Kameliya Atanasova is the Next Speaker in the Anne and Edgar Basse Jr. Author Talk Series Atansova will deliver a lecture on the joys and challenges of writing a book on March 3.
Kameliya Atanasova, assistant professor of religion, will deliver a lecture titled “Writing a Book: All You Need is Time (But Not Too Much of It)” at Washington and Lee University at 12:30 p.m. on March 3 in the Houston H. Harte Center Gallery in Leyburn Library. The talk is free and open to the public.
The lecture is sponsored by the Department of History and the University Library and is part of the library’s Anne and Edgar Basse Jr. (’39) Endowment, which was created in 1988 to support the varied activities of the University Library Special Collections and Archives.
Atanasova published her first book, “Sufism and Power in the Ottoman Empire: The Writings of Ismail Hakki Bursevi (1653-1725)” in May 2025, examining the unpublished writings of one of the most prolific Ottoman writers of all time and situating him in his historical and cultural context. The book is based on archival research Atanasova conducted in the United States, Germany and Turkey between 2013 and 2024.
In her talk, Atanasova will discuss the romantic and less romantic aspects of writing a book, including finding a topic you’re curious about, setting a schedule that works for you, finding your cheerleaders and powering through when uncertainty and self-doubt creep in.
“My book examines how religion and politics in the Middle East intersected at a historical moment shaped by political and economic instability but also by remarkable artistic innovations and scholarly resilience, the findings of which are currently helping us rewrite this history more accurately,” Atanasova said. “I look forward to sharing more about both the content and process of writing and publishing a book with our students and larger community.”
An Islam scholar specializing in Sufism, Atanasova has also published peer-reviewed articles in the Journal of Sufi Studies, the Journal of Law and Religion and Diyâr, a journal on Ottoman and Turkish studies, and in a volume on Enoch and Enochic traditions in the early modern period.
Atanasova has been a faculty member at W&L since 2017. In addition to her work in the Religion and History Departments, she also serves as a core faculty member for the Middle East and South Asia Studies program. She earned a B.A. in Asian/Middle Eastern studies from Mount Holyoke College and a Ph.D. in religious (Islamic) studies from the University of Pennsylvania.
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