The book analyses the ongoing struggle for a shared 'Alevi Cultural Heritage'. In these processes, the actors have to negotiate standardisation and plurality cutting across the manifold ethnic and socio-religious differences among Alevis.

In diesem Band werden die ästhetischen und performativen Dimensionen des alevitischen Kulturerbes in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart in einem interdisziplinären Rahmen untersucht. Die Beiträge analysieren traditionelle wie gegenwärtige Entwicklungen im alevitischen Kulturleben, lokale wie transnationale Praktiken und berücksichtigen dabei Textquellen, moderne Adaptionen wie auch Materialität. Die Herangehensweisen der in unterschiedlichen Fachbereichen tätigen AutorInnen – darunter Robert Langer, Nicolas Elias, Sinibaldo De Rosa, Jérôme Cler, Judith Haug und Janina Karolewski – belegen die Komplexität der sozio-historischen und sozio-kulturellen Dynamiken. Der vorliegende Band soll Zugang gewähren zu einer komplexen Thematik, die zweifellos weitere Forschungen und Analysen verdient.

This volume features chapters by international experts in education, sociology, and theology who consider a range of challenges faced by educators in primary and secondary schools that are becoming increasingly diverse in terms of the ethnic and religious backgrounds of pupils. From the non-religious, to the refugee, to student fundamentalism and even radicalization—these multiple, fresh approaches analyze the dynamics of the changing pedagogical landscape in an age of ever increasing globalization and cultural plurality. Today’s classrooms are often the most crucial spaces where children and adolescents encounter new cultural, religious, and other worldviews. Increasingly, teachers are called on to empower their pupils with the tools and competencies necessary to reflect on and process this plurality in ways that are productive for their intellectual growth and moral maturation. Regional case studies provide extensive data while offering insights into developments in school settings across Europe, in Turkey, and in the United States. In addition, a number of the contributions address the delivery, content, and policies of Islamic Religious Education in European contexts, the educational strategies employed in multi-religious societies, and interreligious dialogue in schools, whether intentional or spontaneous.

Manuscripts have played a crucial role in the educational practices of virtually all cultures that have a history of using them. As learning and teaching tools, manuscripts become primary witnesses for reconstructing and studying didactic and research activities and methodologies from elementary levels to the most advanced. The present volume investigates the relation between manuscripts and educational practices focusing on four particular research topics: educational settings: teachers, students and their manuscripts; organising knowledge: syllabi; exegetical practices: annotations; modifying tradition: adaptations. The volume offers a number of case studies stretching across geophysical boundaries from Western Europe to South-East Asia, with a time span ranging from the second millennium BCE to the twentieth century CE.

This handbook, the first of its kind, provides a rich overview of the socio-political issues and dynamics impacting Turkey’s diasporic groups and diaspora policymaking. Turkey constitutes an important case study in the field of diaspora studies with a diaspora population of around 6.5 million. This handbook therefore brings together emerging and established scholars to explore the central issues, actors, and processes relating to Turkey’s diasporic groups and diaspora outreach. Taken together, the historical and contemporary analyses presented in this volume provide readers a multi-lens perspective on the trajectories of Turkey’s diasporic communities and diaspora policymaking in a wide range of regional contexts, including Europe, North America, and Oceania. The handbook comprises six analytical parts: Contextualising Turkey’s diasporas: past and present Localisation, transnational belongings, and identity Governing diasporas Micro-spaces and everyday practices Cultural production, aesthetics, and creativity Country-specific perspectives The volume offers insights into the debates and processes that structure each of these thematic clusters, but also provides a comprehensive overview of the dynamics shaping Turkey’s diverse diaspora populations today. The contributions encompass a range of disciplines, including anthropology, history, human geography, political science, international relations, and sociology, and the volume will be vital reading for anyone interested in Turkey, the Middle East, and diasporas.

Addressing the contested nature of Ottoman Sunnism from the 14th to the early 20th century, this book draws on diverse perspectives across the empire. Closely reading intellectual, social and mystical traditions within the empire, it clarifies the possibilities that existed within Ottoman Sunnism, presenting it as a complex, nuanced and evolving concept. The authors in this volume rescue Ottoman Sunnism from an increasingly bipolar definition that seeks to present the Ottomans as enshrining a clearly defined orthodoxy, suppressing its contrasting heterodoxy. Challenging established notions that have marked the existing literature, the chapters contribute significantly not only to the ongoing debate on the Ottoman age of confessionalisation but also to the study of religion in the Ottoman context.

Articles collected in Historicizing Sunni Islam in the Ottoman Empire, c. 1450-c. 1750 engage with the idea that “Sunnism” itself has a history and trace how particular Islamic genres—ranging from prayer manuals, heresiographies, creeds, hadith and fatwa collections, legal and theological treatises, and historiography to mosques and Sufi convents—developed and were reinterpreted in the Ottoman Empire between c. 1450 and c. 1750. The volume epitomizes the growing scholarly interest in historicizing Islamic discourses and practices of the post-classical era, which has heretofore been styled as a period of decline, reflecting critically on the concepts of ‘tradition’, ‘orthodoxy’ and ‘orthopraxy’ as they were conceived and debated in the context of building and maintaining the longest-lasting Muslim-ruled empire. Contributors: Helen Pfeifer; Nabil al-Tikriti; Derin Terzioğlu; Tijana Krstić; Nir Shafir; Guy Burak; Çiğdem Kafesçioğlu; Grigor Boykov; H. Evren Sünnetçioğlu; Ünver Rüstem; Ayşe Baltacıoğlu-Brammer; Vefa Erginbaş; Selim Güngörürler.