Instructed Courses
Bern University
2022 FallPolitical Geography
When we say politics, the first things coming to mind are usually politicians giving a speech in a parliament or in front of the cameras, a scene from an international summit full of leaders and their consultants, political campaigns, banners and posters with political slogans all over the place, elections, --and if we think through pejorative terms; war, corruption, lying, and so forth. Yet, then, what is geographical about politics? Well, the simple answer is everything! From the bodies of politicians (their gender, bodily acts, dressing) to the location of international summits, the design of government buildings, the selection of the streets for political campaigns and demonstrations, and the targetted geographies for developing new political and economic cooperations or declaring war. What is more, if we go beyond the Politics with capital “P,” geography and politics come together when we discuss how states and geopolitical actions come into being in the first place through the deployment of security cameras on the streets, moments of silence for national commemorations in schools or stadiums, racial profiling at airports or traffic stops, and intentionally abandoned industrial zones and neighborhoods. Therefore, geographers study politics with diverse dimensions, from hot geopolitical tensions to capillaries of everyday life, through a spatial focus.
This course offers an advanced introduction to the intriguing interaction between power and space. Specifically focusing on the two key concepts of political geography, namely state and geopolitics, this course discusses how power affects the spatial order and vice versa. While doing this, this course employs a feminist (geo)political perspective to elaborate on quotidian manifestations of state-making and geopolitics. In other words, this course predominantly focuses on the everyday life and praxis of the 'ordinary' to understand the mundane makings of politics. In this direction, the course is mainly divided into two subsections. The first part focuses on the concept of states. After an introductory class, we analyze the everyday makings of states, state-like formations and practices, and the gray zones of statehood. Following that, we pass on to the topic of geopolitics and investigate this subject through relatively ignored and unique discussions about bodies, everyday actions, and gendered and racial practices.
Bern University
2022 SpringGeopolitics: Bodies, Borders, and Bomb
In recent years, critical, feminist, and decolonial approaches have increasingly questioned mainstream geopolitical discussions, representations, and imaginations that focus on the geopolitical analysis of the scale of the global and nation-state. These approaches focus on how geopolitical processes both affect and result from and produce new ways of thinking for grasping embodied, affective, quotidian, and mostly invisible forms of global, geopolitical, and international formations. There has been a significant body of work on feminist geopolitics covering a series of themes, conceptual discussions, and multiple geographies in the past two decades. This seminar traces the development of this subfield of feminist geography and its alternative approaches to geopolitics, paying particular attention to various uses of feminist different theoretical geopolitical lenses for understanding discourses of war, security and peace, subtle forms of racism and colonialism, gendered geopolitical formations, and everyday makings of states and international hierarchies.
This seminar is designed for graduate students interested in the conversation of feminist, post-colonial, and critical theories and approaches with national, international, and geopolitical discussions. There are no prerequisites, and students are not expected to have a geography or feminist theory background.
TED University
2021 FallSOC405 - Advanced Qualitative Data Analysis
This course introduces theories, and principal qualitative data analysis approaches to students and provides a space for them to practice multiple data collection and analysis steps. In the broadest sense, qualitative data analysis refers to the organization and distilling of raw materials collected during research. Thus, data analysis is one of the most significant parts of qualitative research. Yet, it cannot be considered a distinctive process irrelevant to qualitative research design and data collection phases. Instead, like a spiral form, various stages of qualitative research, such as research design, data collection, and analysis, should always inform and speak to each other. Therefore, this course is designed to present a holistic data analysis approach. Starting with formulating a research question, throughout the semester, students will learn how to conduct a literature review, collect and analyze raw data, and finally write research findings, bringing collected and analyzed data together. In this class, students will be introduced to MaxQDA, a data analysis software, and learn how to use this software for completing complex data analysis and visualization tasks.
TED University
2021 FallSOC325 - Migration and Space
Throughout history, human populations have changed their places temporarily or permanently due to various social and economic reasons, as well as wars, plagues, and extreme weather and climate conditions. When people move from one place to another, they transform both the site of departure and arrival. At the same time, people's ways of life, habits, and identities change to varying degrees according to the new social and physical conditions of migrated spaces. In other words, migration and space have an intertwined relationship, and they constantly shape each other. This course invites students on an intellectual journey to think about migration through the concept of space. The course searches for answers to many questions, such as what is space and why does this concept matter in understanding migration? How do migration processes form and transform here and there simultaneously? How does the operation of power through space cause displacement and forced migration? How do migrant communities, such as displaced people, diasporas, or refugees, develop new identities and social practices in their new settlement spaces, and how do they transform these spaces?
TED University
2021 FallSOC303 - Urban Sociology
Cities are home to all types of human activity, from working to socializing, education to health services, and industrial and technological production. Moreover, cities are home to endless everyday human interactions in workspaces, schools, shopping malls, neighborhoods, airports, and so forth. Even more striking is that the social structure of cities is in a constant mode of change through massive internal and international migration movements. Cities, considering altogether, are critical social laboratories to examine and understand societal transformations, inequalities, and power struggles. This course explores urban areas from within this social laboratory perspective. Starting from the development of cities across time and space, and this course examines fundamental urban theories and approaches, focuses on selected topics from Turkey's urbanization issues.
University of North Carolina - CH
2020-2021 FallGEOG225 Space, Place & Difference
What is space? What is place? Why do these concepts matter in understanding the world around us? This course explores how space and place are crucial notions for understanding a variety of issues, concepts, and phenomenon, such as religion, race, state, gender, geopolitics, and migration. Particularly, this course searches answers to a series of questions, such as what is a sacred space and how it is different from a secular space? How are race and gender socially constructed and how do they operate in everyday spaces? What is the state and where the state is located? How do geopolitics operate in and through unusual spaces, such as bodies and intimate relations?
Duke University
2020 -2021 Fall-SpringTUR305-306 Advanced Turkish
This course aims to put into practice the Turkish language skills of advanced students through the discussion of various social, cultural, and political issues in Turkey. This course, which is mostly conducted in Turkish, is designed for active student participation and performance. Focusing on four different themes in Turkey’s historical and contemporary context (religion, migration, gender, and Syrian refugees), in this course students practice writing, speaking, reading, and listening in Turkish throughout the semester.
University of North Carolina - CH
2018 -2019 FallGEOG448 Transnational Muslims
This course traces the geographical production of Muslim subjects through transnational flows, networks and imaginaries. Rather than approaching “Islam” or Muslims as fixed in time and space, the course develops a dynamic perspective on Muslim societies and subjects. The course takes a wide variety of geographical and historical contexts, including the Middle East, Africa, Southeast Asia, Europe and North America. The discussions focus on a series of comparative case studies, such as the Maghrebi population and banlieus in France; mosque debates in Britain and Germany, and the development and transformation of Islamic belief and ideology among African-American Muslims in the US; Indonesian migrant workers and South Asian entrepreneurs in the Middle East; hip-hop and punk music of Palestinians, Turkish-Germans, and US Muslims.
Duke University
2016-2017 Fall and SpringTUR301 Advanced Turkish: History, Politics and Culture
This course, which is instructed in Turkish, aims to improve Turkish speaking skills of the advanced Turkish-language learner students by examining the political and cultural life of the modern Turkey in a historical perspective. Throughout the class, the building blocks of the Turkish politics and culture, such as the 'westernization' discussions in the late Ottoman period, the establishment of the Turkish Republic, modernization reforms and transition to democracy, are discussed by means of documentaries, movies, historical novels and academic studies. The goals of this course include (i) developing speaking, writing and presentation skills in Turkish by participating in classroom discussions and completing an independent research project; and (ii) developing critical analysis skills for understanding historical political and cultural debates and transitions in the Turkish history.
Suleyman Sah University
2014-2015 FallPOL101 Introduction to Political Science*
The main goal of this course is introducing students to major concepts of political science, such as democracy, state and political ideologies. Regimes and government systems with a specific emphasis on separation of powers are also the central issues that this course aims to tackle throughout this semester. Contemplating on different political systems requires a deep thought on what “separation of powers” is and also understanding a veiled trade off between stability and representation. At the end of the semester, the students are expected to compare and contrast the virtues and shortcomings of different political systems.
* This course was designed as a joint teaching course, and I coordinated and instructed this course in collaboration with three other professors at the department.