On Kemalism

We invite submissions for a special issue of ReOrient that examines Kemalism beyond the historiography of the Turkish Republic, using it as an alternative conceptual tool for re-reading the political across the Islamicate. The abolition of the Caliphate in 1924 by Mustafa Kemal ruptured a 1,400-year relationship between Islam and political authority. Yet the political histories of the Islamicate following decolonisation are rarely told as a unity. Orientalist and nationalist historiographies have marginalised Muslims within national histories, while nation-state frameworks overlook the relational and trans-territorial genealogy of the national subject. By centring Muslimness, Kemalism recontextualises the political beyond these national historiographies and in relation to a global Islamophobic and colonial order. This is reflected in the dislocation of Islam from social and political life and the emergence of an order shaped by nationalism, secularism, modernisation, and Westernisation

This special issue approaches Kemalism within the framework of the Critical Muslim Studies project’s re-Writing history. In this sense, Kemalism cannot be understood as a set of fixed or static principles, but rather as a political discourse constructed through the decentring of Islam. We emphasise the family resemblances across political developments in Islamicate contexts during the twentieth century. As an analytical concept, Kemalism allows us to map the political in the Islamicate beyond the Eurocentrism of Westphalian readings. Thinking about political communities beyond Western epistemologies requires a political language challenging the hierarchical cultural and racial assumptions embedded in European political thought. In this regard, we propose Kemalism as a decolonial conceptual tool that can contribute to the development of a post-Western political language and enable alternative ways of reading political formations across the Islamicate.

We invite contributions that engage with these questions from the perspective of Critical Muslim Studies, particularly those exploring their implications and tensions for the decolonisation of discourses, practices, and institutions, as well as the creation of alternative and intersectional forms of knowledge production. We especially welcome submissions that extend conventional framings of the Islamicate—both substantively and theoretically—beyond South Asian, Middle Eastern, and North African contexts and their diasporic equivalents.

We welcome contributions especially but not exclusively on the following sub-themes:

• • State formation: the emergence and consolidation of the Kemalist state from historical, sociological, political terms.
  • Political subjectivity: the myriad ways /techniques through which the emergent Kemalist state created new political subjects, replacing the ummatic subject
  • Historiography: to analyse the ways in which Kemalism influenced historiography and evaluate its role in the transmission of historical knowledge
  • Racism and Islamophobia: the role of Kemalist discourse in reconfiguring the Muslim subject as the racial subject
  • Development over time: Kemalism as an evolving, dynamic project; Kemalism then and now.
  • Culture: the significance of culture under Kemalism, and its various sites of articulation
  • Geopolitics of Kemalism: connecting Kemalism to dominant narrations of global power

 To apply

Please submit your abstracts (of 500 words or less) to: reorient@leeds.ac.uk

The submission and writing process will include attendance at an online workshop where participants will present their initial drafts, exchange ideas, and develop their arguments through dialogue and feedback. Once your abstract is accepted, you will be invited to submit a 3000 – 4000 word paper to present at the workshop.

Dates:

• • Abstract submission: 15th January 2027
  • Notification of acceptance: 1st February 2027
  • Workshop: TBC May 2027
  • Draft Submission for circulation to attendees: 31st August 2027
  • Full-Paper Submission: 28th February 2028
  • Release Date: Spring 2028

If you have any inquiries, please contact the organisers:

Dr Shehla Khan (shehlakhan12@gmail.com)

Dr Mona Makinejad (M.Makinejadbanadaki@leeds.ac.uk)