A historian whose three-decade body of work traces the emergence of the modern Middle East — bringing rigorous historical depth to the East ↔ West conversations Interstice engages in.
Hakan Özoğlu is a historian of modern Turkey and the Middle East whose three-decade body of work traces the emergence of the modern region — from Ottoman decline to the formation of the Turkish Republic, and the unfinished questions of Kurdish identity, secularism, and regional political formation.
He received his BA in Social Anthropology from Istanbul University and completed his MA and PhD in History at The Ohio State University (1997). His academic career has spanned teaching positions across the University of Chicago, Loyola University Chicago, New York University, and institutions in Ohio, before his current role directing Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Central Florida.
At Interstice, Hakan brings regional-historical depth to the practice's East ↔ West work. His scholarship is grounded in archival research, multilingual sourcing, and sustained engagement with the region itself. He is the recipient of a 2017–18 Fulbright Core Fellowship, and his work has been translated into five languages.
Three decades of scholarship on how the modern Middle East came to be.— On Hakan's body of work across three monographs
His first monograph, Kurdish Notables and the Ottoman State (SUNY Press, 2004), traces the formation of Kurdish identity across evolving loyalties and shifting boundaries in the Ottoman period — a foundational study in the historiography of Kurdish nationalism.
His second monograph, From Caliphate to Secular State (Praeger, 2011), examines the power struggles of the early Turkish Republic and the Kemalist project — the tension between secularism and political Islam as the modern state took shape from the remnants of empire.
His third monograph, The Decline of the Ottoman Empire and the Rise of the Turkish Republic (Edinburgh University Press, 2021), a twelve-year project drawing on the archives of Rear Admiral Mark L. Bristol, the U.S. High Commissioner in the Ottoman Empire — examines how the strategic partnership between Turkey and the United States first took shape.
He is currently collaborating on a forthcoming volume on the role of Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia in the contemporary Middle East — examining how partnerships, rivalries, secularism, and religion shape the region's political present.
Hakan's work is built on a particular kind of patience: the patience to sit with archival sources in multiple languages, across years, and to let a historical picture emerge that is more granular — and sometimes more surprising — than the received narratives about Turkey, the Middle East, and the West.
That commitment to regional specificity, rigorously sourced, is what the practice depends on when it engages in East ↔ West work. Generalizations about "the Middle East" dissolve quickly under scrutiny; what remains is a patchwork of specific countries, histories, languages, and diplomatic trajectories — each of which has to be taken on its own terms. Hakan's work provides that foundation.
Hakan advises through Interstice — for retained advisory, scholarly collaboration, and work that requires regional-historical depth on Turkey, the Middle East, and East ↔ West engagement. To begin a conversation, reach the practice directly.
hello@intersticeatelier.com