Hi friends!

The recent uprisings in Gezi Park have peeked people’s interest in Turkey and the various uprisings across the Middle East, particularly those of the 2011 Arab Spring. Our colleague, John Eilts at Stanford University wrote an informative post on sources on and about Gezi. And our friend Rifat Bali of Libra Books has listed the following websites and resources:

http://taksimdayanisma.org/?lang=en

http://www.geziparki.org/english/

https://www.facebook.com/geziparkidirenisi

http://www.geziparkiguncesi.com/#

http://delilimvar.tumblr.com/

http://revoltinturkey.tumblr.com/

http://www.karakok.org/

http://resisttaksim.blogspot.com/?zx=3f097ebe37b5a5dc

http://occupygezipics.tumblr.com/

http://occupygezimap.com/

http://occupygezi.blogspot.com/

However, most interesting (to me!) is today’s al-Jazeera photo essay “In Pictures: The Taksim Square Book Club” which depicts numerous people reading in the park. And a couple of weeks ago the Turkish newspaper, Hurriyet,  had an article on “Publishing houses to unite in Gezi Park to distribute major resistance material: Books.”

For those curious to read more about reading habits and the evolution of reading in Ottoman Turkey and the early Republic take a look at:

Şahbaz, Namık Kemal. 2009. Türkiye’de ilkokuma ve yazma öğretiminin tarihsel gelişimi. Ankara: MEB.

Fortna, Benjamin C. 2011. Learning to read in the late Ottoman Empire and the early Turkish republic. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.