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).