Özge Samancı Fellowships and Novel
Keyman Faculty Board member and Associate Professor in the School of Communication, Özge Samancı, was recently appointed as a Kaplan Institute Faculty Fellow and nominated to be a Fellow at the Forecast Mentorship Program in Berlin. Prof. Samancı’s new graphic novel, Evil Eye, is forthcoming.
Annually and by external review, the Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities appoints Kaplan Institute Fellows from a pool of faculty applicants working in the humanities and humanistic social sciences at Northwestern. Fellows receive course reductions allowing for research project development within an interdisciplinary community, and present at weekly colloquia, participate in Institute events, and develop a course to offer in the Institute the year after their fellowship.
Dr. Samancı will work on her graphic novel titled Evil Eye. Evil Eye’s publication has been confirmed with a Fall 2023 release with Uncivilized Books.
The Forecast Mentorship Program, based in Berlin, offers a selective and global group of artists and creative thinkers the opportunity to partner with accomplished mentors throughout fellows’ project development and creative processes, moving beyond boundaries between disciplines.
The six mentors reviewed proposals and invited three nominees each to workshop with one mentor remotely for several months, to later present their ideas at the digital Forecast Forum. At the forum in September 2021, final mentees are selected and each paired with a mentor, to further their projects toward completion and presentation at the Forecast Festival in April 2022, at radialsystem in Berlin.
Özge Samancı is a media and comic artist. Her areas of interest include interactive media art, installation art, virtual reality storytelling, interaction design, full-body interaction, location-based art, comics and graphic novels. Her recent interactive art installations have roots in the natural sciences and explore the tendency of human beings to perceive themselves above all ecosystems.
The graphic novel, Evil Eye, explores the tactics right-wing populist leaders are using throughout the world: planting seeds of fear, celebrating binary thinking, ‘othering’ marginalized groups, and using anger and hostility to increase divisions. Evil Eye uses the murder mystery genre, lived anecdotes, humor, and suspense as narrative devices to explore questions about the rise of authoritarianism in non-didactic ways.