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

Mustafa Tuna (Ph.D. 2009, Princeton University) is an associate professor 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 Islam and modernity. In his earlier works he examined the often-intertwined roles of Islam, social networks, state or elite interventions, infrastructural changes, and the globalization of European modernity in transforming Muslim communities, especially in Russia, Central Asia, and Turkey. His first book, 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 current project explores encounters between the Sunni Islamic and European secular intellectual traditions, focusing on the ontological, epistemological, and spiritual implications of this encounter for Muslims since the early-twentieth century. His second book project, titled Knowing God in the Secular Age: Existence, Knowledge, and Striving for Excellence in the Works of Bediuzzaman Said Nursi (1878-1960), studies these implications in the case of the endeavors of Said Nursi (1878-1960), a Kurdish scholar of Islam from Turkey, to negotiate the changing modern world's challenges for Islam and Muslims. Relatedly, he prepared a translation from Arabic into English and critical edition of one of Nursi's major works, Mathnawi al-Arabi al-Nuri (Luminous Couplets), and coauthored a glossary of Islamic terms in English that is based on Nursi’s works. He is currently working on a monograph, tentatively titled Concrete Modernity in Kazan: Urbanization and Social Change in Central Anatolia since the 1960s, in which he examines the rapid transformation within the past four decades of a cluster of cob-house villages outside of Turkey’s capital, Ankara, into a bustling town of about sixty thousand residents. Dr. Tuna is married and has two sons.

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

  (also cross-listed as AMES 179S.01, HISTORY 239S.01)

• SES 375S.01, SOCIAL ENGINEERING & MOVEMENTS Synopsis

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

  (also cross-listed as HISTORY 333S.01, POLSCI 359S.01, PUBPOL 282S.01)

• SES 373S.01, BETWEEN MOSCOW, BEIJING, DELHI Synopsis

  Languages 208, TuTh 11:45 AM-01:00 PM

  (also cross-listed as HISTORY 216S.01, ICS 373S.01)

• SES 388S.01, ILLIBERAL NONDEMOCRACIES Synopsis

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

  (also cross-listed as HISTORY 331S.01, ICS 346S.01, POLSCI 301S.01, PUBPOL 317S.01)

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:

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

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

Keywords:

Asia, Central • Bediuzzaman Said Nursi • Eurasia • Islam and Modernity • Islam and science • Islam and secularism • Muslim Dialectical Theology • Muslim diaspora • Muslim educators • Muslim Intellectual History • Russian Empire • Turkey • Turkish Republic

Curriculum Vitae

Recent Publications   (More Publications)

1. Tuna, MO, Rusya Imparatorlugu'nun Muslumanlar Islam, Imparatorluk ve Avrupa Modernitesi (1788-1914) (2022), ISBN 9786057646873
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]