Dr. M. (Murat) Aydemir
Faculty of Humanities
Literatuurwetenschap
Area of expertise: cultural analysis, cultural studies, comparative literature, queer theory
Visiting address
- Spuistraat 134
- Room number: 714
Postal address
-
Postbus 1642
1000 BP Amsterdam
Contact details
-
Profile
Bio
Murat Aydemir is associate professor in literary and cultural studies. He is the author of Images of Bliss: Ejaculation, Masculinity, Meaning (2007) and the (co-)editor of Migratory Settings: Transnational Perspectives on Place (2008), Indiscretions: At the Intersection of Queer and Postcolonial Theory (2011), and The Future of Cultural Analysis: A Critical Inquiry (2025). From 2011 to 2021, he served as academic director of the Netherlands Institute for Cultural Analysis (NICA).
The Future of Cultural Analysis: A Critical Inquiry, Murat Aydemir, Noa Roei, Aylin Kuryel (eds) Concepts Gone Bad
In 2002, Mieke Bal influentially argued that theory is most helpful for cultural analysis in the form of heuristic concepts rather than comprehensive systems or methods. Instead of epistemological “coverage,” concepts enable measured “travel” across disciplines and territories. However, concepts no longer circulate in the same way as they used to in the early 2000s. Multidisciplinary “toolkits” have become commonplace. Once-specialized academic concepts now lead sweeping social lives across academic, popular, activist, and governmental contexts. The metaphor of “travel” doesn’t work when there are few borders left. As an alternative, I propose a combination of cultural analysis and conjunctural analysis, weighing the leverage and purchase of concepts in terms of the present historical situation and its shape-shifting hegemony.
"Traveling Concepts and Conjunctural Analysis: Concepts Gone Bad"
See also: Podcast NICAQueer Kinship and Homonationalism
Now that a substantial contingent of queer life has aligned itself with established legal and social frameworks of marriage, family, and inheritance, and now that sexual minority identity has to some extent—through a political rearrangement Jasbir K. Puar has termed “homonationalism” (Terrorist Assemblages)—become part of the national imaginary of several Western countries, what can the recourse to queer kinship still make possible? Including case studies on the film Eastern Boys (2013), an episode of RuPaul's Drag Race Canada, and protests against Amsterdam Pride.
— "Eastern Boys (2013): Hospitality, Trauma, Kinship, and the State"
— "Let's Get Some Family Chosen': Refugees, Homonationalism, and Queer Family Rhetoric" -
Publications
- refereed (26)
- academic (13)
- professional (2)
- popular scientific (3)
- recognitions (1)
- doctoral thesis (1)
2025
Aydemir, M. (2025). Traveling Concepts and Conjunctural Analysis: Concepts Gone Bad. In M. Aydemir, A. Kuryel, & N. Roei (Eds.), The Future of Cultural Analysis: A Critical Inquiry (pp. 99-112). Amsterdam University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.22361586.9 [details]- Aydemir, M., Kuryel, A., & Roei, N. (2025). The Future of Cultural Analysis: A Critical Inquiry. Amsterdam University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.22361586 [details]
- Kuryel, A., Roei, N., & Aydemir, M. (2025). Afterword. In M. Aydemir, A. Kuryel, & N. Roei (Eds.), The Future of Cultural Analysis: A Critical Inquiry (pp. 243-252). Amsterdam University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.22361586.19 [details]
- Roei, N., Aydemir, M., & Kuryel, A. (2025). Introduction: Cultural Analysis, circa 2034. In M. Aydemir, A. Kuryel, & N. Roei (Eds.), The Future of Cultural Analysis: A Critical Inquiry (pp. 7-22). Amsterdam University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9789048559800-001, https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.22361586.3 [details]
2022
- Aydemir, M. (2022). "Let's Get Some Family Chosen": Refugees, Homonationalism, and Queer Family Rhetoric. In J. Rhodes, & J. Alexander (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Queer Rhetoric (pp. 167-174). Routledge. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003144809-23 [details]
2021
- Aydemir, M. (2021). Eastern Boys (2013): hospitality, trauma, kinship, and the state. In J. S. Williams (Ed.), Queering the Migrant in Contemporary European Cinema (pp. 115-128). (Global Gender). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429264245-11 [details]
2016
- Aydemir, M. (2016). Orgasm and Queer Theory in the Twentieth Century. Feminist Formations, 28(2), 119-128. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/641403 [details]
- Aydemir, M. (2016). Queer Orientation with Gus Van Sant's Elephant. Culture, Theory and Critique, 57(1), 32-47. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/14735784.2015.1121836 [details]
2014
- Aydemir, M. (2014). Nomads without Secrets. In J. Lu , & E. van Alphen (Eds.), Literature, Aesthetics and History = Wen xue, mei xue yu li shi : Forum of Cultural Exchange between China and the Netherlands = Zhong He wen hua jiao liu lun tan wen ji (pp. 29-41). Zhongguo she hui ke xue chu ban she. [details]
- Aydemir, M. (2014). Zelfreflectie volgens Bacon & Lacan. In S. van Keulen (Ed.), Hoe kunst en filosofie werken (pp. 151-162). Amsterdam: Boom. [details]
2013
- Aydemir, M. (2013). Moederschap en materialiteit: Diane, Stephen, Liam en Joel Blood. Tijdschrift voor Genderstudies, 16(3), 7-19. https://doi.org/10.5117/TVGEND2013.3.AYDE [details]
- Aydemir, M. (2013). Small Places: Global Nativism in Jamaica Kincaid's A Small Place (1988). In J. Heirman, & J. Klooster (Eds.), The ideologies of lived space in literary texts, ancient and modern (pp. 221-228). Academia Press. https://www.doabooks.org/doab?func=search&uiLanguage=en&template=&query=9789038221021 [details]
2012
- Aydemir, M. (2012). Dutch Homonationalism and Intersectionality. In E. Boehmer, & S. De Mul (Eds.), The postcolonial Low Countries: literature, colonialism, and multiculturalism (pp. 187-202). Lanham, MD: Lexington Books. [details]
2011
- Aydemir, M. (2011). Blood brothers. In M. Aydemir (Ed.), Indiscretions: at the intersection of queer and postcolonial theory (pp. 161-181). (Thamyris intersecting: place, sex, and race; No. 22). Rodopi. http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/rodopi/tham/2011/00000022/00000001/art00009 [details]
- Aydemir, M. (2011). Introduction: Indiscretions at the sex/culture divide. In M. Aydemir (Ed.), Indiscretions: at the intersection of queer and postcolonial theory (pp. 9-30). (Thamyris intersecting: place, sex, and race; No. 22). Rodopi. http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/rodopi/tham/2011/00000022/00000001/art00001 [details]
2009
- Aydemir, M. (2009). Il velo che svela: Jacques Lacan e l'"Angelo incarnato" = The parting veil: Lacques Lacan and the "Angel in the Flesh". In C. Pedretti (Ed.), Leonardo da Vinci: l'Angelo incarnato & Salai = the Angel in the Flesh & Salai (pp. 125-136). CB. http://opar.unior.it/262/1/leonardo09.pdf [details]
- Aydemir, M. (2009). In Queer Street. Frame, 22(2), 8-15. [details]
- Aydemir, M. (2009). The cum shot as period, ellipsis and question mark. In T. Stüttgen (Ed.), Post porn politics: queer-feminist perspectives on the politics of porn performance and sex-work as cultural production: symposium reader (pp. 124-137). b_books. [details]
2008
- Aydemir, M. (2008). Staging colonialism: the mise-en-scène of the Africa Museum in Tervuren, Belgium. In M. Aydemir, & A. Rotas (Eds.), Migratory settings (pp. 77-97). (Thamyris/intersecting: place, sex, and race; No. 19). Rodopi. http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/rodopi/tham/2008/00000019/00000001/art00004 [details]
- Aydemir, M., & Rotas, A. (2008). Introduction: Migratory settings. In M. Aydemir, & A. Rotas (Eds.), Migratory settings (pp. 7-31). (Thamyris/intersecting: place, sex, and race; No. 19). Rodopi. http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/rodopi/tham/2008/00000019/00000001/art00001 [details]
2007
- Aydemir, M. (2007). Images of bliss: ejaculation, masculinity, meaning. University of Minnesota Press. [details]
- Aydemir, M. (2007). Piecemeal Translation. Art History, 30(3), 307-325. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8365.2007.00547.x [details]
2006
- Aydemir, M. (2006). Impressions of character: Hari Kunzru's The Impressionist. In M. Bal, & B. van Eekelen (Eds.), Uncertain Territories: Boundaries in Cultural Analysis (pp. 199-218). Amsterdam & New York: Rodopi. [details]
2005
- Aydemir, M. (2005). The Ghost of the Present: The Africa Musueum in Tervuren, Belgium. In A. Bangma (Ed.), Looking, Encountering, Staging Rotterdam. [details]
2019
- Aydemir, M. (2019). Identiteitspolitiek 3.0. Wijsgerig Perspectief, 59(1), 6-13. https://www.filosofie.nl/nl/artikel/50730/identiteitspolitiek-30.html [details]
2015
- Aydemir, M. (Author). (2015). Identity Politics: Nothing Personal. Web publication or website, . https://omslag.nu/lets-talk-diversity/identity-politics-nothing-personal/ [details]
2011
- Aydemir, M. (2011). Indiscretions: at the intersection of queer and postcolonial theory. (Thamyris intersecting: place, sex, and race; No. 22). Rodopi. http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/rodopi/tham/2011/00000022/00000001 [details]
- Aydemir, M. (2011). Bag of bones. In E. Peeren, & M. Aydemir (Eds.), Eighty-eight: Mieke Bal PhDs 1983-2011 (pp. 104-110). ASCA Press. [details]
- Peeren, E., & Aydemir, M. (2011). Eighty-eight: Mieke Bal PhDs 1983-2011. ASCA Press. [details]
- Peeren, E., & Aydemir, M. (2011). Introduction. In E. Peeren, & M. Aydemir (Eds.), Eighty-eight: Mieke Bal PhDs 1983-2011 (pp. 3-5). ASCA Press. [details]
2010
- Aydemir, M. (2010). The horizon behind us: Winterson's utopia. Simulacrum, 18(2/3), 47-51. [details]
2008
- Aydemir, M. (2008). A reaction to the Früchtl/Bal debate. Krisis, 9(2), 37-40. http://archive.krisis.eu/content/2008-2/2008-2-03-aydemir.pdf [details]
- Aydemir, M., & Rotas, A. (Eds.) (2008). Migratory settings. (Thamyris/Intersecting: place, sex and race; No. 19). Rodopi. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789401206068 [details]
2003
- Aydemir, M. (2003). How to Come Differently: Barthes' Bliss between Image and Narrative. In N. Pedri (Ed.), Travelling Concepts III: Narrative, Image, Memory (pp. 163-176). Amsterdam: ASCA Press. [details]
1998
- Aydemir, M. (1998). Auschwitz voor het voetlicht. Documenta: tijdschrift voor theater, 16(1), 5-13. [details]
- Aydemir, M. (1998). Cornering the Museum. In The Facelift of Gender. Concepts on Sexual Identities in the Arts (pp. 74-81). Amsterdam: Axis, Bureau voor de Kunsten V/M. [details]
- Aydemir, M. (1998). Queer vs. Straight: Vacant Eyes. Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam tentoonstellingscatalogus, 14-21. [details]
2015
- Aydemir, M. (Author). (2015). Topbestuurders: Functieprofiel: overheidsbeleid kunnen verkopen als eigen inzicht en prestatie. Web publication or website, Rethink UvA. http://rethinkuva.org/blog/2015/09/13/topbestuurders-functieprofiel-overheidsbeleid-kunnen-verkopen-als-eigen-inzicht-en-prestatie/ [details]
2007
- Aydemir, M. (2007). Ti la lam ta lam, talim [Review of: (2007) Stuck in A Revolving Door: Securalism, Assimilation, and Democratic Pluralism (dissertation Yolande Jansen)]. Krisis, 8(4). [details]
2022
- Aydemir, M. (2022). De ethiek van het zwijn-worden. De Nederlandse Boekengids, 7(1), 7. https://www.nederlandseboekengids.com/20220127-murat-aydemir/
2016
- Aydemir, M. (2016). De UvA mag wat betreft vluchtelingen niet achterblijven. Folia Magazine. http://www.folia.nl/opinie/102184/de-uva-mag-wat-betreft-vluchtelingen-niet-achterblijven
2015
- Aydemir, M. (2015). Tijd voor echte topbestuurders. Folia Magazine.
Others
- Aydemir, M. (participant) (2016). Pilot Academic Support Program Asylum Seekers (ASPIRE), Amsterdam. Deelname opzet (organising a conference, workshop, ...).
2004
- Aydemir, M. (2004). Images of bliss: ejaculation, masculinity, meaning. [Thesis, fully internal, Universiteit van Amsterdam]. in eigen beheer. [details]
This list of publications is extracted from the UvA-Current Research Information System. Questions? Ask the library or the Pure staff of your faculty / institute. Log in to Pure to edit your publications. Log in to Personal Page Publication Selection tool to manage the visibility of your publications on this list. -
Ancillary activities
- No ancillary activities
Aydemir, M. (2025). Traveling Concepts and Conjunctural Analysis: Concepts Gone Bad. In M. Aydemir, A. Kuryel, & N. Roei (Eds.), The Future of Cultural Analysis: A Critical Inquiry (pp. 99-112). Amsterdam University Press.