İlyas Deniz Çınar

İlyas Deniz Çınar completed his BA in Western Languages and Literatures at Boğaziçi University in 2020. Throughout his undergraduate studies, he minored in Film Studies and American Studies programs. He was able to combine his academic formation with a practical and professional working experience, especially in the field of media and communication, while he was interning for TRT (Turkish Radio and Television Corporation). Çınar worked as a part-time student research assistant for Western Languages and Literatures department at his alma matter in the fall of 2018 academic year. His research interests include critical and theoretical frameworks such as media and performance studies, film history and theory, drama and performance studies,

humor studies, Jewish studies, and comparative (especially between the U.S. and Turkey) cultural history of Turkey.  Most of these field of interests were synthesized in his undergraduate dissertation projects titled “The Miracle of Miracles: The Transmission, Reception, and Negotiation of Fiddler on the Roof on the Turkish Theatrical Stage” and “Contemporary Turkish We(a)stern’s Engagement with its Others”. Prior to these projects, he was able work within some of these critical frameworks with his presentation in Koç University Unrestricted Humanities Symposium titled “Close Reading the Robots: How the Progenitor of ‘Robot Fiction’ Negotiates the Human Form”. He also received pedagogical formation from Istanbul University-Cerrahpaşa Hasan Ali Yücel Education Faculty. Çınar is also a contributor of Sinefil, a Boğaziçi University Mithat Alam Film Center journal. He pursues a Master’s Degree in the Department of Communication Studies at Kadir Has University, and works as a researcher of the ERC project, “Staging National Abjection: Theatre and Politics in Turkey and Its Diasporas.”

Şeyda Nur Yıldırım

Şeyda Nur Yıldırım completed her BA in Turkish Language and Literature and Western Languages and Literatures at Boğaziçi University. She ranked 1st among 64 students in the Department of Turkish Language and Literature. Yıldırım received a national grant, Turkish Language Association Undergraduate Scholarship, during her undergraduate education. She worked as a part-time student research assistant at the Department of Western Languages and Literatures from the fall semester of 2018 to the spring semester of 2020. She also worked as a project assistant at SineBU that is under the Department of Corporate Communication Office of Boğaziçi University in the spring semester of 2020.

Her primary research interests are comparative literary studies, performance theories, theatre and performance studies, gender studies, postmodernism, and transnationalism. She discussed the representations of terrorism on stage in the theoretical frameworks of performance studies and postmodernism in her senior thesis, “Representations of Terrorism on British and American Stages.” Yıldırım is a volunteer at Cancer Fighters Association since 2018. She pursues a Master’s Degree in the Department of Communication Studies at Kadir Has University, and works as a researcher of the ERC project, “Staging National Abjection: Theatre and Politics in Turkey and Its Diasporas.”,