Biography
Merhaba!
Welcome to my page. I am a professor of Humanities and Turkish Studies in Honors College at Portland State University.
I have been a Portlander since 1997, but I am originally a native of Ankara, Turkey. I have also studied and lived in Izmir and Istanbul. These three cities are among the largest in Turkey today, Ankara being the country's capital. In addition to Turkey, I have also traveled and researched in Europe, most notably in Holland and Germany.
Most of my early schooling took place in Turkey. During the 1980s I was a university student in Turkey. I received my BA and MA degrees in Ege University, Izmir, Turkey (1985, 1988). I attended Ankara Ataturk Anadolu Lisesi (high school). My ties to Turkey remain strong.
I came to the United States in 1987 for the first time in order to participate in a USIA-sponsored cultural exchange program organized for emerging writers. In my group were young writers from sixteen different countries of the world. I have stayed in touch with some of my fellow awardees, who now are accomplished playwrights, story-tellers, and journalists.
My doctoral degree is from the University of Texas at Austin (1995), where I studied literature and area studies as a Fulbright scholar and taught Turkish in the Department of Middle East Languages and Cultures.
At the time I began my doctoral work at UT-Austin, I had also completed my doctoral coursework and comprehensives at Ankara University, Faculty of Letters (DTCF). In fact, prior to my first appointment at Portland State University, Department of World Languages and Literatures, I worked as an assistant professor for Ankara University. In Turkey, I also coordinated a joint-study abroad program organized by the University of Texas-Austin and University of Illinois-Urbana Champaign at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul (1997, 1998).
I have been teaching in a university setting since 1988. I am a modernist; my research ranges from the early twentieth century to the present. My research and teaching interests cover modern Turkish literature and popular culture, Turkish cinema, and women and gender in Turkey. These are topics I approach using a historical framework and through an interdisciplinary cultural studies methodology.