Prof. Tugrul Keskin
Prof. Tugrul Keskin is a distinguished scholar of international relations, sociology, and global governance. He currently serves as a Visiting Professor at Turan University in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and a Lecturer at Cappadocia University in Turkey. Previously, he was Professor and Director of the Center for Global Governance at Shanghai University (2016–2021), and Graduate Director of the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Maltepe University, Turkey.
Dr. Keskin’s teaching and research expertise span International and Global Studies, Social and Political Theory, Islamic Movements, Modern African Society and Politics, and the Modern Middle East. His earlier academic appointments include positions at Portland State University, Virginia Tech, James Madison University, and Radford University, where he taught courses in sociology, Africana studies, and Middle Eastern politics.
He earned his Ph.D. in Sociology from Virginia Tech, where he also completed graduate certificates in Africana Studies, Social and Political Thought, and International Research and Development.
Prof. Keskin is the Founder and Moderator of two major academic networks — Sociology of Islam and Muslim Societies and Global China. He is also the Founding Editor of the journal Sociology of Islam (Brill) and serves as Associate Editor of the Cappadocia Journal of Area Studies (CJAS). His current research focuses on China and Central Asia, AI and global politics, China’s engagement with the Middle East and Africa, and U.S. foreign policy in the post–Cold War era.
He is the recipient of the Shanghai Project of Global Talents Scholarship and has authored and edited numerous influential works, including:
- Shifting Frontiers: Islamism, Russia, China and the US in Central Asia’s Geopolitical Landscape (Cambridge Press, forthcoming 2026)
- Rethinking China, Middle East and Asia in a “Multiplex World” (Brill, 2022)
- Towards an International Political Economy of Artificial Intelligence (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021)
- Middle East Studies after September 11: Neo-Orientalism, American Hegemony and Academia (Brill, 2018)
- U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East: From American Missionaries to the Islamic State (Routledge, 2018)
- The Sociology of Islam: Secularism, Economy and Politics (Ithaca Press, 2012)
His recent article, “From Secular Pan-Turkism to the Turkish–Islamic Synthesis: The Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) in Turkey,” was published in Sociology of Islam (2025)