My teaching philosophy is firmly based on the principles of diversity, inclusion, equity, and justice, which overlaps with my research agenda and methodology. I walk into the classroom with the awareness that every student comes from a different background and aspires to have a future that reflects their own inspiration. I approach such diversity as an opportunity to develop an interactive atmosphere in the classroom and encourage students to think critically about their assumptions and the histories that shape our subjectivities. I am fascinated with history, for example, yet it took a significant amount of unlearning and inspiration throughout my undergraduate and graduate education before I was able to understand the complex ways through which history shapes the world in which we live today.

 

My research, academic training, and pedagogical experience on theories of empire, nationalism, state-formation, colonialism and decolonization, as well as minority histories, Islam, and environment, have prepared me to teach graduate and undergraduate courses on multiple aspects of the modern Middle East and the world(s) in which it was made. I have worked with students at different levels of higher education and from diverse backgrounds at both public and private institutions in Turkey and in the United States. Through my teaching and mentoring, I hope to enhance students’ understanding of the Middle East in a global context and to prepare them to produce cutting-edge scholarship in the study of the region through its proper transragional and interdisciplinary contexts.