Taylan Paksoy
Historian, Author, Translator (International history; Transnational history; Middle Eastern and North African history)
Taylan Paksoy is a historian specializing in political elite networks across Lebanon, the Levant, and globe.
He studied for a Ph.D. in History at Bilkent University (2017-2025), after earning his M.A. in History from Bilkent (2017) and B.A. in American Culture and Literature from Ege University (2014).
Paksoy served as an assistant in the Department of History at Bilkent University (2014-2024) and as a Researcher at the National Council for Scientific Research (2019-2023).
His research spans Lebanese political dynamics from the collapse of traditional order in the mid-19th century through the mid-20th century. He focuses on elite circulation and the Lebanese crises, while also exploring Lebanese genealogies and transnational historical connections.
Paksoy has translated monographs and memoirs for the "Chehab Chronicles" by Nicholas Murad (2025), Eugéne Poujade (2024), and Joseph Karam (2023). He has presented at BRISMES, ASMEA, and Northeastern University conferences, and received research grants from ASMEA (2021, 2023).
He is a member of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies, ASMEA, and the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. Beyond academia, Paksoy enjoys playing the drums and scribbling poetry in Turkish, French and English.
Publications
- The Myth of “Zaim”/“Zuema”: Revisiting 1950s Lebanese Elite Taxonomy and Circulation
- Beyond Confessional Labels: Trans-Religiosity and the Modern Lebanese Political Elite
- Revolting Pashas: Patterns of Opposition Leadership During the 1958 Lebanon Crisis
- The Myth of “Zaim”/ “Zuema”: Revisiting the Lebanese Elite Terminology in 1950s
- The Juggling Prince and the Diplomat: Fouad Chehab and McClintock and 1958 Lebanon Crisis
- Global Turf War in Lebanon: Lebanese Elite and Contesting Geographic Visions during the 1958 Lebanon Crisis
- Historical Notice on the Origin of the Maronite Nation and its Relations with France, on the Druze Nation and the Various Populations of Mount Lebanon
- Lebanon and Syria 1845-1860
- To the Governments and Nations of Europe