Martin Stokes is University Lecturer in ethnomusicology at the University of Oxford and a fellow of St John's College, Oxford. He is the author or editor of several books, including The Arabesk Debate: Music and Musicians in Modern Turkey.
"A brilliant, compelling, and erudite study of key figures in
Turkish popular music who have often been regarded with some
embarrassment in official circles. Stokes ably demonstrates the
critical importance of affect and sentimentality in their music,
and how in turn these play a key role in contests over civility,
urbanity, national identity, and globalization. The Republic of
Love will not only help readers comprehend the centrality of
Turkish popular music in creating affectionate views of public
life, but should also inspire many readers to love the music
itself."--Ted Swedenburg, University of Arkansas
"Martin Stokes' The Republic of Love: Cultural Intimacy in Turkish
Popular Music deals successfully with the subject of popular music
in post-1950s Turkey through the analysis of three iconic
musicians, namely Zeki Müren, Orhan Gencebay, and Sezen Aksu...a
more comprehensive argument regarding the strong connection between
music and politics by weaving separate musical genres and examples
together within the framework of an overarching theme of 'cultural
intimacy.'"--Duygu Atlas "Bustan: The Middle East Book Review"
"The Republic of Love, 'a cultural history of Turkey since 1950
told through its music, ' is a strikingly insightful analysis of
the intricate ways in which popular musicians--focal points of
intense nostalgia, and voices of cultural intimacy, as [Martin
Stokes] calls them--have connected the private and public spheres
of everyday life in Turkey, shaping an intimate as opposed to an
official idea of the nation from the 1950s onwards, carrying
society through a major urban transformation." --Alan Duben "New
Perspectives on Turkey"
"The Republic of Love, more than any book I've ever read, is a
model for how to make music relevant to cultural studies and
cultural studies theories relevant to thinking through music and
the lives of musicians."--Eliot Bates "The World of Music"
"The Republic of Love is a work of great subtlety on a subject that
lies at the heart of Turkish cultural and political history:
popular music in Turkey....Readers familiar with Stokes's earlier
work on Turkey would know that he has always been interested in
drawing out the complex links between music, politics, and
emotions. This analytic concern takes its boldest form in the
Republic of Love. Here Stokes convincingly argues that the
elevation of Müren, Gencebay and Aksu into national icons involves
more than an appreciation of the aesthetic elements crafted in
their work (although their musical brilliance is important). His
book unpacks the political conditions articulated with their mass
popularity and underlines the critical role played by each artist
in the public discourses of post-1950s Turkey. More importantly,
the book shows how in the voices of these artists, and in their
songs, lyrics, persona, and demeanour a broad Turkish audience
finds a certain familiarity, something to affectively relate
to."--Banu Senay "European Journal of Turkish Studies"
"The Republic of Love is a wonderful book. Strikingly original,
theoretically sophisticated, and brimming with ethnographic and
analytical detail, it is essential reading for anyone seeking to
understand Turkish politics and culture of the second half of the
twentieth century through its complex soundscape of crooning voices
and sentimental songs. Stokes is a master at unpacking the
'cultural intimacy' of aspects of modern nationhood and personal
identity that in the West are often thought of as polar opposites:
civic virtue and lugubrious melancholy, democracy and intense
emotionality, modernism and nostalgia. I love it."--Veit Erlmann,
University of Texas at Austin
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