Intellectuals, white Turks, and the sons of the soil: intellectuality in Turkish conservative thought

The article is made up of two distinct parts. The first part surveys the discourses and tropes of intellectuality of the Turkish old-right. The second part specifically discusses the crisis of the conservative intelligentsia as the Islamist takeover of Turkish government in 2002 did not result in conservative intellectuals dominating the intellectual realm. Continuing to remain marginalized and their promises unfulfilled, they have refurbished the old right’s tropes of intellectualism and reiterate the tropes of usurpation of the intellectual realm, while claiming to represent the genuine intelligentsia of the organic nation.