Selçuk Esenbel

Institution: Boğaziçi University

Experience: 

1946 Born in Washington D.C. as the child of a diplomatic family, high school American School in Japan, studied Japanese and East Asian Studies at International Christian University, History B.A.; George Washington University, Japanese Language and Linguistics M.S.; Georgetown University, Japanese History Ph.D.; The Department of East Asian Studies and Cultures at Columbia University, 1982-2013; Bogazici University, current emeritus, 1985-1986; Ankara University founder of the Japanese language and literature program. 1994-2003; At Bogazici, Chair of the Department of History, established the Japanese, Chinese, and Korean language programs, and the Confucius Institute. The founding director and current Academic Coordinator of the Asian Studies Center, and the Master of Arts in Asian Studies in Bogazici University. 

Research Interests: 

Formative research entailed peasant uprisings in Japan. In Turkey, Esenbel has opened a new field of study in the history of modern Japan from a global perspective of transnational Japanese interaction with Islam, Turkey, and the Turkic world, Pan-Asianism, Pan-Islam, Perceptions of the West in Japanese and Turkish modernity. 

Major awards:

Honorary Member of the Turkish Academy of Sciences (TÜBA); Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Scholar; Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Georg Forster Research Awardee; Good Family International Fellow Queen’s University Canada; The Order of the Rising Sun, Special Prize of the Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs, Special Award for Japanese Studies Japan Foundation;  Fulbright Senior Scholar.

Selected Publications in English and Turkish: 

Japan on the Silk Road: Encounters and Perspectives of Politics and Culture in Eurasia, Brill, 2018 editor-author;  Japan, Turkey, and the World of Islam, Brill, 2011; The Rising Sun and the Turkish Crescent: New Perspectives of Japanese-Turkish Relations, Bogazici University Press, 2003 with Inaba Chiharu; Even the Gods Rebel: Peasants of Takaino and the 1871 Nakano Uprising, Association for Asian Studies Monographs, 1998; Japon Aynasindan Resimli Turkiye Gozlemleri , 2021 (Japanese Mirror on an Illustrated Look at Turkey, Toruko Gakan )土耳古畫観 1911 by Yamada Torajirō山田寅次郎. Annotated Turkish Translation.

Read Esenbel's reflections upon “New Civilizationisms” (for network members only)