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About Me

I received my PhD from the Department of History at Binghamton University in 2015. My dissertation, A Nocturnal History of fin de siècle Istanbul, casts light on the social and material geographies of night that went beyond the dichotomies of the ‘city of glittering leisure and consumption,’ or the ‘city of indigence and vice.’ My dissertation research has led to several publications in peer-reviewed journals including Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association, Etudes balkaniques, and New Perspectives on Turkey. I taught courses on the history of the late Ottoman Empire and contemporary Turkey at Boğaziçi and Işık Universities (2012-2018). I worked as the assistant coordinator of the Boğaziçi University Archives and Documentation Center, where I conducted a project entitled “Histories of Science, Culture and Education in Istanbul Through Personal Archives” and was involved in curating and writing material for on-site and online exhibitions (2015-2018). I spent one year as a post-doctoral scholar in the Department of History at the Université Grenoble Alpes (2018-2019) and six months as a visiting researcher at the Center of Metropolitan Studies of Technische Universität Berlin (2019-2020). During the academic years 2020-2022, I am currently a EUME Fellow associated with the IGK Work and Human Life Cycle in Global History (re:work) of Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

Recent Publications

Edited Books:

Tarihçilerden Başka Bir Hikâye (A Different Story by Historians), eds. Ebru Aykut, Nurçin İleri, Fatih Artvinli, İstanbul: Can Yayınları, 2019.

Bavullardan Kataloglara: Boğaziçi Arşivleri’ne Doğru (From Boxes to Catalogues: Towards Boğaziçi Archives), eds. Cengiz Kırlı, Nurçin İleri, İstanbul: Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Yayınları, 2015.

Articles and Essays:

“Cementing Hegemony in New Turkey: The Construction Spectacle of Istanbul and the Rise of Right-Wing Masculine Populism,” coauthors Ergin Bulut and Başak Can, in Spaces of New Colonialism: Reading Schools, Museums, and Cities in the Tumult of Globalization, Cameron McCarthy, Koeli Moitra Goel, Ergin Bulut, Warren Crichlow, Brenda Nyandiko Sanya and Bryce Henson (eds), Peter Lang Publishing, 2020, 121-140.

““Müzesiyle İftihar Edecek Bir Mektep”: Robert Kolej’de Bir Doğa Tarihi Müzesi” (A School Be Proud of its Museum”: A Natural History Museum at Robert College), Kebikeç 2019, no. 48, 235-256.

“Noémi Lévy-Aksu, “Osmanlı İstanbul’unda Asayiş 1879-1909” (Public Order in Ottoman Istanbul, 1879-1909), (book review) in Yıllık, İstanbul Araştırmaları Enstitüsü, 2019, 211-212.

“Screening Right-Wing Populism in ‘New Turkey’: Neo-Ottomanism, Historical Dramas and the Case of Payitaht Abdulhamid,” coauthor Ergin Bulut, in Routledge Companion to Global Television, Shawn Shimpach (ed.), (New York and London: Routledge, 2019), 244-255.

“Kayıp bir Müzenin İzinde: Robert Kolej’in Bilimsel Koleksiyonları,” (In search of a Lost Museum: Scientific Collections of Robert College) Nurçin İleri and Semih Çelik (eds.) in “Tasniften Teşhire: Osmanlı’dan Cumhuriyet’e Doğa Tarihi Müzeleri” (From Classification to Display: Natural History Museums from Ottoman Empire to Turkish Republic) Toplumsal Tarih 311, Kasım 2019, 50-57.

“‘Ne Polis ne Gangster… İkisinin arası bir şey’ Cingöz Recai Yeniden” (Neither a Police Nor a Gangster… Something In-Between, Cingöz Recai), preface written for Peyami Safa, Kral Faruk’un Elmasları Peşinde, ed. Seval Şahin, İstanbul: Ötüken Neşriyat, 2019.

“Hangi Usül Tenvir: Havagazı mı Elektrik mi?” (Which Type of Illumination: Coal Gas or Electricity), in İstanbul Araştırmaları Yıllığı, İstanbul Research Institute, 2018, 205-216.

“Nightlife and Temporal Order in fin de siécle Istanbul” in special issue titled “Inquiring Temporal Otherness: Timekeeping and Attitudes towards Time in the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire” Etudes balkaniques, 2/2017, 295-325.

“Allure of the Light, Fear of the Dark: Nighttime Illumination, Spectacle, and Order in Fin-de-Siécle Istanbul” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 2017, Vol 37, No 2, 280-298.

“Between the Real and the Imaginary: Late Ottoman Istanbul as a Crime Scene” Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association, Vol. 4, No. 1, May 2017, 95-116.

“History of Illumination with the City Gas in the Late Istanbul,” in A Tribute to Donald Quataert: History from Below, eds. Deniz Cenk Demir, Selim Karahasanoğlu, Istanbul Bilgi University Press 2016, 529-550.

“Kent, Gece ve Kadınlar” (City, Night, and Women) Saha, no.3, Nisan 2016, 57-62.

“Geç Dönem Osmanlı İstanbul’unda Kent ve Sokak Işıkları” (City and Street Lights in Late Ottoman Istanbul) Toplumsal Tarih 254, Şubat 2015, 30-37.

“İstanbul’un Yeraltı Dünyası Bıçakçı Petri ve Cinayet Destanları” (The Underworld of Istanbul, Stabber Petri and Murder Ballads) Kampfplatz, Ekim 2014, 7, 57-82.

“Rule, Misconduct and Dysfunction: The Police Forces in Theory and Practice in fin de siécle Istanbul,” in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, March 2014, vol 34, no 1, 147-159.

“Pangaltı Cinayeti, 1895: Katil Kim” (Pangaltı Murder, 1895: Who is the Killer?) in Edebiyatımızın Üvey Evladı Polisiye, ed. Seval Şahin, İstanbul: Bağlam Yayınları, 2013, 21-29.

Media Coverage

Social Media

twitter.com/nurcinileri

Country Focus

Ottoman Empire, Turkey

Expertise by Geography

Mediterranean, Middle East, Western Europe

Expertise by Chronology

19th century, Modern, 20th century

Expertise by Topic

Capitalism, Environment, Gender, Labor, Libraries & Archives, Material Culture, Museums, Science, Technology, Urban History, Women, World War I, World War II