The Foreign Policy behind Turkish TV-Dramas
The Foreign Policy behind Turkish TV-Dramas
The Foreign Policy behind Turkish TV-Dramas
Vienna Dialogues: Coffee and IR
Podcast with Ceren Çetinkaya-Mullin, October 2026
Having finished her PhD at CEU in June, Dr. Ceren Çetinkaya-Mullin joined Vienna Dialogues to talk about her research on the international politics of Turkish TV dramas. In her dissertation, she explores how history, national identity, and cultural production become entangled with foreign policy — and what the global rise of Ottoman-themed dramas tells us about Turkish power projection and the politics of transnational cultural circulation. She argues that cultural producers are not simply the messengers of foreign policy: they are actors in its making, whose creative choices, professional networks, and everyday negotiations can shape how a country imagines itself — and how it is encountered abroad.
This episode also features CEU Professor Erzsébet Strausz, CEU Research Associate Çağla Ekin Güner, and Vienna Dialogues Host Markus Pollak.