Acknowledgments
One day, Nasreddin Hodja was visiting Konya. A man stopped him as he strolled through the city. “Excuse me, uncle, do you know what day of month it is?” the man asked.
“How should I know?” replied Hodja, “I’m not from around here.”
The jocular character Nasreddin Hodja is one of the countless cultural touchpoints the diverse peoples of Türkiye and Iran share, along with others in West Asia and North Africa. Being Turkish and doing research on Iran, I felt a bit like Hodja, famously from Akşehir, losing his bearings in the new environment of Konya. I had to learn a whole new language (Persian) to write this book! I couldn’t have done so without support from the Center for the Study of Languages and Cultures and the Institute for Scholarship in the Arts at the University of Notre Dame.
But, perhaps, if Hodja had stayed a bit longer in Konya – incidentally, the final resting place of another shared cultural treasure, Rumi – he would have realized, as I did, that a place and people can be both entirely foreign and delightfully familiar. I owe that realization to the Iranians who taught me Persian and hosted me during my visits to Tehran and Shiraz: Elham, Heeva, Fareeda, along with my research assistants, Leila Seyedghasem, Parisa Akbari, and Niloofar Adnani, and their families. Thanks to them, being in Iran and communicating in Persian never felt like anything other than a homecoming, even as I stumbled over my words and guessed desperately at those unwritten vowels.
This book is made possible in part by support from the Institute for Scholarship in the Liberal Arts, College of Arts and Letters at the University of Notre Dame. The research for it was partially funded by a 2022 National Endowment for the Humanities and American Research Institute in Turkey (ARIT) Fellowship for Research in Turkey. I am grateful to Zeynep Simavi at ARIT for her support and kindness during the research term I spent in Istanbul. In addition, I benefited from several faculty grants from the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies and the Nanovic Institute for European Studies at the University of Notre Dame.
I cannot overemphasize the importance of the help I received from my Iranian research assistants over the years. Parisa Akbari assisted with the Persian-language research for Chapter 4, Niloofar Adnani for Chapters 2 and 4, and Dr. Leila Seyedghasem for the entire book. Dr. Seyedghasem also oversaw the transliteration of all Persian sources, including their copyediting and proofing. Together, we decided to apply the International Journal of Middle East Studies transliteration guidelines but made exceptions for individuals who had established romanizations of their names by consulting Wikipedia.
The research for this book involved multiple libraries and archives across three continents. We are grateful to the staff of Tehran University and the National Library in Iran; Beyazıt Library, Atatürk Kitaplığı, Istanbul University, Boğaziçi University, Women’s Library and Information Services, Centre for Islamic Studies in Türkiye; and the National Archives in Maryland, the Library of Congress, and the University of Notre Dame libraries, especially Rachel Bohlmann, in the United States.
Weekly writing sessions with the Pacific New England Writing Group kept me on task. Virtual high-fives to Amy, Genevieve, Lili, Mary, and Naoko.
This manuscript was heavily workshopped. I was grateful to participate in the first-ever Second Book Workshop organized by the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR) Committee on Women (2022). I oversaw another writing workshop featuring the dream team of Cemil Aydın, Arash Azizi, and Naoko Shibusawa in 2023.
Writing and revisions also benefited from the valuable input from audiences and organizers at the following conferences and invited talks: Yunus Emre Enstitüsü, Tehran, Iran (2017); “Yasak/Banned: Print Media and Cultural Spaces from Abdülhamid to Erdoğan” conference at Duke University (2017); Notre Dame American Studies Colloquium (2018); Kroc Peace Research and Education Seminar (2019); Global Religion and American World Making Symposium (2022); Harvard Conference on International History; the Turkish Studies Symposium at the University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign (2022); and the Global Religion and American World Making Symposium (2022). I also presented parts of this research at meetings of my professional organizations, the American Studies Association and the SHAFR.
An early version of Chapter 2 appeared in Diplomatic History (2022); research and segments from Chapter 4 appeared in the Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association (2018), Diplomatic History (2020), and the edited collection Meditations on Religion and Broken Solidarities (2022) by Atalia Omer and Joshua Lupo. Editorial comments and peer reviews were indispensable.
This book was made possible by the anonymous peer reviewers and the editorial team at the Cambridge University Press-LSE International Studies Book Series. My intense gratitude to the series editors, including Ayça Çubukçu, who helped me realize the fit between my work and this series, and George Lawson, who oversaw the process. John Haslam shepherded the book through and fielded my all-too-many inquiries, and Carrie Parkinson and Swati Kumari kept everything moving forward. Thanks to my copyeditor, Stephen Thompson, my indexer, Mamta Jha, and my proofreader.
All remaining mistakes, typos, and nonsense are mine.
I could not have asked for a more supportive department than the Department of American Studies at the University of Notre Dame while crafting this book. Special thanks to Erika Doss, Thomas Tweed, and Jason Ruiz, who served as chairs while this project took shape, to Pete Cajka, who took over Director of Undergraduate Studies (DUS) duties, and to Katie Schlotfeldt and Suzanne Spear, who served as administrative assistants.
My brilliant friends and colleagues at the University of Notre Dame and St. Mary’s, including Emily Beck, Ashlee Bird, Dionne Bremyer, Pam Butler, Korey Garibaldi, Darlene Hampton, Jennifer Huynh, Atalia Omer, Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi, Jamie Wagman, and Emily Wang, have inspired me through the years. A conversation with Marisel Moreno helped me think regionally, allowing me to conceptualize the project in the first place.
I owe immense thanks to my family, both in Türkiye and the United States. My mom, Dilek Özçer, cued me into many of the cultural touchpoints examined in this book, including the importance of Farah Pahlavi for the coming of age of Turkish teenagers in the 1960s and 1970s. My stepfather, Alan Scott, was always happy to discuss the intersections of culture and politics as I formulated my thoughts. My mother-in-law, Marjorie Searl, gave me wise feedback, modeled the spirit of curiosity, and was sincerely looking forward to proofreading. May she rest in peace.
The MVP, James Searl, took over the child-rearing duties while I researched, typed, whined, and revised. He ensured I never got lost in the fog of despair, at least not for long.
My children, Marjane Honey and Isaac Sinan, reminded me of the importance of not comparing daily. It has been such an honor and inspiration to watch them become readers, researchers, and writers in their own right.
Finally, you, dear reader. The meanings of this text are made possible by you and readers like you. What a commitment it is to read a book in this age of the speedy scroll. Thank you for your time, kindness, and generosity.
