Mustafa O. Tuna, Associate Professor of Slavic and Eurasian Studies

Contact Info:

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

Teaching (Spring 2025):

• Ses 279s.01, Turkey: muslim and modern Synopsis

  Languages 312, TuTh 01:25 PM-02:40 PM

• Ses 375s.01, Social engineering & movements Synopsis

  Languages 312, TuTh 03:05 PM-04:20 PM

Office Hours:

By email appointment.

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

Specialties:

International Comparative Studies
Turkish Studies

Research Interests: 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.”

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

Curriculum Vitae

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 79.1 (2020): 28-50. [doi]  [abs]
3. Tuna, M; Tahtakıran, E. "Glossary of Islamic Terms in the Light of the Risale-i Nur."  RNK, 2020
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 50.1 (February, 2018): 23-43. [doi]  [abs]
5. Tuna, M. "At the Vanguard of Contemporary Muslim Thought: Reading Said Nursi into the Islamic Tradition." Journal of Islamic Studies 28.3 (September, 2017): 311-340. [doi]