Berna Turam

Biography
Berna Turam, assistant professor of sociology and Middle East studies, is a political sociologist who uses ethnographic methods to explore state-society interaction in everyday life. She received her M.A (1994-96) and Ph.D. (1996-2001) in sociology from McGill University. She holds two B.A degrees in political science and sociology from Bosphorus University in Istanbul-Turkey. She teaches courses on Islamic politics, Islam and democracy, civil society and the state, secularism, nationalism and the Middle East. Her ethnographic work reveals patterns of negotiation between Islamic actors and states. She has done ethnographic research on Islamic, secular, ethnic and gender politics in Turkey, Kazakhstan and North America. She is the author of Between Islam and the State: The Politics of Engagement (Stanford University Press, 2007). She published several articles in books and journals, including British Journal of Sociology and Nations and Nationalism. Her new research project is titled New Faces of America: Secular Muslims between Homeland and Host land. It examines everyday practices of and challenges to democracy and nationhood in post 9/11 United States by exploring daily life of Muslim actors.

Students I Advise
Norman Wanman (D2)