Academic Publications

Working Papers

Further publications of the Takhayyul project will be announced on this website and made open access.

The Project’s Theory Paper

Special Issues & Collections

  • Kayıkçı, Merve and Sehlikoglu, Sertaç (forthcoming) Heritage from the Margins. International Journal of Heritage Studies.

  • Sehlikoglu, Sertaç (Ed.) (2025). Islamic Politics and the Imaginative: Intangibility and Critique. History and Anthropology. Link to the introduction.

  • Sadeghi, Fatemeh, & Sertaç Sehlikoglu (Eds.) (2024). Allegra Lab: Anthropology for Radical Optimism. Allegra Lab: Anthropology for Radical Optimism. Link.

  • Sehlikoglu, Sertaç & Mashuq Kurt (Eds.) (2024). Islam, Critique, and the Canon in History and Anthropology. Contemporary Islam. Link.

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

  • Sehlikoglu, Sertaç (2025). Inheritance without the heritage: fig trees and the ecological effects of imaginative attachments to fetih (conquest). International Journal of Heritage Studies. DOI: 10.1080/13527258.2025.2496873

  • Sehlikoglu, Sertaç (2025). Imaginative Landscapes of Islamist Politics: An Introduction to Takhayyul. History and Anthropology. DOI: 10.1080/02757206.2025.2486805

  • Sehlikoglu, Sertaç, Caron, James, & Polat, Ayşe (2025). Introduction to 'Islamic politics and the imaginative: intangibility and critique'. History and Anthropology. DOI: 10.1080/02757206.2025.2460787

  • Aydin, Hazal (2024). Diriliş: Resurrection theme in the populist regime of 'New Turkey'. Open Research Europe, 4(55). DOI: 10.12688/openreseurope.16751.1

  •  Caron, James (2024). Kārwān's talking forest: Materiality, poetic imagination, and the metaphysics of war violence. History and Anthropology. DOI: 10.1080/02757206.2024.2435662

  • Sehlikoglu, Sertaç (2024). Genealogy, critique, and decolonization: Ibn Khaldun and moving beyond filling the gaps. Open Research Europe, 4. DOI: 10.12688/openreseurope.16148.1

  • Sehlikoglu, Sertaç, & Kurt, Mashuq (2024). Islam, critique, and the canon: an introduction. Contemporary Islam. DOI: 10.1007/s11562-024-00555-y

  • Sadeghi, Fatemeh, & Sehlikoglu, Sertaç (2024). Introduction: Conducting Ethnographic Fieldwork in the Global South. Allegra Lab: Anthropology for Radical Optimism. Link

  • Sadeghi, Fatemeh (2024). Street Books in Tehran: Collective Mentality and Decolonizing Research Engagement. Allegra Lab: Anthropology for Radical Optimism. Link

  • Sehlikoglu, Sertaç (2024). Ethics without the Ethics: The Institutionalized Committees and the Question of Integrity. Allegra Lab: Anthropology for Radical Optimism. Link.

  • Aydin, Hazal (2024). The Transformative Potential of Intimacy: Turkish Coffee Talk and Ethnographic Listening. In Allegra Lab: Anthropology for Radical Optimism. Link

  • Qato, Mezna (2024). On Commitment. Allegra Lab: Anthropology for Radical Optimism. Link

  • Kalia, Sumrin (2024). The Ethics of Researching the Far-Right in the Global South. Allegra Lab: Anthropology for Radical Optimism. Link

  • Sadeghi, Fatemeh (2023). The Murshids and the Messiahs: Popular Messianism as a grassroots political movement in Contemporary Iran. Politics, Religion & Ideology, 24(1). DOI: 10.1080/21567689.2023.2190890

  • Sehlikoglu, Sertaç (2023). "Traitor over a night": on critique and the fragility of privilege in the aftermath of Turkey's coup attempt. Contemporary Islam, Online First. DOI: 10.1007/s11562-023-00549-2

  • Uddin, Layli (2023). Casteist demons and working-class prophets: subaltern Islam in Bengal, circa 1872–1928. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, First View. DOI: 10.1017/s1356186323000366

  • Uddin, Layli (2023). Red Maulanas: Revisiting Islam and the Left in twentieth-century South Asia. History Compass, November. DOI: 10.1111/hic3.12787

  • Sadeghi, Fatemeh (2021). Post-Islamism: From Making Islam Democratic to the Politics of Myth. Manchester Journal of Transnational Islamic Law and Practice, 17(1). Link

  • Sehlikoglu, Sertaç (2021). Global far right and imaginative interconnectivities. Social Anthropology, 29(2). DOI: 10.1111/1469-8676.13039

Book Chapters

  • Sehlikoglu, Sertaç, & Kütük-Kuriş, Merve (2024). Locating Women and the Expansion of Islamic Morality in the New Turkey: Anthropological and Sociological Perspectives. In The Oxford Handbook of Religion in Turkey. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780197624883.013.27

Review articles

  • Sadeghi, Fatemeh (2023). Book Review: The Age of Counter-revolution: States and Revolutions in the Middle East by Jamie Allinson. Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, 19(1). DOI: 10.1215/15525864-10256211

  • Kostadinova, Zora (2023). Book Review: "Say What Your Longing Heart Desires: Women, Prayer, and Poetry in Iran" by Niloofar Haeri. Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, 19(1). DOI: 10.1215/15525864-10256239

  • Sehlikoğlu, Sertaç (2023). Book Review: “The New Turkey and its Discontents” by Simon Waldman and Emre Caliskan. Link.

  • Kostadinova, Zora (2021). Book Review: "The Universal Enemy: Jihad, Empire, and the Challenge of Solidarity" by Darryl Li. The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology. DOI: 10.3167/cja.2021.390111

Conference Proceedings

  • Kalia, Sumrin, & Jackson, Gregory (2023). Dialogue through Food: The Ethics of Adab and Islamic Welfare Organization. Academy of Management Proceedings. DOI: 10.5465/amproc.2023.343bp

To be announced.

Non-Academic Publications

See below a selection of non-academic entries that our team members have also authored.

Blogs, Reflections & Other Articles

  • Sehlikoglu, Sertaç (2025) “Why Imagination Matters, Why Takhayyul Matters: The Transformative Power of Social Imaginaries". Link

  • Karakaş, Fahri - CITE Scholar (2023). “Reflections on Imperial Threads Workshop Series at the IGP” Link.

  • Rae, Lauralai (2023). “Imperial Threads: The Artist’s Reflection”. Link

  • Sadeghi, Fatemeh & Narain, Vrinda (2022). “Iran on fire: Once again, women are on the vanguard of transformative change” Link.

  • Sağlam, Erol - CITE Scholar (2022). “What do Imaginations of Haunted Landscapes tell us about Everyday Politics?” Link.

  • Sadeghi, Fatemeh (2022). “Women of the Land of Sun” Link.

  • Qato, Mezna (2022). “At the South” Link.

  • Kalia, Sumrin (2022). “The Populist Rage” Link.

  • Kalia, Sumrin (2022). “Drowning Pakistan” Link.

  • Kostadinova, Zora (2021). “Religion, Prosperity, and Imagining Bosnian Islam” Link.

  • Kostadinova, Zora (2021). Book Review: “Empires of Memory” by Jeremy Walton. Link.

  • Sadeghi, Fatemeh (2021). “A World not Theirs” Link.