Dr. Başak Çandar, an Assistant Professor of World Literature in the Department of English, will be returning to Appalachian State this fall after completing her participation in a prestigious ten month research program, the Europe in the Middle East, the Middle East in Europe (EUME) fellowship. Each year only ten postdoctoral scholars from around the world are invited to participate in this fellowship to conduct research in a variety of fields including anthropology, history, literature, political science, religion, or Middle Eastern Studies.
As a EUME Fellow, Çandar has been working on a book manuscript titled “Representing Censored Pasts: State Violence in Twentieth Century Turkish and Spanish Literature,” which focuses on how novels represent violence committed during repressive regimes. Çandar’s interest in the subject is driven by the multifaceted relationship between history and literature as well as by her own personal history. “I was born in Istanbul, Turkey and grew up in a fairly politically engaged family,” states Çandar. “My parents’ generation in Turkey experienced three military coups over three decades, which means that like many other Turkish people my age, I grew up listening to stories about the coups.”
Participating in the fellowship has also provided Çandar with an opportunity to deepen her research with new questions, topics and connections while working in an environment that facilitates exchange among a community of Middle East scholars. Çandar believes that her experiences will “surely play into the way I teach and discuss with students questions of World Literature,” when she returns to campus this fall.
English Department Chair, Dr. Carl Eby also supports the fellowship as it brings an important international component to Appalachian State’s World Literature program. According to Eby, “Last year we had 1,361 students in World Literature in this Department. This experience will be brought back into the classroom, but it also projects our presence back out to the world as well.”
To learn more about the EUME fellowship and Dr. Çandar’s research, please visit: http://www.eume-berlin.de/en/fellows/vita/article/basak-candar.html