Nâlân Erbil
Credentials: Turkish (German)
Position title: Teaching Faculty II
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Email: erbil@wisc.edu
Address:
Office number: 840 Van Hise Hall
Language(s): Turkish, Azeri, Ottoman, Arabic, Persian
Research/Language Interests: 19th c. Ottoman, post-imperial Turkish and Turkish-German literatures; migration; theories of post-colonial/world literatures; critical university studies; visuality
Name pronunciation: NAH-lahn U-er-beel
About: As an interdisciplinary teacher-scholar, I teach migration, and Turkish language and culture courses at UW-Madison. My pedagogical interest lies particularly in literary and visual productions of minoritized communities in Germany and Turkey. Currently I am working on a project that investigates the concept of Turkish-Germanness in the works of writers writing in Turkish. In addition to teaching and research, since 2020, I have also been serving as the Pedagogy Director of The Middle Eastern and Mediterranean Language Institute and the federally funded Turkish Flagship Language Initiative.
Growing up in the rural southwestern Turkey, I identify as a first-generation college graduate and academic. My ancestors were nomadic goatherders (yörüks) from the West Taurus Mountains in Anatolia who became settled two generations ago.
Affiliated Departments: Middle East Studies Program, Center for Russia, East Europe, and Central Asia, Center for European Studies, Kemal H. Karpat Center for Turkish Studies
Education:
• University of Wisconsin-Madison, PhD in Asian Languages and Cultures (2018) with a PhD minor in Comparative Literature
• University of Wisconsin-Madison, MA in Languages and Cultures of Asia (2012)
• Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University, Graduate Coursework in Turkish and Islamic Art and Architecture (2007-2008)
• Boğaziçi University (Istanbul), BA in English (2007)