Associate Professor of Sociology, on leave for the 2024–2025 academic year
Oyman Basaran, Associate Professor, joined the faculty at Bowdoin as an Assistant Professor in 2017. His scholarly interests include medicine, science and technology, and social theory. He teaches courses on sociology of medicine and mental health, science and technology, and the Middle East. His previous research examined the relationship between masculinity, homosexuality, and the Turkish military. His first book titled Circumcision and Medicine in Modern Turkey (University of Texas Press 2023) examines the medicalization of male circumcision in Muslim-majority Turkey. Combining medical sociology and political economy with psychoanalytical theory, the book challenges the prevailing wisdom that regards medicalization as a smooth and univocal development and enriches our sociological understanding of the subjectivity of medical professionals.
His current project focuses on the relationship between science, truth, and politics. By examining the scientific research at the margin of the mainstream scientific community, his project seeks to understand how institutional practices and hierarchies, epistemological settlements, and organizational exclusions converge to form the basis for the scientific orthodoxy today.
Peer-Reviewed Publications
Başaran, Oyman (2023) Circumcision and Medicine in Modern Turkey. University of Texas Press
Başaran, Oyman (2022) “In Praise of Suspicion” in Silences, Neglected Feelings, and Blind-spots in Research Practice Kathy Davis and Janice Irvine (eds), Routledge
Başaran, Oyman (2021) “’The Self-Making of the Scientific Circumciser (Fenni Sünnetçi):’ the Medicalization of Male Circumcision in Turkey.” Social Science & Medicine
Başaran, Oyman (2021) “Neoliberalism, welfare, and mass male circumcisions in Turkey.” European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology
Başaran, Oyman. (2021) "’You are Like a Virus’ Dangerous Bodies and Military Medical Authority in Turkey." In Constructions of Masculinity in the Middle East and North Africa: Literature, Film, and National Discourse, Mohja Kahf and Nadine Sinno, 283-305. The American University in Cairo Press. (Invited Reprint)
Başaran, Oyman (2014) "’You are Like a Virus’ Dangerous Bodies and Military Medical Authority in Turkey." Gender & Society 28.4: 562-582.
Work in Progress
Başaran, OymanMale Circumcision, Nationalism, and Violence Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies (R&R)
Invited Talks
2014, September “Beyond Relativism and Universalism: The Case of Male Circumcision in Turkey”MARK: Center for Diversity and Gender Studies, University of Iceland.
