Psychedelic Fusions: Resurgence of Turkish Anatolian Rock

Şebnem Altunkaya

The dissertation project is about the cultural and political history of popular protest music in Turkey. It specifically looks at the cultural and political conjunctures that emerged in certain periods (1960s-1980s) during the history of modern Turkish society and how social upheavals and inequalities are reflected in a specific kind of music: Anatolian Psychedelic Rock. Since the early 2010s, Anatolian Rock has been gaining new popularity. Thus, the most important part of this research is to analyze the cultural and political events that lead to the re-emergence of this music genre in Turkey. Some of the questions this project aims to answer include how music can act as a personal and artistic manifesto, how the interaction between the artists and the audience in each scene is a shared moment that reinforces the protest movement in Turkish society and in how far music can be a tool to challenge hegemonic powers.