Neo-Ottoman Cool West: The Drama of Turkish Drama in the Bulgarian Public Sphere

• In Event: Screen Borders: Transnational Studies of Television and Film

Abstract

This paper explores one aspect of the global distribution of Turkish television drama by focusing on the distribution, popularity, and contestation of Turkish television drama series in Bulgaria. How could Turkish drama become popular in Bulgaria, after 500 years of imperial Ottoman history and aggressive socialist reproductions of hostile Turkish stereotypes? What is the Bulgarian public sphere’s reaction to this paradoxical development? Based on a detailed textual analysis of more than 71 articles from Bulgarian sources, these are the questions that this paper aims to answer, with the conceptual and theoretical instruments of neo-Ottoman cool.

Authors

• Yasemin Y. Celikkol, Annenberg School for Communication / U of Pennsylvania

• Marwan M. Kraidy, Annenberg, University of Pennsylvania