Academic Employment
2025 – present
Postdoctoral Research Associate, Sharmin and Bijan Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies, Princeton University
Education
2016 – 2025
Ph.D., Columbia University, New York
Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies
2019
Advanced Turkish Program, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul
American Research Institute in Turkey Summer Language Fellowship
2016 – 2018
M.A., Sabancı University, Istanbul
Turkish Studies
2012 – 2016
B.A. (Honours), University of Toronto, Toronto
Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations
Publications
Edited Volumes
2023
Levantines of the Ottoman World: Communities, Identities, and Cultures. Edited by Erik Blackthorne-O’Barr and Burhan Çağlar. Istanbul: İbn Haldun University Press. ISBN: 978-625-6491-60-1
“From Compradors to Cosmopolitans: Historiographic Currents in Contemporary Levantine Studies,” in Levantines of the Ottoman World: Communities, Identities, and Cultures: 11-33.
Peer-Reviewed Articles
Forthcoming 2026
“‘A Disgraceful Freak of Art’: The Turkish Theater, Kanto, and the Cultural Politics of Disgust,” in The Role of Armenians on the Ottoman Stage. Edited by Suna Suner and Esen Çamurdan. Vienna: Hollitzer Verlag.
Forthcoming 2026
“‘Did Kantocu Peruz Really Live?’: Nostalgia, Solidarity, and the Afterlives of an Ottoman Genre,” in Performing Resilience: Intersectionality and Agonistic Solidarity for Another Turkey. Edited by Deniz Başar, Eylem Ejder and Pieter Verstraete. New York and London: Routledge.
September 2024
“Dangerous Bodies, a Corrupted Tongue: Tracing the Queer Persianate in Late Ottoman Literature,” Culture, Theory and Critique 65, no. 1, Special Issue: Queer Turkish and Ottoman Literature: 1-25.
October 2023
“The City, the Sea, and the Subaltern: The Urban Subcultures of Galata and Piraeus, 1880-1930,” in Spectacle, Entertainment, and Recreation in the Modernizing Ottoman Empire and Republican Turkey. Edited by Seda Kula Say and Nilay Karaca. Bristol: Intellect Books: 167-186.
Spring 2022
“Journals of the Plague Year: The Ottoman Press and the Istanbul Cholera Outbreak of 1871,” Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association 9, no. 1: 203-230.
- Received the 2020 Sidney N. Fisher Paper Prize from the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association.
Winter 2021
“Passing as Persian: Alterity and Desire in Ahmet Midhat Efendi’s Dürdâne Hanım,” Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association 8, no. 2: 301-306.
October 2021
“Singing on ‘The World’s Stage’: Kanto and Late Ottoman Social Life,” Kadim Dergisi 1, no. 2: 13-32.
Online Publications
January 2023
“Possible Languages: Reflections on Lisân-ı Osmânî.” ANAMED Blog, click here to read.
August 2020
“Kantonun Serencamı: Osmanlıdan Bugüne, Kantodan Drag Kültürüne.” 5Harfliler, click here to read.
Research Grants and Fellowships
2025 Sakıp Sabancı Center Dissertation Writing Fellowship
2024 Columbia Armenian Center Research Grant
2024 Gerda Henkel Foundation Research Fellowship
2022 Koç University ANAMED Doctoral Fellowship
2021 SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship
2020 Sakıp Sabancı Center Summer Fellowship
2019 ARIT Summer Fellowship for Advanced Turkish Language Study
2016 Sabancı Graduate Scholarship
2016 Canada Graduate Scholarship – Masters (declined)
2016 Anna Mary Bridget Loftus Scholarship
2015 St. Michael’s College Centennial Scholarship
2014 Oktay and Virginia Aksan Scholarship in Turkish Studies
Teaching Experience
September 2019 – 2025
Teaching Fellow, Columbia University
July 2017 – December 2019
English as a Second Language Teacher, VIPKid
September 2017 – May 2018
Academic Communications Office, Sabancı University
September 2016 – May 2017
Teaching Fellow, Sabancı University
Other Professional Experience
January 2025 – May 2025
Social Media Editor, Synapsis: A Health Humanities Journal
January 2021 – September 2024
Publicity Officer, Sakıp Sabancı Center for Turkish Studies
May 2021 – May 2023
Copyeditor, Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association
August 2015 – May 2016
Research Assistant, Royal Ontario Museum
June 2014 – July 2015
Educator, Aga Khan Museum
Selected Conferences, Workshops and Symposia
November 2025
Queer Ottoman and Turkish Literatures: A Roundtable, Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting, Washington, DC.
February 2025
The End of Ottoman, SUNY Farmingdale, Farmingdale, NY
February 2025
A Permanent Danger to All Her Neighbors: Persia and the Cultural Politics of Cholera, Levantine Heritage Foundation, London, UK.
October 2024
Pure Lineage: Iran and Racecraft on the Ottoman/Turkish Stage, Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association Annual Meeting, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL.
November 2023
Genealogies of the “Çar-ebru”: Tracing the Queer Persianate in Late Ottoman Literature, Middle East Studies Association Annual Meeting, Montreal, QC.
June 2022
Singing on “The World’s Stage”: Kanto and Late Ottoman Social Life, Don Juan Archiv, Vienna, Austria.
May 2022
“Men Püserim, Namım Peruz:” Acem Kantosu ve Osmanlı’da Cinsiyet Kültürü, TTV Tiyatromuzda Toplumsal Cinsiyet Konuşmaları, Türkiye Tiyatro Vakfı, Istanbul, Turkey.
May 2022
Persianisms and Perversions among the Late Ottomans, The Turk-o-Tajik World Coalescence of Turkic, Arabic, and Persian Spheres c. 900–1900, SOAS, London, UK.
March 2022
Persianisms and Perversions: The Language of Desire in the Late Ottoman Empire, Queer in the Middle East, Queering the Middle East, University of Texas, Austin, TX.
July 2021
Passing as Persian: Alterity and Desire in Ahmet Mithat Efendi’s Dürdane Hanım, Voices of Emerging Scholars Webinar Series, Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association, Online.
April 2021
Journals of the Plague Year: The Ottoman Press and the Istanbul Cholera Outbreak of 1871, Istanbul Unbound: Environmental Approaches to the City, ANAMED, Istanbul, Turkey.
February 2021
Entangled Epidemiologies: The Discourse of Disease in Victorian Britain and Late Ottoman Istanbul, Anglo-Turkish Society, London, UK.
December 2020
The History of Ottoman History: A Master Class, Columbia Global Centers – Istanbul, Online.
November 2020
Journals of the Plague Year: The Ottoman Press and the Istanbul Cholera Outbreak of 1871, Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association, Online.
March 2020
Microbes and Missionaries, Bodies and Bathwater: Iran in the Late Ottoman Travelogue, 10th Annual MESAAS Graduate Conference, Columbia University, New York, NY.
October 2018
Between the Street and the Stage: Erotic and Sexual Performance in Late Ottoman Istanbul, 4th Annual Conference of the Iranian Studies Initiative, UC Santa Barbara, CA.
May 2017
Istanbul in the Limelight: 19th Century Nightclub Culture in the Ottoman Empire, Sabancı University Graduate Students Workshop, Sabancı University, Istanbul, Turkey.
March 2016
The Symbolic Intent of ‘Turkish Modernism’ in Early Republic Architecture, Near and Middle Eastern Graduate Students’ Symposium, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.