Fahri Öz, visiting professor and MENA artist-in-residence, is an academic, translator, and poet. After signing Academic for Peace declaration in 2016, he was dismissed in 2017 from his position at Ankara University, where he taught British and American poetry, literary history, and translation. He translated into Turkish works by Christina Rossetti, Jack London, Saki, William Burroughs and Bob Dylan. He co-authored and co-edited a collection of very short fiction in Turkish. In 2019 his first book of poems in Turkish came out. In 2021, Oz was one of the residents of IWP at University of Iowa, where he also taught at the MFA in Literary Translation. Currently he has been translating Whitman’s complete poems into Turkish. Concomitantly, he is working on translation of Emily Dickinson’s complete poems into Turkish.
Kerem Öktem has held the chair of Southeast European Studies and Modern Turkey at the University of Graz since 2014. He is an associate of the Centre of International Studies at the University of Oxford, where he completed his PhD in Political Geography in 2006 and his M St. in Modern Middle Eastern Studies in 2001. Dr Öktem is an alumni of the Mercator – IPC Fellowship in Turkish Studies and a collaborator of the Mercator foundation in Germany. His research interests include the politics and society of modern Turkey with a particular focus on social movements, minorities, diasporas, and queer rights. He has published several collective volumes and monographs, including Turkey’s Exit from Democracy. Illiberal governance in Turkey and beyond (London & New York: Routledge, 2018); Die Tuerkei im Spannungsfeld von Kollektivismus und Diversitaet (Wiesbaden: Springer, 2016); World War I and the End of the Ottomans. From the Balkan War to the Armenian Genocide (London: I.B. Tauris, 2015); Another empire? A decade of Turkey’s foreign policy under the Justice and
Development Party (Istanbul: Bilgi University Press (2012); Angry Nation. Turkey since 1989 (London: Zed Books, 2011); Turkey’s Engagement with Modernity. Conflict and Change in the 20th Century (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009); In the long shadow of Europe: Greeks and Turks in the era of Post-Nationalism (Leiden: Brill, 2009).
Ioannis N. Grigoriadis
2018-19
Ioannis N. Grigoriadis is an associate professor and the Jean Monnet Chair of European Studies at the Department of Political Science and Public Administration, Bilkent University. He was recently an IPC-Stiftung Mercator Senior Research Fellow at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik-SWP) in Berlin and a Stanley J. Seeger Research Fellow at Princeton University. His research interests include late Ottoman and republican Turkish politics and history with a focus on nationalism and democratization. He has published the following books in English: Democratic Transition and the Rise of Populist Majoritarianism: Constitutional Reform in Greece and Turkey (London & New York: Palgrave Springer, 2017), Instilling Religion in Greek and Turkish Nationalism: A “Sacred Synthesis”, (London & New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), Trials of Europeanization: Turkish Political Culture and the European Union, (London & New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
Leyla Neyzi (PhD, Cornell University, 1991) is based at Sabanci University in Istanbul. Her areas of interest include oral history, memory studies, European and Middle Eastern ethnography, nationalism and minorities, transnational youth and social movements.
Başak Yavçan is an Assistant Professor in the Political Science Department at TOBB University of Economics and Technology in Turkey. She received her Ph.D. from University of Pittsburgh with a focus on comparative politics and international relations and worked as a visiting researcher at New York University. She specializes in comparative political behavior, specifically intergroup relations in the forms of public opinion toward immigration and the European Union (E.U.) and comparative immigrant acculturation attitudes. Her current research focuses on the intergroup dynamics resulting from the mass influx of Syrian refugees in Turkey, with an emphasis on the societal and political attitudes of Syrian displaced people.
Murat Arsel is a broadly trained human geographer, specialized in the political economy of environmental change and societal transformation, paying particular attention to natural resource conflicts, rural and agrarian development, and state-society relationships. Much of his empirical has focused on Turkey, with developing interests in (Western) China and Latin America (particularly Ecuador). He received his PhD from Cambridge in the Environment, Society and Development research cluster of the Department of Geography. He also has an MPhil in Environment and Development from Cambridge, an MSc in Politics of the World Economy from the London School of Economics, and a BA in Economics and Government from Clark University. Before taking up his current position at the ISS in Netherlands, he was based at the University of Chicago as a Lecturer and Research Associate in Environmental Studies. He is currently a member of the editorial board of the interdisciplinary development studies journal Development and Change.
Soli Özel is a professor of international relations and political science at Istanbul Kadir Has University. He is currently Fisher Family Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government of Harvard University. Professor Ozel received his B.A. at Bennington College, M.A. from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and Ph.D. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley. Ozel taught at U.C. Santa Cruz, SAIS, University of Washington, Hebrew University, and Bogazici University in Istanbul. He was a fellow at St. Antony's College at Oxford in the spring of 2002, and he was a senior visiting fellow at the European Union Institute for Security Studies in the fall of the same year. Ozel's articles and opinion pieces appear in a wide variety of leading newspapers in Turkey and elsewhere around the world. Currently, he is a columnist for Haberturk newspaper, a frequent contributor to The Washington Post's "Post Global", and the former editor of the Turkish edition of Foreign Policy. Most recently, he co-authored the report Rebuilding a Partnership: Turkish- American Relations For a New Era? with Dr. Suhnaz Yilmaz and Abdullah Akyuz.
Meltem Ahiska is associate professor of sociology at Boğaziçi University, Istanbul. Her current research is on the emergence of Turkey as a nation-state in particular, and the nature of modernity in general. Her earlier research addresses the forms of communication developed by the Turkish governing elite in the first half of the twentieth century to “Westernize” the country and to create a national community where in fact none existed. She has published a book of poems, Havalandırma ,and co-curated exhibitions. In addition to her many articles, essays, and poems, she is the author most recently of Occidentalism in Turkey: Questions of Modernity and National Identity in Turkish Radio Broadcasting.Cem Behar (2011) is a Professor of Economics and Vice-President in charge of Academic Affairs at Boğaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey. He has a double scholarly identity: his publications on late Ottoman social and family history include Istanbul Households, Marriage, Family and Fertility 1880–1940 (Cambridge, 1991). As a musicologist and historian of Ottoman music he has authored many scholarly publications: Ali Ufkî ve Mezmurlar (Istanbul, 1990), Zaman, Mekân, Müzik – Klasik Türk Musikisinde Eðitim (Meþk), Ýcra ve Aktarým (Istanbul, 1993) and Aþk olmayýnca meþk olmaz (Istanbul, 2003). He will teach two courses in spring 2011: Cities and Societies in the Middle East (WCAS) and a seminar on non-Western Musical traditions (Bienen School of Music), with a particular focus on Turkey and the Middle East.
Şule Kut (2010) is dean of the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences in Istanbul Bilgi University. Her teaching and research interests include foreign policy analysis, Turkish foreign policy with emphasis on the Balkans, the Caucasus and Central Asia, Turkish-EU and Turkish-U.S. relations as well as Balkan politics. She is the author of four books and more than thirty articles in English and Turkish. Kut is the president of the Turkish Political Science Association and an elected member of the Executive Committee of the International Political Science Association. She received her MA and PhD in political science from the State University of New York in Binghamton. Kut is teaching a course on Turkish Politics and a course on Turkish Foreign Policy in the winter quarter. She gave the talk What is So New About “New Turkish Foreign Policy”? at the Faculty & Fellows Colloquium.
Sibel Bozdoğan has taught architectural history and theory courses at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, MIT, and Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design. She has served as the director of liberal studies at the Boston Architectural Center and teaches in the Graduate Architecture Program of Bilgi University in Istanbul. Her interests range from cross-cultural histories of modern architecture in Europe, the United States, the Mediterranean and the Middle East to critical investigations of technology, modernity and national identity as they have informed the culture and production of architecture in Turkey and across the globe. She has published articles on these topics, co-authored a monograph on Turkish architect Sedad Hakki Eldem, and co-edited an interdisciplinary volume, Rethinking Modernity and National Identity in Turkey. Her Modernism and Nation Building: Turkish Architectural Culture in the Early Republic (University of Washington Press) won the 2002 Alice Davis Hitchcock Award of the Society of Architectural Historians and the Koprulu Book Prize of the Turkish Studies Association. Bozdoğan taught two courses at Northwestern, a lecture course on “Modern Architecture and National Identity: Ottoman/Turkish Case in Global Context” and a seminar on “Istanbul: From Imperial Capital to Global City.” She also presented at a Buffett Institute Faculty & Fellows Colloquium; her talk was titled Urban Landscapes of Global Modernity in Istanbul.
Şevket Pamuk (2008) is one of the most prominent historians of Ottoman and Turkish economic history. He is a professor of economics and economic history at the Ataturk Institute for Modern Turkish History, which is part of Bogaziçi University in Istanbul, Turkey. His publications in English include: Ottoman Empire and European Capitalism, 1820-1913: Trade, Investment, and Production (1987); History of Middle East Economies in the Twentieth Century (1998); Mediterranean Response to Globalization before 1950 (2000), co-edited with Jeffrey G. Williamson; and Monetary History of the Ottoman Empire (2000). Professor Pamuk’s two courses at Northwestern were “Turkey and Modernity,” offered through the Department of History, and “Economic History of the Middle East Since 1800,” offered by the Department of Economics. His presentation at the Buffett Institute Faculty and Fellows Colloquium was Export Oriented New Industrial Centers across Anatolia.
Yeşim Burul Seven
2007–08
Yeşim Burul Seven (2007) served as an adjunct professor of media and communications at Istanbul Bilgi University, Turkey, where she taught cultural studies, film studies and mass communication theories. Her research defines and analyses the new cultural space created by young filmmakers, musicians and authors of Turkish origin in Germany. Additional research interests include the formation and representation of cultural identities and popular music studies. She is a founding member of NECS, the European Network for Cinema and Media Studies. She has published articles on Turkish-German cinema, migrant filmmakers & musicians and Turkish popular culture. She has also been a film critic and radio producer/presenter in Istanbul, writing for monthly film magazines and producing the weekly radio show “Sinefil” at Açk Radyo (Open Radio). Seven taught two courses during spring 2007: “Identities in Turkish Film and Television” and “Turkish Cinema.” She also presented her work on Turkish cinema at a Buffett Institute Faculty & Fellows Colloquium.
Haldun Gülalp , the inaugural Keyman Visiting Professor, was professor of sociology at Bogaziçi University in Istanbul. He holds a PhD in economics from the University of Ankara and a PhD in sociology from the State University of New York at Binghamton. He has written a large number of books and articles in both Turkish and English, including Kimlikler Siyaseti: Türkiye'de Siyasal İslamın Temelleri (Politics of Identities: Foundations of Political Islam in Turkey). He taught two courses in spring 2006. The first, “Islam and Secularism: Iran and Turkey,” was team-taught with Fariba Zarinebaf in the Department of History. The other course, cross-listed between sociology and political science, was called “Religion and Nationalism.” In 2007, Haldun Gülalp became the Director of the Center for Global Studies at the Yıldız Technical University in Istanbul.
Ahmet Evin (2005), the founding dean of Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Sabanci University, received his BA in English and Comparative Literature in 1966 and his PhD in Middle East Studies and Cultural History in 1973 from Columbia University. Prior to his appointment at Sabanci University, he taught at New York University, Harvard University, Hacettepe University (Ankara), University of Pennsylvania (where he also served as director of the Middle East Center), University of Hamburg, and Bilkent University in Ankara (where he headed the Department of Political Science). As director of education of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, a Geneva-based international development foundation, he coordinated the program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and assisted in the development of architectural education in Asia and Africa. With the European Commission's support, Evin initiated a policy dialogue on the future of European architecture, EU's eastward expansion, its Mediterranean policy, and the customs union agreement with Turkey. He currently works on current foreign policy issues related to the European enlargement, its significance for Turkey and the region as well as its effect on Transatlantic relations.
Roberto Mazza is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs, Northwestern University. An historian specializing in the modern Middle East, Dr. Mazza has made contributions to the field of urban history and the study of Jerusalem during the late Ottoman and British Mandate periods.
Dr. Mazza is the host of the popular "Jerusalem Unplugged" podcast, which explores various aspects of Jerusalem's rich history and contemporary issues. He also serves as a regular host for the New Books Network, where he interviews authors of recent publications in his areas of expertise. Additionally, he holds the position of executive editor for the academic journal "Jerusalem Quarterly."
His academic career includes previous appointments as a visiting professor at Northwestern University and as a Lecturer at the University of Limerick. Dr. Mazza has authored two books focusing on Jerusalem during the First World War period: "Jerusalem: From the Ottomans to the British" (2009) and "Jerusalem in World War I: The Palestine Diary of a European Diplomat" (2011). His scholarly output also encompasses numerous articles and book chapters exploring themes of urban history and the history of violence in the region. Dr. Mazza is a board member of "Filistin Araştırmaları Dergisi Yayın Kurulu [Bulletin of Palestine Studies]"
Dr. Mazza is available for media interviews and can be reached also through @robbyref at X and IG.
İpek İpekçioğlu
Visiting Artist-in-Residence
View Bio
Based in Berlin and Istanbul, queer-living DJ, producer and curator, İpek İpekçioğlu aka DJ Ipek has an established reputation across nightlife scenes worldwide. İpek İpekçioğlu is regarded as one of the most popular and diverse DJ’s of the Berlin club scenes and internationally known as Queen* of Eklektik BerlinIstan. Inspired by her passion for ethnic music and genre-hopping dance, her "Eklektik BerlinIstan" set provides surprising breaks to the steady course of club music today. In her musical spectrum, psychedelic Turkish funk meets Disco, Balkan to Minimal, AnatolianFolk to Deep House, Armenian Halay to Electro, Kurdish Gowend 2 Moombahton, from Dabke to Reaggaton, Iranian Bandari to Techno. Her EthnikFolkElektronikMix is free of conventions, and it refuses to be limited by style, tempo or genres. At her electronic "MidEast’Elektro’’ sets, Ipek takes you into deep-house, tech-house, minimal and techno spiced up with ethnic - folk tunes, fueled by kicking beats and dramatic basslines and live-mixes.
Keyman Visiting Scholar, 2022-24
Bilge Yabanci is Marie Curie Global fellow at Northwestern University and Ca' Foscari University of Venice (Italy). Her research interests are interdisciplinary and relate to political science, sociology, and communication studies. In her current project co-hosted by Northwestern and Ca' Foscari, she investigates how the immigrant and refugee rights movement (IRRM) in Turkey can tailor its public communication strategies to reframe migrants and refugees as 'deserving' and 'rights-bearing agents'. In the first stage, the project maps the capacities, networks, and communicative strategies of the emergent IRRM in the country. In the second stage, survey experiments aim to identify which language -or linguistic framing- can solicit broader support and replace the racialized and marginalizing views. Currently, Bilge is also working towards finalizing her book manuscript titled 'Civil Society and Autocratization: Repression, Cooptation and Contestation in Turkey'. Before joining Northwestern, she was the recipient of Open Society Fellowship (Human Rights Cohort) and Swedish Institute postdoctoral fellowship. In her previous projects, she researched the transformation of social movements and civil society under the pressure of democratic backsliding. Carrying out on extensive fieldwork on women, youth and diaspora organizations, she investigated both cooptation and resistance dynamics within civil society.
Keyman Visiting Scholar, 2018-19
Onur Dirlik is an assistant professor of management at Eskişehir Osmangazi University Business School. His research focuses on institutional change, Turkish business systems and varieties of capitalism. Currently, he is interested in how context-specific institutions differentiate organizational forms; how global, regional, national, and local influences affect organizations; and the power of the state in shaping the market. Onur Dirlik received his PhD in Economics and Administrative Sciences from Akdeniz University, and he served as a Visiting Research Scholar at the University Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder), Business School.
Keyman Visiting Scholar, 2017-18
Sevda Alankuş is a graduate of Faculty of Political Science, Ankara University, and holds degrees in Political Science (Ph.D.) and in Communication Studies (Professorship). Her recent research covers issues of feminist media criticism, alternative media and news reporting. She published the Peace Journalism Handbook (2017) and was the editor of a journalism handbook series that included the Human, Women, Children’s Right-based Journalism (2007, 2012). Her co-authored works focus on Turkish series in the global media market, discourse analysis of Turkish Cypriot media from a peace journalism point of view and textual analysis of nationalist Turkish Cypriot narrations. Alankuş is currently teaching at the Department of New Media, Kadir Has University, Istanbul.
Keyman Visiting Scholar, 2017-18
Senem Aslan is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Bates College. Her book Nation-Building in Turkey and Morocco: Governing Kurdish and Berber Dissent was published by Cambridge University Press in 2014. She teaches courses on Middle East politics, state-building, and nationalism. She was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University between 2008 and 2010. She has published articles in the International Journal of Middle East Studies, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, and the European Journal of Turkish Studies. Her recent research focuses on the politics of symbolism and imagery in Turkey.
Keyman Visiting Scholar, 2017-18
Senem Yildirim-Ozdem is an assistant professor of political science and public administration at Antalya AKEV University, Turkey. Her research mainly focuses on the public-private divide in contemporary political theory, the gendered nature of this dichotomy, and the concepts of social, political, and civil society. Her publications have appeared in journals such as British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies (2017), Theory in Action (2016), The European Legacy: Toward New Paradigms (2014) and Southeast European and Black Sea Studies (2011). She received her doctorate in political science in 2011 from Turkey’s Bilkent University, where she also completed her undergraduate degree. She was previously a visiting researcher at UIC.
Hüseyin Levent Köker
Keyman Visiting Scholar, 2017-18
Hüseyin Levent Köker is a graduate of Ankara Law School and holds a PhD in political science. He was previously Hans Speier Visiting Professor in the New School for Social Research. Currently working on a critical re-interpretation of constitutional politics in Turkey, Köker’s research interests include constitution-making and post-national constitutionalism, democratic political theory, secularism, nationalism, multiculturalism, and cosmopolitanism. His publications include Modernization, Kemalism and Democracy (2009), Two Different Conceptions of Politics (2008), and Democracy, Critique, and Turkey (2008). Some of his articles have been published in Political Theory, The Annals of the AAPSS, and Constellations.
Şule Kut, Visiting Scholar
Keyman Program Visiting Scholar, 2009-10
Şule Kut is rector of Okan University in Istanbul, Turkey. Her teaching and research interests include foreign policy analysis, Turkish foreign policy with emphasis on the Balkans, the Caucasus and Central Asia, Turkish-EU and Turkish-U.S. relations, and Balkan politics. When Kut visited Northwestern, she was serving as dean of the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences at Istanbul Bilgi University. Kut is the president of the Turkish Political Science Association and was formerly an elected member of the Executive Committee of the International Political Science Association.
