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Mustafa Kaya

@mikaya.bsky.social
722 followers 420 following 74 posts

Middle Eastern Studies, University of Chicago

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Mustafa Kaya @mikaya.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
One of the best responses to AI so far did not come from presidents of Dartmouth or Wesleyan or from a dean at the University of Chicago. It comes from this TV show, Pluribus.
techradar.com
As someone who writes about AI for a living, I can only see Pluribus as a devastating indictment of our relationship with it
Vince Gilligan’s new series might not mention AI, but its warning feels disturbingly familiar
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Mustafa Kaya @mikaya.bsky.social · 22/11/2025
Reading a kids’ novel on the iron curtain describing how eastern Germans were living in a state of repression and scarcity during the Cold War while on an airplane where you are hardly offered anything (for free). Freedom, plenty, choice are curious words when you have to pay for a less bad seat.
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Mustafa Kaya @mikaya.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
Two opposing perspectives on the current debate on the future of academia: www.chronicle.com/article/ther... and www.chronicle.com/article/paus...
chronicle.com
Opinion | There Has Never Been a Better Time to Start a Ph.D.
The work force is a mess. But deep skills will always be in demand.
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Mustafa Kaya @mikaya.bsky.social · 14/10/2025
Preparing a presentation on Ottoman Turkish today, I decided to Google "features of Ottoman Turkish" and this is what Google's AI summary gives me.
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Mar Hicks @histoftech.bsky.social · 10/10/2025
The Virginia Senate just told UVA it’s not getting state funding if it accepts the compact since UVA exists to serve Virginia, its residents, & their interests—not be a tool of the federal govt. Scoop from our student newspaper, who’ve been doing vital reporting www.cavalierdaily.com/article/2025...
cavalierdaily.com
Virginia Senate leaders express “unequivocal opposition” to Compact
The letter calls upon the University to immediately cease consideration of the Compact, and if not, the state will work to negatively impact the University’s funding.
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Mustafa Kaya @mikaya.bsky.social · 10/10/2025
Imagine this: Netanyahu nominated Trump for the Nobel. Does he think of himself as a peacemaker too? What a world we’re living in!
nytimes.com
Netanyahu Releases Letter Nominating Trump for Nobel Peace Prize
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Mustafa Kaya @mikaya.bsky.social · 09/10/2025
“As Cartwright points out, the Ellisons are close with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and “a major reason” for their interest in Weiss’ platform is its pro-Israeli bent.” apple.news/Aqo0nVT1oRZK...
apple.news
Forget “DEI”—Bari Weiss Is Proof That Merit Doesn’t Matter — Slate
She’s made a career railing against “wokeness.” Now she’s in charge of a storied newsroom.
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Mustafa Kaya @mikaya.bsky.social · 07/10/2025
Three years and half a trillion dollars later we still have a dumb AI yet some in academia believe it’s a “research” tool. Imagine the millions of ways the money could have been used to actually serve humanity. AI is nothing meaningful but a stage in the adventures of capitalism.
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Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg @theradr.bsky.social · 07/10/2025
Mourning those murdered by Hamas isn't incompatible with mourning those murdered by the Israeli state. Demanding that the hostages return isn't incompatible with naming & demanding an end to genocide. Naming the power imbalance & impact thereof doesn't desecrate those murdered two years ago today.
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Keyman Modern Turkish Studies Program @keymanmts.bsky.social · 02/10/2025
Join the Keyman Modern Turkish Studies Program and Damir Imamović, University of Sarajevo Music Academy, for "Bosnian Love Songs Between Two Empires: Musical Tradition and Change from Ottoman to Habsburg Eras," on OCT. 8, from 12:30- 2:00PM at Kresge Hall, Room 1515 and via Zoom!
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Mustafa Kaya @mikaya.bsky.social · 06/10/2025
The ruthlessness and bluntness of some in the Trump administration reminds me of the taskmasters of the Umayyads. Here is the Umayyad governor and "sedition"-crusher and--also the eloquent--Hajjaj b. Yusuf vs Kristi Noem's ICE in Chicago. Parallels are, what's the word, uncanny.
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Jehad Abusalim @jehadabusalim.bsky.social · 31/07/2025
This is the Abusalim Mosque, one of the oldest mosques in my hometown, Deir el-Balah. A beautiful landmark; serene, quiet, peaceful. It was built by my grandfather’s brother and stood tall for years. Today, the genocidal and deranged Israeli regime bombed it with a suicide drone.
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Mustafa Kaya @mikaya.bsky.social · 28/03/2025
www.nytimes.com/2025/03/28/o...
nytimes.com
Opinion | I am Erdogan’s Main Challenger in Turkey. I Was Arrested.
President Erdogan of Turkey has jailed me because he knows he cannot beat me in an election.
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Mustafa Kaya @mikaya.bsky.social · 27/03/2025
Congrats to all who voted thugs and thieves in! Tbe same can be said for Turkish citizens who have been keeping another thug in power for more than two decades now. (I’m wondering if Rumeysa was an Erdogan voter to be honest.) Erdogan led a campaign of kidnapping dissidents from overseas +
nytimes.com
Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts Student, Is Detained by ICE
The university was told that the student’s visa had been terminated, its president said in a late-night email to students and faculty members.
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Mustafa Kaya @mikaya.bsky.social · 13/03/2025
Government efficiency!
nytimes.com
ICE Returns All Migrants From Guantánamo to Stateside Facilities
A court filing described strip searches and the use of restraint chairs on some of the 290 migrants the Trump administration has cycled through the base.
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Mustafa Kaya @mikaya.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
Erdoğan the peacemaker or Erdoğan the merchant of death?
washingtonpost.com
A Turkish arms firm helped fuel Sudan’s brutal civil war, records show
A trove of documents and communications provided to The Post reveals how a Turkish company covertly funneled weapons to the Sudanese army.
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Mustafa Kaya @mikaya.bsky.social · 05/03/2025
My tell-tale word of ChatGPT writing of the day: "interplay" E.g. "The interplay of religion, politics, and military is ..."
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Mustafa Kaya @mikaya.bsky.social · 28/02/2025
Pretty happy not to be an American at this moment. Not a particularly proud time for Americans to be honest.
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Mustafa Kaya @mikaya.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
ChatGPT is useful. I asked if it thought Donald Trump was a LLM. Here is the answer.
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Mustafa Kaya @mikaya.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
The second Trump “era” has so far been a blessing to historians (of the Ottoman Empire for ex.) looking for ways to teach students how history is relevant to us. From authoritarianism to sultanic law and from loyalty to meritocracy, the new admin keeps delivering cases upon cases for parallelisms.
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Mustafa Kaya @mikaya.bsky.social · 21/01/2025
Talking about cyclical history, anthropomorphism, and romanticizing the past as some of the problems studying history. Trump's inauguration is history in the making. From the invoking of a "golden age" to the "manifest destiny" of the US, there is much to discuss. I have some questions: +
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Mustafa Kaya @mikaya.bsky.social · 10/01/2025
MS Word when kerning is not enabled (default behavior):
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Mustafa Kaya @mikaya.bsky.social · 27/11/2024
A Bangladeshi immigrant in NYC with no health insurance, selling bananas $.35 a piece, and a Chinese cryptocurrency billionaire buying his banana for $6.2 million. What do we call it?
nytimes.com
The Sidewalk Fruit Vendor Who Sold a $6.2 Million Banana for 25 Cents
A 74-year-old immigrant who works outside Sotheby’s shares a basement in the Bronx and works 12-hour shifts. He was stunned to hear what his banana went for at auction.
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Mustafa Kaya @mikaya.bsky.social · 19/11/2024
As of 2024, the conundrum for the American public is whether someone who sexually abused teenage girls can become the chief of the justice system—under a president who (sexually) abused women, elected to the post by the majority of said public. That person is already a congressman and that is fine.
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Mustafa Kaya @mikaya.bsky.social · 27/08/2023
Could have been his mother instead.
rferl.org
Uzbek President Appoints His Daughter To Position In His Office
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