Burak Sayim
Humanities Research Fellow
Affiliation: NYU Abu Dhabi
Education: PhD in International History and Politics, The Graduate Institute of international and Development Studies, Geneva
Research Areas: Middle Eastern History; Communism and the Communist International; Transnational History; Anticolonialism
About Burak
Burak Sayım's current book project, “The Making of Communism in the Middle East: Anti-colonial Revolutions, Global Networks, and Itinerant Militants”, under contract with the University of California Press, examines the communist networks across the borders of the Middle East and North Africa region, based on archival research in 7 languages. In particular, it looks at the fledgling communist organizations' interaction with the anti-colonial rebellions and actors, emerging national frameworks and Islam. It also explores the daily practices of militancy - from cross-border practices to the question of language or prison life. Burak Sayım’s research appeared in the Journal of Global History, Itinerario: Journal of Imperial and Global Interactions, the Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association and Mashriq & Mahjar, among others.
Publications
Journals
Sayim, Burak. “At the Origins: Notes on the Emergence of Anticolonial Left in Mandate Palestine.” Global and Transnational Sociology (Summer 2024).
Sayim, Burak. “Communist anti-militarism in France and anti-colonial wars in Morocco and Syria.” Twentieth Century Communism 2023, no. 24 (2023): 17‑42.
Sayim, Burak. “Of Transits and Transitions: Moscow-Bound Travels of Foreign Communists as a Transformative Experience, 1919-1939.” Revolutionary Russia 36, no. 1 (2023): 100-120.
Sayim, Burak. “Transregional by Design: The Early Communist Press in the Middle East and Global Revolutionary Networks.” Journal of Global History (2022): 1-20.
Sayim, Burak. “Occupied Istanbul as a Cominternian Hub: Sailors, Soldiers and Post-Imperial Networks (1918-1923).” Itinerario: Journal of Imperial and Global Interactions 46, no. 1 (2022): 128-149.
Sayim, Burak. “A Communist Center in Thessaloniki at the Junction of Mediterranean and Post-Ottoman Spaces.” Mashriq & Mahjar: Journal of Middle East and North African Migration Studies 9, no. 2 (2022): 31-41.
Sayim, Burak. “Beyond Borders: An Entangled History of Communism in the Post-Ottoman Middle East.” Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association 8, no. 1 (2021): 449-455.
Webinar
“Transnational Communist Networks in the Post-WW1 Middle East: Anti-colonialism, Internationalism and Itinerant Militancy (1919-1928)”
