The Republic of Love: Cultural Intimacy in Turkish Popular Music (Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology) Reviews

With eloquent and engaging prose, Stokes analyzes the lives and music of three Turkish popular singers, delineating how they create public sentiments often quite distinct from (and sometimes in contradistinction to) those associated with the nation. In their sentimentality, their nostalgia, their gender ambiguity, and their themes of love, these artists model alternative ways of being a modern subject in post-Kemalist Turkey. Engaging the political complexities of the contemporary moment, with its strains of secularism and rising religiosity, Stokes contributes to theories of the emotions by demonstrating the importance of style, voice, and personality to the social construction of ‘public intimacy.’ Stokes delves deeply into the historical context of Turkey, but this book has ramifications far beyond the cases examined, breaking new ground in ethnomusicology, anthropology, and Middle Eastern studies. A beautiful and insightful achievement!