Queer in Translation: Sexual Politics under Neoliberal Islam

by Evren Savci

Overview

In Queer in Translation, Evren Savcı analyzes the travel and translation of Western LGBT political terminology to Turkey in order to illuminate how sexual politics have unfolded under Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's AKP government. Under the AKP's neoliberal Islamic regime, Savcı shows, there has been a stark shift from a politics of multicultural inclusion to one of securitized authoritarianism. Drawing from ethnographic work with queer activist groups to understand how discourses of sexuality travel and are taken up in political discourse, Savcı traces the intersection of queerness, Islam, and neoliberal governance within new and complex regimes of morality. Savcı turns to translation as a queer methodology to think Islam and neoliberalism together and to evade the limiting binaries of traditional/modern, authentic/colonial, global/local, and East/West—thereby opening up ways of understanding the social movements and political discourse that coalesce around sexual liberation in ways that do justice to the complexities both of what circulates under the signifier Islam and of sexual political movements in Muslim-majority countries.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781478012856
Publisher:	Duke University Press
Publication date:	12/14/2020
Series:	Perverse Modernities: A Series Edited by Jack Halberstam and Lisa Lowe
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	248
File size:	710 KB

About the Author

Evren Savcı is Assistant Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Yale University.

Table of Contents

Acronyms
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Subjects of Rights and Subjects of Cruelty
2. Who Killed Ahmet Yıldız?
3. Trans Terror, Deep Citizenship, and the Politics of Hate
4. Critique and Commons under Neoliberalism
Conclusion: Queer Studies and the Question of Cultural Difference
Appendix: On Method and Methodology
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Savcı’s book presents us with significant contributions in theoretical framing and methodology. She grounds religion in history and political economy and introduces critical translation studies by way of working against discursive foreclosures that haunt the queer-studies analyses of social movements. Savcı’s genealogical mapping of the current debates and analytics in queer studies, combined with her exemplary intervention into the field, will be useful for experts and novices alike."

Journal of Middle East Women's Studies - Sinan Goknur

"Savci’s focus on the role of language in changing the epistemological landscapes of sexuality and gender, interlinking categories that were formerly thought as separate, and demonstrating the complex impacts of neoliberalism and capitalism in a world that is shaped by diverse forms of epistemic violence and historical erasure is a much needed and timely intervention into queer studies."

Feminist Encounters - Yener Bayramoglu

"Queer in Translation is an incisive and profound analysis of the unique elements driving neoliberal Islam, as well as queer resistance. By revealing the complexity behind the weaponization of both Western economics and religious morality, Savci contextualizes Turkish queer politics beyond a West-as-oppressor/East-as-oppressed or Islam versus modernity binary, which is sorely needed in discussions of Middle Eastern queer politics."

Lateral - Leelan Farhan

Queer in Translation is one of the most intellectually exciting and timely studies I have ever read. Evren Savcı's innovative lenses, presented elegantly in this book, shed light on the complexities and innovations of dialogue and solidarity (as well as antagonism) between Islam-identified political projects and those of queer, gay, trans, and feminist assertions.

The Security Archipelago: Human-Security States, Sexuality Politics, and the End of Neoliberalism - Paul Amar

"While I am not sure that joy or hope or even rage will be sufficient to build a progressive politics equal to the challenge that those living under securitized neoliberal regimes face, Savci's pathbreaking work reveals now necessary they are."

The Baffler - Samuel Huneke

"The element of [Queer in Translation] that makes it a breath of fresh air is Savci's scholarly courage and integrity. It challenges conventional thinking from across the intellectual spectrum. . . . All scholars and practitioners of progressive social movements should read these words."

Social Forces - Sa'ed Atshan

"Savcı’s valuable book offers provocative analytical and methodological discussions for future research on sexual and racial politics, queerness, political economy, and Islam in Turkey, the Middle East, and beyond."

International Journal of Middle East Studies - Ali Yildirim

"Queer in Translation’s theoretical contributions place it on par with the giants of queer theory, gender and sexuality studies, and postcolonial theory it engages, and takes on: Talal Asad, Joseph Massad, Jasbir Puar, Saba Mahmood, and others. . . . The juxtaposition of two seeming unrelated episodes, the use of cutting-edge queer theorizing, all in the service of naming and analyzing a political social order rarely discussed as such is what makes this book a tour de force and a must-read for scholars in the fields of gender and sexuality studies, queer theory, postcolonial studies, and contemporary social theory. For the same reason, it belongs on the syllabi of graduate level courses in these areas. . . ."

Contemporary Sociology - Orit Avishai

"What the book does best is offer an understanding of the workings of neoliberal Islam and the paradoxes it poses for queer struggles in Turkey. The book will be of importance to scholars in the fields of sociology of sexualities, sociology of culture, and sociology of religion."

Chaitanya Lakkimsettin Journal of Sociology

In this much-anticipated book, Evren Savcı draws our attention to how queers in Turkey translate sexual identity in their constant negotiation with neoliberalism in their country. This will be one of the reference texts that we use to understand the links between neoliberalism, morality, and otherness.

One-Dimensional Queer - Roderick A. Ferguson

What is most compelling in Savcı’s emphasis on queer translation as a modality of geopolitics is that it speaks to the historical ontologies of linguistic categories, mediated through transfers of power and capital. Translation becomes the episteme of the geopolitical, moving us away from the focus on subjects and subjectivity as the only pathway to queer justice.

GLQ - Anjali Arondekar

"Very sophisticated and thought provoking."

Choice - B. Tavakolian

"What the book does best is offer an understanding of the workings of neoliberal Islam and the paradoxes it poses for queer struggles in Turkey. The book will be of importance to scholars in the fields of sociology of sexualities, sociology of culture, and sociology of religion."

American Journal of Sociology - Chaitanya Lakkimsetti