011. Available at http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2011/07/29/feature-04

Selected Presentations

"Post-territorial Europe and Acts of Citizenship." Liberal Studies Group, National University of Ireland, Kilkenny, Ireland. September 17, 2012. 

"Death of God and the Potentiality of Response-Ability." Political Violence in International Relations after the Death of God. University of Leeds, UK. May 12, 2012. 

"Toward an Act Oriented Theorization of Citizenship." National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Ireland. March 31, 2011. 

"Enacting European Citizenship in Turkey." The European Union and Turkey: The Accession Negotiations and Beyond. Centre for the Study of Wider Europe, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Ireland. November 18, 2010. 

“‘Enjoy Your Europe As Yourself!’: Politics of Securitization in the European Union.” Centre for Migration and Refugee Studies, American University of Cairo, Cairo, Egypt. March 18, 2010.

“Critical Approaches in Citizenship Studies.” Centre for Migration and Refugee Studies,  American University in Cairo, Cairo, Egypt. December 16, 2009.

“Conducting Genealogy in Social and Political Sciences.” Department of International Relations, Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey. December 10, 2009.

“Non-Muslim Acts of European Citizenship.” Enacting European Citizenship: Making Connections, Koç University, Istanbul, Turkey, October 2009. (With Fuat Keyman and Bahar Rumelili.)

“Towards a Post-Territorial Europe: Turks Acting as European Citizens.” The 50th Annual ISA Convention, New York, United States of America, February 2009. (With Fuat Keyman and Bahar Rumelili.)

“Responding in the ‘Face of Law’: Towards and Ethic of Testimony.” Socio-Legal Studies Association Annual Conference, University of Stirling, Stirling, Scotland, March 2006. (With Agnes Czajka.)

“On the Vision and Riddle’ of Responsibility.” The 15th International Conference of Friedrich Nietzsche Society of Great Britain and Ireland: Nietzsche on Time and History, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, England, September 2005.

"Responsible Citizens, Fallen Beings." Congress for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Annual Meeting of the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association, University of Western Ontario, London, ON, Canada, May 2005. 

"Marching Toward Turkism: A Genealogy of Citizenship in the Late Ottoman Empire." Acts of Citizenship: A Symposium. York University, Toronto, ON, Canada, March 2004.

"Citizen's Memory: Remembering and Forgetting in the Early Turkish Republic." Congress for the Humanities and Social Sciences, Annual Meeting of the Canadian Sociology and Anthropology Association, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada, June 2003. 

"The Pre-History of Turkish Citizenship: Modernization Attempts in the Late Ottoman Empire." Young Turks: The State of Orientalism in the Twenty-First Century, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, the United States of America, November 2002.