Prof. Murat METİNSOY

Biography

Murat Metinsoy is Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations, Istanbul University, Faculty of Economics. He received his BA degree from Istanbul Univetsity, Department of International Relations in 2000. Then he completed his MA thesis at Boğaziçi University, where he also worked as Research Assistant between 2000-2004. His MA thesis, "Wars outside the War: The Social Impact of the Second World War on Turkey"  which deals with the survival and resistance strategies of the peasants and working class in the face of social impact of the war  in Turkey, was published in Turkish (İkinci Dünya Savaşı'nda Türkiye: Savaş ve Gündelik Yaşam) in 2007. This book was awarded "the Best Young Social Scientist Award" by the Turkish Social Science Association and "the Best Book Award" by the Ottoman Bank Archives and Research Center. Its second and third editions were published by İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları in 2016 and in 2017. In 2005 he taught history and social theory courses at Yildiz Technical University and Yeditepe University. In 2007 he received a doctoral fellowship from Ohio State University, History Department, but return to Boğaziçi Univesity where he continued as Instructor between 2008 and 2010.  He received his PhD degree from Bogazici University in 2010 with a dissertation titled "Everyday Politics of Ordinary People: Public Opinion, Dissent, and Resistance in Early Republican Turkey, 1925-1939." In his dissertation, based on new sources such as police and gendarme reports, court records, reports of local governors, RPP deputies and inspectors, local newspapers, and petitions, he explored the daily interactions between the state and ordinary people in provinces and how poor peasants and laborers  negotiated and reshaped the single-party state's policies in everyday life. Metinsoy studies Turkish and Middle Eastern politics, particularly political and social history of early Republican Turkey and the Middle East, working class politics, peasant movements, everyday and informal forms of popular resistance and dissent under authoritarian regimes, secularism and religion in politics, social theory and theory and history of development issues in rural countries.  He currently prepares a new book on the social life during the early Republican Turkey and also revises his dissertation for publication. He gives lectures on world history, history of civilizations, history of Middle East, social history of modern Turkey,  theory of history, and history of Turkish novel.