From Invisible Religiosity to Bearded Men in Suits in Turkey: Visibility and Studying Gender in Islam

Dr. Sertaç Sehlikoglu

This talk expands and somewhat intervenes the canon in studies of gender in the Middle East, by looking at the visible and invisible changes the pious men of Turkey have undergone over the last three decades. In a country where dress code has been an integral part of the country’s modernization project that has been defined primarily through female bodies the transformation of male bodies has escaped from scholarly attention, just as they have never been the embodied objects of modernization, secularization, and of religious revival. This talk delves into the overlapping and sometimes clashing perspectives of heterosexuality, masculinity, secularization, religiosity, invisibility, and transformation using an anthropological lens

Sertaç Sehlikoglu

Dr. Sehlikoglu is a social anthropologist specialised in gender and subjectivity in the Middle East, with a background also in sociology. She teaches in Social Anthropology, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, and Gender Studies, at the University of Cambridge.

She is the recipient of several awards and grants, including a Gibbs Fellowship, a BRISMES (British Institute of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies) Ph.D. Award, a Wadad Kadi Fellowship, a BIAA (British Institute at Ankara) Study Grant, and a Worts Travelling Scholars Fund.  She has published in edited collections and several journals including Cambridge Journal of Anthropology (2015), the Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies (2016), Feminist Media Studies (2014), and Leisure Studies (2014). She has also edited journal special issues, predominantly on sexuality and intimacy. Her book "Everyday Makings of Heterosexuality" will be out in 2019.