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Institutional Affiliation

University of Colorado Denver
Political Science

Education

Ph.D., University of Michigan

Regional and Thematic Interests

South Asia
Government/Political Systems

Profile

Carole Woodall has been exploring and studying Istanbul for nearly two decades with a specific interest in cultural and sensory urban environments. Dr. Woodall's scholarship focuses on the interplay between urban space and cultural practices and its effect upon the formation of modern identities in the late-Ottoman and early Turkish republican periods. Her interpretive approach combines theories of modernity with cultural and sensorial approaches to the urban environment. Specifically, Dr. Woodall's research examines the perceived and embodied urban modern sensory experience of 1920s Istanbul through a critical examination of the "decadent modern" - a way to address what contemporary critics and Turkish republican scholars have referred to as a "crisis." She is currently preparing her manuscript The Decadent Modern: Cocaine, Jazz, and the Charleston in 1920's Istanbul, which provides a counterpoint not only to a dominant Turkish nationalist narrative, but also to key approaches to understanding modern Middle Eastern history. Her work revises and complicates that narrative by questioning the multiple ways that social and non-state actors participated in the refashioning of post-Ottoman society. Most notably Dr. Woodall's work is shaped by interdisciplinary research on transnationalism, popular culture, jazz and dance studies, and the embodiment of place.