Dr. Neslihan Çevik

Neslihan Çevik (Ph.D Arizona State Uni.) studies social change and development, focusing on how religions respond to global-modernity and associated cultural changes. In a current book project, she examines how Muslims in Turkey engage modern life and institutions: markets, everyday life (fashion, leisure, vacation), human and women’s rights, civil movements, modern political values, and intellectual thought. In each of those areas, Cevik has found that Muslim interactions with modernity embody a new style of religious engagement with modernity. This new form, Muslimism, looks neither liberal nor fundamentalist; instead, it embraces aspects of modern life using Islam. From this empirical research, Cevik builds inferentially (with G.Thomas) to the concept of New Religious Orthodoxies pointing out to other similar type of engagements across religious traditions, including most notably late-generation Evangelicals in the US.

Currently, Cevik is working on two writing projects. In one, she examines de-radicalization policies of the EU, and in a second project, she examines American Muslim youth identity, especially the newly rising MIPSTERZ (Muslim Hipsters) movement and fashion.

In addition to her academic work on religion, Cevik does consultation work for halal market companies. She is a contributor at Daily Sabah.  Moreover, Cevik has developed a project for innovation in K-12 education, where she integrated 3-D printing technologies with creativity and technology development in children. She also launched a start-up company (with T.Cevik, 2013) and this experience has led her to a new research on the culture of start-up business model, entrepreneurship, and adult creativity in Muslim cultures.