Biography
I am a Byzantinist with broad research interests, including (but not limited to) the social, cultural, and intellectual history of Byzantium; book culture; history writing and education in the late Ottoman Empire and Republican Turkey; reception studies; and digital history. My dissertation examines how friendship and fictive kinship shaped elite male life in the Middle Byzantine Empire (867–1081). Rather than treating friendship as a literary topos or a set of moral ideals, I analyze these ties as real social practices governed by their own rules, expectations, and strategic uses within a distinct rhetorical framework. I also pursue a side project on the teaching and learning of Byzantine history in the late Ottoman and Republican eras, with particular attention to Istanbul. In addition, I research and publish on the posthumous, predominantly modern and contemporary, reception and appropriation of Byzantium.
Education
M.A., Boğaziçi University History Department
B.A., Boğaziçi University History Department
Field
- European History
MA Title
- “The Tenth Century Byzantine Expansion in Crete, Cyprus, and Northern Syria: Ideology and Practice”
Working Dissertation Title
- “Friendship and Fictive Kinship in the Middle Byzantine Period, 867–1081”
Selected Publications
- “Between Myth and Reality: The Modern Underground Reception of Michael Psellos” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 49(2) 2025. 1-18.
- Translated Books on Byzantium in Turkey (1923-2023),” (with Ulaş Deniz Tümkaya and Tamer Yanık), A Century of Byzantine Studies in Turkey, Papers from the Sixth International Sevgi Gönül Symposium, (Koç University Press, 2024) 243-274 .
Selected Awards
- Research Travel Grant, Kemal H. Karpat Center for Turkish Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Summer Graduate Fellowship, Kemal H. Karpat Center for Turkish Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Library Research Support, AKMED- Koç University Suna&İnan Kıraç Research Center for Mediterranean Civilizations
- Andrew W. Mellon Short Term Travel Grant, Boğaziçi University Byzantine Studies Research Center
- Domestic Master Scholarship, The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK)
- Andrew W. Mellon Scholarship for the M.A Program in Byzantine Studies, Boğaziçi University Byzantine Studies Research Center
- Incentive Award, Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU), Qatar- Muhammad Bin Hamad Aal Thani Center for Muslim Contribution to Civilization
- Boğaziçi University History Department Bachelor Honor Certificate
Professional Affiliations
- Member, International Society for the Study of Medievalism
- Member, The Medieval Academy of America
- Member, BSANA (Byzantine Studies Association of North America)
- Founding Member, Kemal H. Karpat Center for Turkish Studies Graduate Student Body, University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Courses Taught as TA
- HIST 105: Making of the Modern World I at Boğaziçi University
- HIST 106: Making of the Modern World II at Boğaziçi University
- History 119: Europe and the World, 1400-1815 at University of Wisconsin-Madison
- History 120: Europe and the Modern World, 1815 to the Present at University of Wisconsin-Madison