Revisiting Occidentalism/Orientalism: An Interview with Meltem Ahıska

This interview with Meltem Ahıska revisits some themes and lines of thought that appeared in the SAQ special issue on Turkey in 2003. Focusing on Ahıska’s article in that issue, “Occidentalism: The Historical Fantasy of the Modern,” the interview questions the relevance of concepts such as Occidentalism and belatedness in today’s Turkey and probes conceptualizing some prominent shifts since 2003 in the relations with the West and modernity. The interview interrogates the changing conceptions of past and future, of temporality and spatiality, and also touches on the Gezi resistance in 2013 to discuss the intervention of Gezi for creating a time/space beyond Orientalism/Occidentalism.