Ottoman-Turkish theatre history is a growing scholarly field which was evaded, for most of the century, by international scholarship. In 2019, Comparative Drama, the flagship journal of the field, published "Performing Turkishness," a comprehensive volume analyzing nineteenth- and twentieth-century theatre in the Ottoman Empire, Turkey and its diasporas. The editors Hülya Adak and R. Ertuğ Altınay will present the prominent dimensions relevant to this theatre history. The editor of Comparative Drama, Elizabeth Bradburn, will also join the discussion.

Scholars whose contributions were published in the volume, Murat Cankara, R. Ertuğ Altınay, Hülya Adak, Ela Gezen, İlker Hepkaner and Emine Fişek will make brief presentations on topics ranging from the Turkification of Ottoman popular performances and the queer Turkish dramatic canon to the Turkish theatre of the absurd and its challenges to Eurocentric theatre historiography. Other topics of discussion include memory and space in Istanbul's alternative theatre scene, the politics and aesthetics of post-migrant theatre in Germany, and the theatre of Jews of Turkey in Israel.