Creativity and Humour in Occupy Movements Intellectual Disobedience in Turkey and Beyond

This volume offers scholarly perspectives on the creative and humorous nature of the Occupy protests that took place at Gezi Park in Turkey, 2013. The contributors argue that these protests inspired musicians, film makers, novelists, poets, writers, social scientists, and other members of the creative class out of a concern for the aesthetics of the protests, rather than seizure of political power. Taken together, they illustrate that when the protestors hit the streets in solidarity against the political establishment, perhaps for the first time in the social and political history of Turkey, the non-material creative talent of the people and their will to create became apparent.

Altug Yalcintas is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Political Sciences, Ankara University, Turkey. He is the editor of two books published in Turkish, A Spectre in Economics: Karl Marx (2012) and Political Economy in the Canteen: A Spatial Register of the Student Movements in Turkey, 1994-2001 (2011).

Prelude: Occupy Turkey; Altug Yalcintas

1. Intellectual Disobedience in Turkey; Altug Yalcintas

2. Political Potential of Sarcasm: Cynicism in Civil Resentment; Secil van het Hof

3. Vernacular Utopias: Mimetic Performances as Humour on Gezi Park and Bayindir Street; Utku Balaban

4. Gezi Protests and the LGBT Rights Movement: A Relation in Motion; Ayse Deniz Ünan

5. "Just a Handful of Looters!": A Comparative Analysis of Government Discourses on the Summer Disorders in the UK and Turkey; Boran Ali Mercan and Erhan Özseker

Epilogue: Joy is the Laughter of the Resistance; Altug Yalcintas