Academic Publications

Working Papers

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

The Project’s Main Theory Paper

  • Sehlikoglu, Sertaç (2025). Imaginative Landscapes of Islamist Politics: An Introduction to Takhayyul. History and Anthropology, 36(3). DOI: 10.1080/02757206.2025.2486805

Special Issues & Collections

  • Sehlikoglu, Sertaç (forthcoming). Imperial Dreams: The New Populisms and the Interconnectivity of Religious Imagination in World Politics. Critical Research on Religion.

  • Kayıkçı, Merve and Sertaç Sehlikoglu (Eds.) (2025) Heritage in the Margins: Forgetting, Remembering, Rewriting. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 31(9). Link.

  • Sehlikoglu, Sertaç (Ed.) (2025). Islamic Politics and the Imaginative: Intangibility and Critique. History and Anthropology, 36(3). Link.

  • Sehlikoglu, Sertaç & Mashuq Kurt (Eds.) (2024). Islam, Critique, and the Canon. Contemporary Islam, 18(1). Link.

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

Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

  1. Kalia, S., & Jackson, G. (2025). Organizing Civility: Bridging Practices in Islamic Welfare Organization. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/08997640251387984

  2. Kayıkçı, Merve, & Sertaç Sehlikoglu (2025). Introduction to Heritage in the Margins: Forgetting, Remembering, Rewriting. International Journal of Heritage Studies, 31(9). DOI: 10.1080/13527258.2025.2543747

  3. Sehlikoglu, Sertaç (2025). Inheritance without the heritage: fig trees and the ecological effects of imaginative attachments to fetih (conquest). International Journal of Heritage Studies, 31(9). DOI: 10.1080/13527258.2025.2496873

  4. Sehlikoglu, Sertaç (2025). Imaginative Landscapes of Islamist Politics: An Introduction to Takhayyul. History and Anthropology, 36(3). DOI: 10.1080/02757206.2025.2486805

  5. Sehlikoglu, Sertaç, Caron, James, & Polat, Ayşe (2025). Introduction to 'Islamic politics and the imaginative: intangibility and critique'. History and Anthropology, 36(3). DOI: 10.1080/02757206.2025.2460787

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

  7. Caron, James (2024). Kārwān's talking forest: Materiality, poetic imagination, and the metaphysics of war violence. History and Anthropology, 36(3). DOI: 10.1080/02757206.2024.2435662

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

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

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

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

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

  13. Sehlikoglu, Sertaç (2024). Genealogy, critique, and decolonization: Ibn Khaldun and moving beyond filling the gaps. Open Research Europe, 4(14). DOI: 10.12688/openreseurope.16148.1

  14. Sehlikoglu, Sertaç, & Kurt, Mashuq (2024). Islam, critique, and the canon: an introduction. Contemporary Islam, 18(1). DOI: 10.1007/s11562-024-00555-y

  15. 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

  16. Sehlikoglu, Sertaç (2024). "Traitor over a night": on critique and the fragility of privilege in the aftermath of Turkey's coup attempt. Contemporary Islam, 18 (1). DOI: 10.1007/s11562-023-00549-2

  17. 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

  18. Uddin, Layli (2023). Red Maulanas: Revisiting Islam and the Left in twentieth-century South Asia. History Compass, 21(11). DOI: 10.1111/hic3.12787

  19. 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

  20. 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

  • Kostadinova, Zora (2021). Book Review: "The Universal Enemy: Jihad, Empire, and the Challenge of Solidarity" by Darryl Li. The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology, 39(1). 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, 2023(1). DOI: 10.5465/amproc.2023.343bp

  • Üstündağ, Nazan (2025). “Imagining Freedom in the Kurdish Women Freedom’s Movement.” Link.

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). “Expanding Imaginaries: Collaborations of Archival, Ethnographic, and Performative Studies”. Link.

  • 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

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