Please note: Mustafa has left the "Duke Middle East Studies Center" group at Duke University; some info here might not be up to date.
Mustafa Tuna (Ph.D. 2009, Princeton University) is Associate Professor of Russian and Central Eurasian History at the Departments of Slavic and Eurasian Studies & History at Duke University and is affiliated with the Duke Islamic Studies Center. His research focuses on social and cultural change among the Muslim communities of Central Eurasia, especially Russia's Volga-Ural region, Central Asia, and modern Turkey, since the early-nineteenth century. He is particularly interested in identifying the often intertwined roles of Islam, social networks, state or elite interventions, infrastructural changes, and the globalization of European modernity in transforming Muslim communities. His first book, titled Imperial Russia's Muslims: Islam, Empire, and European Modernity, 1788-1917, is published by Cambridge University Press in the "Critical Perspectives on Empire Series." His second book project, titled Knowing God in the Secular Age: Existence, Knowledge, and the Search for Excellence in the Works of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi (1878-1960), aims to establish the relevance of the teachings of Said Nursi (1878-1960), a Kurdish scholar of Islam from Turkey, in negotiating the changing modern world's challenges for Islam and Muslims. Additionally, he is working on a translation of one of Nursi's main works, Mathnawi al-Arabi al-Nuri from Arabic into English. He also investigates the transmission and evolution of Islamic knowledge and practices comparatively in the Turkish and Soviet contexts in preparation for a third monograph. Dr. Tuna is married and has two sons.
| Office Location: | 316 Languages Bldg, Durham, NC 27708 |
| Email Address: | |
| Web Page: | http://people.duke.edu/~mt125/ |
Teaching (Spring 2024):
| Ph.D. | Princeton University | 2008 |
| PhD | Princeton University | 2009 |
| M.A. | Princeton University | 2004 |
| M.A. | Indiana University at Indianapolis | 2001 |
| B.A. (International Relations) Valedictorian | Bilkent University, Turkey | 1998 |
Current projects: Imperial Russia’s Muslims: Islam, Empire, and European Modernity in the Volga-Ural Heartland, 1788-1917., “Kazan Tatar Teachers’ School: The Successful Failure of Russification in Late Imperial Russia.” Under review., “Empire Gone Astray: the Story of Nikolai Ivanovich Il’minskii and His Followers.”, “Another Turkish Modernization: Response of the Grassroots.”
Mustafa Tuna's research focuses on social and cultural change among the Muslim communities of Central Eurasia, especially Russia's Volga-Ural region and modern Turkey, since the early-nineteenth century. He is particularly interested in identifying the often intertwined roles of Islam, social networks, state or elite interventions, infrastructural changes, and the globalization of European modernity in transforming Muslim communities. His first book, titled Imperial Russia's Muslims: Islam, Empire, and European Modernity, 1788-1917, is under contract with Cambridge University Press to be published in the "Critical Perspectives on Empire Series." And his second book project investigates the transmission and evolution of Islamic knowledge and practices comparatively in the Ottoman/Turkish and Tsarist/Soviet cases.