News and events

News

May 2024. Andrea Selleri’s critical edition Literature and Philosophy in Nineteenth-Century British Culture: Volume 3 has been published by Routledge. A book launch of the whole series took place on 14 November.

September 2024. Ivana Bičak from ELIT has been awarded a fellowship to carry out research using a collection held at Durham University. More information here.

April 2025. Atti Viragh’s coedited essay anthology, Mind and Embodiment in Late Victorian Literature, to be published by Edinburgh University Press. A book launch is planned for the spring.

 

Events

The Department of English Language and Literature regularly hosts visiting speakers. Most are academics who come to present and discuss their latest research, but we have also invited speakers from beyond the academic world, such as journalist Hümeyra Pamuk and photographer Ümit Bektaş (R), who came from Reuters News Agency to discuss the relation of image and text with students taking an elective in ‘Literature and Photography’.

At the moment two academic series are active: the Bilkent philosophy and literature colloquia series and the humanities seminar series (see below). Click here to view past events, which include theatre productions and poetry readings, as well as more academic events.

 

Bilkent Philosophy and Literature Colloquia

We collaborate with academics from the Universities of Rijeka and Wisconsin-Madison on the topic of “philosophy and literature”. We feature a range of invited talks, some of which take place on Zoom and some live. Click here to subscribe to these events and receive the links to the Zoom events. For further information, you may contact the organisers: Andrea Selleri at andrea.selleri@bilkent.edu.tr , Patrick Fessenbecker at pfessenbecker@gmail.com , or Atti Viragh at aviragh@bilkent.edu.tr .

 

Fall 2024 Events

• Invited talk. Thursday 10 October, 18:00 (Zoom). Erin Greer (Dallas): “The Ideal of Conversation in Fiction, Philosophy and Interdisciplinary Criticism.”
• Book series launch. Thursday 14 November, 17:30 (Zoom). Literature and Philosophy in Nineteenth-Century British Culture (Routledge). A roundtable conversation with the editors. With Monika Class (Lund), Cian Duffy (Lund), Peter Garratt (Durham), Andrea Selleri (Bilkent) and Giles Whiteley (Stockholm).
• Discussion with the author. Wednesday 11 December, 17:30 (Zoom). Aaron Hanlon, ‘Explanation beyond Interpretation’, Philosophy and Literature 48.1 (April 2024): 165-184.

Spring 2024 Events

• Eva Dadlez (University of Central Oklahoma): “Just Kidding: The Problem of Humor and Moral Evaluation.” 21 March 2024, 17:30 (Zoom).
• Elisabeth Camp (Rutgers University): “Stories and Selves: A Twisted Love Story about the Meaning of Life.” 25 April 2024, 17:30 (Zoom).
• Derek Matravers (Open University): “Representations and Face-to-Face Encounters: Why They Matter for the Philosophy of Fiction.” 9 May 2024, 17:30 (Room H-232).
• Patrick Colm Hogan (University of Connecticut), “Gendered Virtues, but without the Gender: On Empathy, Shame, and Attachment Care.” 23 May 2024, 17:30 (Zoom).

Fall 2023 Events

• Anna Christina Ribeiro (Texas Tech University): “Thinking with Poetry.” 5 October 2023, 17:30 (Zoom).
• Jeanne-Marie Jackson (Johns Hopkins University): “Objectivity as Prophecy: The Long View from West Africa in 1903.” 2 November 2023, 17:30 (Zoom).
• Danila Sokolov (University of Iceland): “Beyond Matter: Lyric, Metaphysics, Form.” 14 December 2023, 17:30 (Zoom).

Spring 2023 Events

• David S. Coombs (Clemson University): “Walter Pater and Literature as a Sensory Experience”. 1 March 2023.
• Daniel Katz (University of Warwick): “Good Sameness: Ben Lerner’s Song of the Fungible.” 5 April 2023.
• Eileen John (University of Warwick): “Moby-Dick and Money as an Ethical Test.” 10 May 2023.

Fall 2022 Events

• Iris Vidmar Jovanović (University of Rijeka): “From Banned to Burnt for the Public Good: On the (Im)morality of Literature”. 12 October 2022. Abstract
• C. Thi Nguyen (University of Utah): “Art as a Shelter from Science”. 28 October 2022. Abstract
• Timothy Bewes (Brown University): “Free Indirect: The Novel in a Postfictional Age”. 9 December 2022.

Spring 2022 Events

• Joshua Gang: “Derek Jarman and Everything That is the Case.” 1 April 2022. Abstract
• Andrea Gadberry, “To Be Determined: On Literature’s Causes”. 28 April 2022. Abstract
• Joshua Landy, “I’m like a Helicopter: For a Two-Point Theory of Creative Imagery”. 10 May 2022. Abstract

 

Humanities Seminar Series

We host a series of talks by Ankara-based scholars illustrating some of their work in progress, with the aim of facilitating collaboration across faculties and universities for scholars interested in any field in the humanities. For more information, you may contact Andrea Selleri at andrea.selleri@bilkent.edu.tr

 

Fall 2024 Events

• Thursday 31 October, 17:30 (A130). Ayşe Çelikkol (ELIT): “Abstraction and Landscape Fertility From David Ricardo to William Cobbett”. Abstract
• Wednesday 27 November, 17:30 (V20). Patrick McDonald (AMER): “On Not Reading American Board Reports: Visualizing Missionary Activity in the Nineteenth-Century”.

Fall 2023 Events

• Stein Haugom Olsen (ELIT): “The Ibsen Matrix: How Not to Read Ibsen.” 15 November 2023, 17:30 (Zoom).
• Dennis Bryson (AMER): “The Discourse of the Developing Child and the Problem of Inequality: From 1990 to the Present.” 6 December 2023, 17:30 (room G-160).

Spring 2023 Events

• Kara McCormack (AMER): “Home. Family. Future: Authenticity, the Frontier Myth, and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.” 22 March 2023.

Fall 2022 Events

• Esra Almas (EDEB): “Strangers in a Strange Land: Jewish Memories of Istanbul”. 28 September 2022.
• Seda Bahar Pancaroğlu (TOBB University): “Bringing back from the dead: Questioning Authors’ Agency in Postcolonial Biofiction”. 2 November 2022.