Basak Ertur
Basak Ertur
Başak’s research focuses on legal performativity and the epistemic and aesthetic operations of law
Başak a critical legal scholar based at the Centre for Research Architecture (CRA). My research focuses on legal and political violence, performativity, and more broadly on law's epistemologies and aesthetics. Prior to joining the CRA, she taught at Birkbeck Law School for over a decade.
Academic qualifications
PhD Law, Birkbeck, University of London 2015
MA Liberal Studies, The New School for Social Research 2006
BA Combined Honours in Arts, Durham University 2002
Research interests
Başak is an interdisciplinary and critical legal scholar, and her work combines a focus on aesthetic and ethical dimensions of law, legal forms and methods, with critical attention to political practices of resistance in negotiating legal violence. Her research is informed by humanities approaches to law, and has primarily focused on investigating the entanglements of law and political violence, the relationship between law, memory and history, and law’s epistemologies and aesthetics.
Her book Spectacles and Specters (awarded the 2024 SLSA Socio-Legal Theory and History Prize) draws on legal history, philosophy of language, deconstruction, political theory, and addresses questions of historiography. Her current research and forthcoming publications are focused on the themes of the relationship between legal factuality and public truth, counter-forensics, investigatory aesthetics, and rethinking the forum as a collective space of judgment. She was awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship (2023-24).
She has published articles and book chapters on a range of topics including: conceptualising and studying state violence; academic freedom in the War on Terror; genocide denialism and memory laws; filmic representations of transgender bodies before the law; counter-monumental practices of resistance; conspiracy theories and the law; the ‘deep state’; and on Walter Benjamin’s seminal essay on the relationship between law and violence, ‘Toward the Critique of Violence.’
Grants and awards
2024: SLSA Socio-Legal Theory and History Prize
Awarded to Spectacles and Specters: A Performative Theory of Political Trials
2023: Leverhulme Research Fellowship
'Who’s to judge: counter-claims to public truth and justice'
2022: CAPES/PRINT Visiting Professor
Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro
2016: Julien Mezey Dissertation Award
Association for the Study of Law, Culture and the Humanities
Publications and research outputs
Book
Spectacles and specters: a performative theory of political trials Ertür, Başak. 2022. Spectacles and specters: a performative theory of political trials. New York: Fordham University Press. ISBN 9781531501877
Edited Book
Warten auf die Barbaren: Zum Gedenken an Edward W. Said Sökmen, Müge G. and Ertür, Başak, eds. 2017. Warten auf die Barbaren: Zum Gedenken an Edward W. Said. Engelschoff, Germany: Verlag auf dem Ruffel. ISBN 9783933847515
Manual for conspiracy Ertür, Başak, ed. 2011. Manual for conspiracy. Sharjah, UAE: Sharjah Art Foundation, pp. 29-40.
Barbarları Beklerken: Edward W. Said Anısına Sökmen, Müge G. and Ertür, Başak, eds. 2010. Barbarları Beklerken: Edward W. Said Anısına. Istanbul, Turkey: Metis. ISBN 9789753426817
Edited Journal
Something is Rotten in the State Ertür, Başak and Martel, James, eds. 2016. Something is Rotten in the State, Theory & Event, 19(1). 2572-6633
Book Section
‘Wo beginnen’ [‘Where to Begin? Revision as Method’] Lebow, Alisa and Ertür, Başak. 2021. ‘Wo beginnen’ [‘Where to Begin? Revision as Method’]. In: Nicole Wolf, ed. Grenzfälle:Dokumentarische Praxis zwischen Film und Literatur bei Merle Kröger und Philip Scheffner [Borderline Cases: Documentary practice between film and literature with Merle Kröger and Philip Scheffner]. Berlin: Verlag Vorwerk 8. ISBN 9783947238354
Türkçe Basıma Sunuş: Çeviride Mülksüzleşme Ertür, Başak; Butler, Judith and Athanasiou, Athena. 2017. Türkçe Basıma Sunuş: Çeviride Mülksüzleşme. In: Judith Butler and Athena Athanasiou, eds. Mülksüzleşme Siyasaldaki Performatif. Istanbul, Turkey: Metis, pp. 9-21.
Barricades: resources and residues of resistance Ertür, Başak. 2016. Barricades: resources and residues of resistance. In: Judith Butler; Zeynep Gambetti and Leticia Sabsay, eds. Vulnerability in Resistance. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, pp. 97-121. ISBN 9780822362906
Article
La barricade Ertür, Başak. 2020. La barricade. Techniques & Culture(74), pp. 72-73. ISSN 0248-6016
Note sulla difficoltà di scrivere a proposito della violenza di Stato Ertür, Başak. 2019. Note sulla difficoltà di scrivere a proposito della violenza di Stato. Aut aut(384), ISSN 0005-0601
Conscription and Critique Ertür, Başak. 2019. Conscription and Critique. Critical Times, 2(2), pp. 270-284. ISSN 2641-0478
Film/Video
For the record: The World Tribunal on Iraq Dadak, Zeynep; Ertür, Başak; Köstepen, Enis and Lebow, Alisa. 2007. For the record: The World Tribunal on Iraq.
Report
Report on the First Ergenekon Indictment Ertür, Başak. 2009. Report on the First Ergenekon Indictment. Technical Report. Amnesty International.
Thesis
Spectacles and spectres: political trials, performativity and scenes of sovereignty Ertür, Başak. 2015. Spectacles and spectres: political trials, performativity and scenes of sovereignty. Doctoral thesis, Birkbeck, University of London
Other
Law of Denial: The Armenian Genocide at the European Court of Human Rights Ertür, Başak. 2019. Law of Denial: The Armenian Genocide at the European Court of Human Rights. Critical Legal Thinking.
In Turkey, academics asking for peace are accused of terrorism Butler, Judith and Ertür, Başak. 2017. In Turkey, academics asking for peace are accused of terrorism. The Guardian, London.
Plenty of History Ertür, Başak. 2012. Plenty of History. Manifesta Journal #15, Amsterdam.
Media engagements
2024: Talat Paşa cinayeti davasından bugüne; 1915’in hayaletleri mahkemelere nasıl girdi?
Turkish-language interview about Spectacles and Spectres: A Performative Theory of Political Trials, published on Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day, 24 April 2024
2022: Adalet Atlası 2.5: Devlet suçu nasıl kanıtlanır?
Turkish-language podcast episode on evidencing state crimes with Tanıl Bora and Hazal Özvarış
Conferences and talks
2024: Right?
Talk at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, responding to Banu Cennetoğlu's installation 'Right?' in the exhibition Self-Determination: A Global Perspective
2022: Book Launch for Spectacles and Specters: A Performative Theory of Political Trials
Başak Ertür with Anthony Alessandrini and Judith Butler at Book Culture, NYC
2022: Performing Environmental Justice: Staged Reflections
Held at Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin with Shweta Bhattad, Zuleikha Chaudhari, Başak Ertür, Emilie Gaillard, Shela Sheikh and Radha D’Souza as part of The Whole Life: Archives and Imaginaries
Translations
Judith Butler, Şiddetsizliğin Gücü (The Force of Nonviolence, 2020), trans. Başak Ertür, Istanbul: Metis, 2022.
Judith Butler and Athena Athanasiou, Mülksüzleşme: Performatif Siyaset (Dispossession: The Performative in the Political, 2013), trans. Başak Ertür, Istanbul: Metis, 2017.
Lauren Berlant, 'Psikanaliz ve Arzunun Biçimciliği' ('Psychoanalysis and the Formalism of Desire'), trans. Başak Ertür, KaosQ+ 3: 5-12, 2015.
Judith Butler, Cinsiyet Belası: Feminizm ve Kimliğin Altüst Edilmesi (Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity, 1990), trans. Başak Ertür, Istanbul: Metis, 2008.
Jenny Holzer, Truisms and Survival Series, trans. Başak Ertür, Istanbul: Yama 2007.
Judith Butler, Kırılgan Hayat: Yasın ve Şiddetin Gücü (Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence, 2004), trans. Başak Ertür, Istanbul: Metis, 2005.
Val Plumwood, Feminizm ve Doğaya Hükmetmek (Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 1993), trans. Başak Ertür, Istanbul: Metis, 2004.
