Meet Professor Tugrul Keskin, Advisory Board Member of the Eurasian Research on Modern China and Eurasia Conference. He actively contributed to the VI Eurasian Research on Modern China and Eurasia Conference.

Tuğrul Keskin is Professor at Ningxia University in China, Visiting Professor at Turan University in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and Lecturer at Cappadocia University in Turkey. From 2016 to 2021, he served as Professor and Director of the Center for Global Governance at Shanghai University. He has held senior academic leadership positions, including Graduate Director of the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Maltepe University in Turkey.

Dr. Keskin has taught broadly across sociology, international relations, and global studies. At Portland State University, he was a faculty member in the Department of International and Global Studies and held affiliations with Black Studies, Sociology, and the Center for Turkish Studies, where he served for six years as Coordinator of Middle East Studies. Earlier in his career, he taught Sociology and Africana Studies at Virginia Tech and held visiting faculty appointments in Sociology at James Madison University and Radford University.

He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from Virginia Tech and completed graduate certificates in Africana Studies, Social and Political Thought, and International Research and Development. Dr. Keskin is the founder and moderator of the Sociology of Islam and Muslim Societies and Global China academic networks. He is the founding editor of Sociology of Islam (Brill), former Regional Editor for the Middle East and North Africa for Critical Sociology (SAGE), and currently serves as Editor of Sociology of Islam and Associate Editor of the Cappadocia Journal of Area Studies.

His research focuses on China and Central Asia, the modern Chinese state, artificial intelligence and global politics, China’s engagement with the Middle East and Africa, and U.S. foreign policy in the post–Cold War era.

Editor of Sociology of Islam Journal (Brill)

https://cjas.kapadokya.edu.tr/index.php/cjas

He is also recipient Shanghai Project of Global Talents scholarship.

http://chinaandthemiddleeast.blogspot.com 

Books:

Keskin, T. (2026). Shifting frontiers: Islamism, China and the US in Central Asia’s geopolitical landscape. Cambridge Press. (Forthcoming)

Mahdavi, M., & Keskin, T. (Eds.). (2022). Rethinking China, Middle East and Asia in a “Multiplex World.” Brill. https://brill.com/view/title/54211?language=en

Keskin, T., & Kiggins, R. D. (Eds.). (2021). Towards an international political economy of artificial intelligence. Palgrave Macmillan. https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030744199

Keskin, T. (Ed.). (2018). Middle East studies after September 11: Neo-Orientalism, American hegemony and academia. Brill. https://brill.com/view/title/26757

Gresh, G. F., & Keskin, T. (2018). U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East: From American missionaries to the Islamic State. Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/US-Foreign-Policy-in-the-Middle-East-From-American-Missionaries-to-the/Gresh-Keskin/p/book/9780815347149

Keskin, T. (Ed.). (2012). The sociology of Islam: Secularism, economy and politics. Ithaca Press.

Recent Article:

Uysal, H., & Keskin, T. (2025). From secular Pan‑Turkism to the Turkish–Islamic synthesis: The Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) in Turkey. Sociology of Islam, 11(2–3), 154–184. https://brill.com/view/journals/soi/11/2-3/article-p154_003.xml

Review of Backlash: China’s Struggle for Influence in Central Asia, by Bradley Jardine and Edward Lemon. London: Hurst & Co., 2025. x + 344 pp. £35.00 (eBook).
Reviewed by Tugrul Keskin. Europe-Asia Studies https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/ceas20

Interview with Professor Mohammed Hashas on his Book, Titled Contemporary Moroccan Thought In: Sociology of Islam. Online Publication Date: 17 Dec 2025 Authors: Driss Bouyahya and Tugrul Keskin https://brill.com/view/journals/soi/12/1-4/article-p97_005.xml