18 LUG 2021 · Mustafa Gürbüz, a sociologist at the American University and host of the House of Wisdom podcast for Ahval, interviewed Ahmet T. Kuru, professor of political science at San Diego State University. Kuru explained how Turkey has become an example of a state allied with the ulema, Islam’s scholar class, despite still being a constitutionally secular state under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. The professor also said the Turkish government’s attitude towards 2013’s nationwide Gezi Park protests and Erdoğan’s current Kanal Istanbul artificial waterway project are examples of rent seeking, despite Turkey being an oil-poor country.

5 LUG 2021 · Mustafa Gürbüz, a sociologist at American University and the host of The House of Wisdom podcast for Ahval, interviewed with Louis Fishman, an associate professor at Brooklyn College at City University of New York, on his recent book that provides a historical account on the Young Turks’ policies and the question of Palestine. Jews and Palestinians in the Late Ottoman Era, 1908-1914: Claiming the Homeland examines how the Young Turk Revolution and the new constitutional freedoms exacerbated divisions between the communities, rather than serving as a unifying factor.

20 GIU 2021 · Mustafa Gürbüz, a sociologist at American University and the host of The House of Wisdom podcast for Ahval, interviewed with Noah Feldman, a professor of constitutional law at Harvard Law School and the Chair of the Society of Fellows at Harvard, on his recent book on the Arab Revolutions of 2011.

6 GIU 2021 · Mustafa Gürbüz, a sociologist at American University and the host of The House of Wisdom podcast for Ahval, interviewed Gülay Türkmen, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Graz's Center for Southeast European Studies and a visiting fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity. Under the Banner of Islam: Turks, Kurds, and the Limits of Religious Unity, published by Oxford University Press, focuses on the ambivalent role Islam has played in Turkey's Kurdish conflict--both as a conflict resolution tool and as a tool of resistance.

24 MAG 2021 · Jenny White, a professor of anthropology at University of Stockholm in Sweden and a writer on Turkish history and culture, spoke to Mustafa Gürbüz, a sociologist at the American University in Washington and host of Ahval’s House of Wisdom podcast, about her new graphic novel. “Turkish Kaleidoscope: Fractured Lives in a Time of Violence”, published by Princeton University Press, traces Turkey's descent into political violence in the 1970s through the experiences of four students on opposing sides of the conflict.

23 MAG 2021 · Mustafa Gürbüz, a sociologist at the American University in Washington and host of Ahval’s House of Wisdom podcast, spoke to renowned anthropologist and Turkey expert Jenny White about her new graphic novel. “Turkish Kaleidoscope: Fractured Lives in a Time of Violence”, published by Princeton University Press, traces Turkey's descent into political violence in the 1970s through the experiences of four students on opposing sides of the conflict.