The TAKHAYYUL project is led by Dr Sertaç Sehlikoglu and is funded by the European Research Council.
The interdisciplinary team brings together different fields to develop a comparative approach to the study of imagination (takhayyul), drawing on historical, cultural and aesthetic perspectives. It examines how beliefs, identities and aspirations are formed and shared across eleven countries: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Turkey, Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, Bangladesh, India, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The research explores how these interconnected ways of imagining the world shape religious beliefs, national identities and other forms of collective meaning.
Rather than framing these processes in terms of irrationality, the project aims to build a clearer theoretical understanding of how political and religious ideas are formed and how they move across borders.
Locating Women and the Expansion of Islamic Morality in the New Turkey (2024)
Sehlikoglu, S. and Kütük-Kuriş, M.
In The Oxford Handbook of Religion in Turkey
Islam, Critique, and the Canon (2024)
Sehlikoglu, S., Kurt, M. and Kostadinova, Z.
Contemporary Islam
Diriliş: Resurrection theme in the populist regime of ‘New Turkey’ (2024)
Aydin, H.
Open Research Europe
Takhayyul Nativeness and Emergent Issues podcast
The Takhayyul Nativeness and Emergent Issues podcast series explores pressing issues taking place across Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and South Asia.
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Imagining Turkey Podcast
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This bi-monthly podcast series offers unfamiliar ways of looking at the political transformation that Turkey has been going through at the national and international level.