American studies professor receives NEH fellowship for book on Turkey, Iran
Perin Gürel, a University of Notre Dame associate professor of American studies, has won a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for Research in Turkey, in support of the completion of a book on the international history of comparisons made between Turkey and Iran.
Gürel will spend this fall researching in Turkey and take an additional trip to Iran to complete her second book project, “America’s Wife, America’s Concubine: Turkey, Iran, and the Politics of Comparison.” While abroad, she will delve into the Center for Islamic Studies archives in Istanbul, the national archives in Ankara and a Turkish cultural center in Urmia, an Iranian city that borders Turkey.
The book will detail the history of comparisons made between Turkey and Iran, but Gürel also intends to critique the intellectual valorization of comparison itself. Sharp distinctions about areas of the world are often made, she said, despite the relatively arbitrary nature of borders between countries — not to mention the ways in which subjectively comparing one thing to another permeates other aspects of life.
“I hope the book will make us realize that the comparisons we make — whether every day or scholarly — are not natural and objective,” said Gürel, who is also a concurrent associate professor of gender studies. “They’re informed by social constructs, multiple cognitive operations and the element of strategy. I hope we can pause and denaturalize comparativism in our day-to-day lives when assigning merit.”
The title of Gürel’s book is inspired by a 1962 meeting between President John F. Kennedy and Muhammad Reza Shah. The autocratic leader of Iran complained that “America treats Turkey as a wife, and Iran as a concubine.”
It’s but one example of what Gürel calls the “uneven political triangle” between the U.S., Turkey and Iran — American politicians have often compared the two West Asian nations to one another, and leaders of Turkey and Iran themselves make strategic comparisons to their neighboring state to advance their own unpopular policies.
Much scholarship, Gürel said, often focuses on the relationship between “the West” and “the East” — including her first book, “The Limits of Westernization: A Cultural History of America in Turkey” (Columbia, 2017), which explored how gendered stock figures and tropes associated with the concept of “westernization” in Turkey intersected with U.S.-Turkish relations in the 20th century.
But in her new book, she seeks to examine how the language used by a major player like the U.S. can affect the relationship between two neighboring middle-power states.
Gürel — whose 2019 American Quarterly article, “Amerikan Jokes: The Transnational Politics of Unlaughter in Turkey,” won the Jack Rosenbalm Prize for American Humor Studies from the American Humor Studies Association — has also received support for her research from a number of Notre Dame organizations.
The Center for the Study of Languages and Cultures helped her learn Persian at an advanced level and meet Iranian researchers and scholars. Grant funding from the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts and the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies allowed her to visit the National Archives in Maryland, the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., the Women’s Library and Information Centre Foundation in Istanbul and the Tehran University archives in Iran.
“That tells you what a great place Notre Dame is for doing transnational scholarship,” she said. “Plus, my colleagues in the department, across campus and across the disciplines have been very supportive, reading multiple drafts and listening to me rant about comparativism at random moments.”
Beyond just analyzing the relationship between the U.S., Turkey and Iran, Gürel hopes her critique can provide academics in a range of fields with a new perspective on the perils of constantly seeking to compare one thing to another.
“Ultimately, the book demonstrates how scholars in the humanities and social sciences can approach comparative methodologies more critically and creatively,” she said, “highlighting the importance of multilingual, interdisciplinary inquiry.”
Originally published by al.nd.edu on April 14.
atLatest Faculty & Staff
- There’s no ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to addressing men’s health issues globallyAt a time when health resources are at a premium and need to be wisely allocated, health professionals must find points within men’s lives when it makes the most sense to intervene and advocate for preventive care for promoting better health outcomes. Life transitions such as marriage and fatherhood are often pivotal and crucial intervention points. But just like every man is different, health concerns across global communities differ as well. Research from the University of Notre Dame finds that not all life transitions produce the same health results, and not all men’s global health policies should look the same from one country to another.
- Three Notre Dame faculty named 2024 Guggenheim FellowsBarbara Montero, a professor of philosophy; Gretchen Reydams-Schils, a professor in the Program of Liberal Studies; and Roy Scranton, an associate professor of English and director of the Creative Writing Program and the Environmental Humanities Initiative, are among the 188 scholars, scientists and artists chosen from approximately 3,000 applicants for the fellowship. The Guggenheim Foundation awards these fellowships to outstanding scholars in order to add to the educational, literary, artistic and scientific power of the country.
- Essays on democracy draw attention to critical threats, explore safeguards ahead of Jan. 6Shortly after Jan. 6, 2021, when a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol building, Notre Dame’s Rooney Center for the Study of American Democracy established the January 6th, 2025, Project, which includes 10 Notre Dame faculty who are preeminent scholars of democracy. In an effort to understand the social, political, psychological and demographic factors that led to that troublesome day, the group created a collection of 14 essays aimed at drawing attention to the vulnerabilities in our democratic system and the threats building against it, hoping to create consensus on ways to remedy both problems.
- Carter Snead testifies before US Senate Judiciary CommitteeO. Carter Snead, the Charles E. Rice Professor of Law and director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame, offered expert testimony on Wednesday (March 20) before the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary on the current legal landscape following the landmark Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
- In memoriam: Ronald Weber, American studies professor emeritusRonald Weber, a professor emeritus of American studies at the University of Notre Dame, died March 12 in Valparaiso, Indiana. He was 89.
- Political scientist shares China-Global South expertise with policymakersFor more than a decade, China has invested heavily in the economic development of countries collectively known as the Global South. More recently, China has demonstrated that its ambitions are growing beyond the economic realm and extending into the geopolitical sphere. This shift carries implications not only for the developing countries that are the beneficiaries of China’s investment, but also for the United States and other developed democracies, says Joshua Eisenman, associate professor of politics in the Keough School of Global Affairs.