Dr Ezgi Başaran presents her latest book for the Middle East Centre’s first seminar of the year
Journalist and political scientist, Dr Ezgi Başaran, presented her book The New Spirit of Islamism: Interactions between the AKP, Ennahda and the Muslim Brotherhood (Bloomsbury 2024) in the opening seminar of the Middle East Centre’s 2024-25 programme, held jointly with the European Studies Centre.
An alumna of St Antony’s College, and a graduate of both the MPhil and the DPhil in modern Middle Eastern Studies at Oxford University, Dr Başaran came into academia from a distinguished career in journalism.
Dr Başaran was a journalist with the prominent Turkish daily newspaper, Hürriyet, before going on to work at
Radikal as the newspaper’s youngest ever editor, and notably the first woman to hold this role. Major international news outlets, including the BBC, the Financial Times, The Economist, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post, have all featured her commentary on domestic Turkish politics.
Dr Başaran’s reporting on the Kurdish conflict in Turkey led to her first book in English, entitled Frontline Turkey conflict at the heart of the Middle East (Bloomsbury 2017). Her current book, and subject of the seminar, grew out of her doctoral research. It engagingly traces the links between the AKP, Tunisia’s Ennahda, and the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood after the Arab Spring. In doing so, the book presents a unique analysis of the interplay between these parties.
The seminar took place at St Antony’s College on Tuesday 15 October and was chaired by MEC Fellow, Professor Michael Willis. Professor Willis supervised Dr Başaran’s doctoral research, with his own interests focusing on the politics, modern history and international relations of the central Maghreb.
The talk can be listened to now as the latest episode of the Middle East Centre Booktalk podcast series, which features the most important and interesting new books published on the Middle East. For details of other upcoming book talks and seminars for this term, please visit our events page. These events are free to attend and open to the public.
