Dr. Kabir Tambar

Biography

Kabir Tambar is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Stanford University. His research primarily focuses on ethnographic and historical studies in Turkey, critically examining secularism through semiotic approaches in anthropology. Tambar's work engages with questions of temporality and political modernity, exploring the narrative threads that intertwine the present with inherited pasts and anticipated futures. His book, Reckoning Pluralism (Stanford, 2014), scrutinizes the Alevi community in central Anatolia and their interactions with secular modernity, analyzing the definitions of religious difference as prescribed by state authorities and academic discourse. In addition to this, he is completing a project that studies inter-communal expressions of solidarity, particularly in the context of the Gezi Park protests and the evolving political friendships in Turkey. His upcoming manuscript, Claim Friendship: Ottoman History Loss, investigates the complexities of friendship and solidarity among social actors such as Armenians, Greeks, and Kurds across the historical landscape of Turkey. Tambar's academic journey includes a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Chicago, where he also earned his M.A., alongside a B.A. from the State University of New York at Buffalo.

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