KARPAT GRADUATE STUDENT SOCIETY of KEMAL H. KARPAT CENTER FOR TURKISH STUDIES presents BERKE ÇETİNKAYA, Department of History
“Byzantium, Historical Nostalgia, and Digital Extremism”
In-person and Online
A Delicious Lunch will be served
About the Speaker: Berke Çetinkaya holds a BA and MA in History from Boğaziçi University and is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of History at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His research focuses on the social, intellectual, and cultural history of Byzantium; education and historiography in late Ottoman and Republican Turkey; reception studies; and digital history.
About the Talk: Although lacking a nation-state devoted to promoting its legacy and the pop-cultural capital enjoyed by “Ancient Greece,” “Rome,” or the “Crusaders,” Byzantium has never lacked people eager to mine, reimagine, and deploy it in ideological and political conflicts—often in ways that remain largely unnoticed by scholars. This talk examines one such overlooked arena: the highly politicized and frequently extremist reinterpretations of Byzantium circulating in the digital world, focusing particularly on the platforms 4chan and TikTok.
