DISC Faculty

Mustafa O. Tuna
Associate Professor of Slavic and Eurasian Studies

Mustafa O. Tuna

Office Location: 316 Languages Bldg, Durham, NC 27708
Email Address: mustafa.tuna@duke.edu
Web Page: http://people.duke.edu/~mt125/

Specialties:
European and Russia
International Comparative Studies
African, Middle East and Asia
Turkish Studies
Global Transnational History
Comparative Colonial Studies
Politics, Public Life and Governance

Education:
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

Research Categories: Turkic and Muslim peoples of Central Eurasia

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.”

Research Description: 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.

Areas of Interest:
Turkic and Muslim peoples of the Russian empire and the Soviet Union
Islam and modernity
Empire as a subject of historical analysis
Networks as a subject and instrument of historical analysis
Russian empire and the Soviet Union
Late Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey
The survival and transformation of Islamic tradition in Republican Turkey
Jewish experience in major empires

Teaching (Spring 2024):

  • SES 373S.01, Between moscow, beijing, delhi Synopsis
    Languages 320, TuTh 01:25 PM-02:40 PM
  • SES 375S.01, Social engineering & movements Synopsis
    Languages 208, TuTh 03:05 PM-04:20 PM
  • SES 773S.01, Between moscow, beijing, delhi Synopsis
    Languages 320, TuTh 01:25 PM-02:40 PM

Teaching (Fall 2024):

  • SES 370S.01, Islam in asia Synopsis
    Languages 320, TuTh 01:25 PM-02:40 PM
  • SES 388S.01, Illiberal nondemocracies Synopsis
    Languages 320, TuTh 03:05 PM-04:20 PM

Recent Publications   (More Publications)

  1. Tuna, MO, Rusya Imparatorlugu'nun Muslumanlar Islam, Imparatorluk ve Avrupa Modernitesi (1788-1914) (2022) .
  2. Tuna, M, Anti-Muslim Fear Narrative and the Ban on Said Nursi's Works as “Extremist Literature” in Russia, Slavic Review, vol. 79 no. 1 (2020), pp. 28-50, Cambridge University Press (CUP) [doi]  [abs].
  3. Tuna, M; Tahtakıran, E, Glossary of Islamic Terms in the Light of the Risale-i Nur (2020), RNK .
  4. Tuna, M, THE MISSING TURKISH REVOLUTION: COMPARING VILLAGE-LEVEL CHANGE AND CONTINUITY IN REPUBLICAN TURKEY AND SOVIET CENTRAL ASIA, 1920–50, International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol. 50 no. 1 (February, 2018), pp. 23-43, Cambridge University Press (CUP) [doi]  [abs].
  5. Tuna, M, At the Vanguard of Contemporary Muslim Thought: Reading Said Nursi into the Islamic Tradition, Journal of Islamic Studies, vol. 28 no. 3 (September, 2017), pp. 311-340, Oxford University Press (OUP) [doi] .

Curriculum Vitae

Highlight:
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.