Timothy Wright, from the Department of English Language and Literature, has published a book entitled Mutant City: Johannesburg Imaginaries in Twenty-First Century Speculative Film and Fiction, published by Wits University Press and NYU Press. The book explores the proliferation of speculative and experimental fictions set in twenty-first-century Johannesburg, focusing on how they imagine political, social, and cultural transformation in an […]
Faculty News
New book by William Coker explores the emergence of the Romantic novel
William N. Coker from the Program for Cultures, Civilization, and Ideas has published a new study on the emergence of the Romantic-era novel in Europe in the aftermath of the French Revolution. Published by Liverpool University Press, Dialectics of the Romantic Novel: Self-Estrangement, Mediation, and Narrative Form examines how the novel helped revive dialectical thought – a way of understanding the […]
PhilFest ’26 brings thousands together at Bilkent
Bilkent hosted PhilFest ’26 on September 26, welcoming students, academics and visitors from across Türkiye for a day connecting philosophy with music, art, science and everyday life. The festival featured talks, workshops, exhibitions and discussions, alongside a book fair and more than 40 philosophy societies and associations. At least 2,500 people attended the daytime events, and as many attended the […]
Ozan Hüseyin joins as BIAA–Bilkent Joint Research Fellow
Bilkent University welcomes Dr. Ozan Hüseyin as the British Institute at Ankara (BIAA)–Bilkent Joint Postdoctoral Fellow for 2026–27. A historian specialising in the late Ottoman Empire and the modern Middle East, Dr. Hüseyin examines Ottoman responses to antiquities looting, neglect, and international competition through legal reforms, museum practices, press debates, and visual sources. Dr. Hüseyin earned his PhD in History […]
Funerary garden opens at Sagalassos
A new exhibition at Sagalassos archaeology site presents the diversity of funerary traditions and monuments that shaped the ancient city’s landscape. The Funerary Garden (Mezar Bahçesi) at Sagalassos was officially opened to visitors on 21 September 2026, offering the public an accessible introduction to the funerary traditions of the ancient city and the diverse forms of burial found in its […]
The philosophy of music – a narrated classical music concert
Join us for The Philosophy of Music, a special narrated classical music concert presented as part of PHILFEST’26 in collaboration with the Bilkent Symphony Orchestra. 👉 Buy Tickets Date: September 26, 2026Time: 7:00 PMVenue: Bilkent Odeon Conductor: Tolga Atalay ÜnNarrator: A. Onur Aktaş Program Aram Khachaturian – Masquerade Suite – Waltz Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – Don Giovanni Overture Camille Saint-Saëns – […]
Ivana Bičak investigates early modern ideas of Nature at the Herzog August Bibliothek
Ivana Bičak of the Department of English Language and Literature is currently undertaking a research fellowship at the Herzog August Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel, Germany. The library is one of Europe’s leading research libraries for medieval and early modern manuscripts, rare books, and historical printed works. During her fellowship, Dr. Bičak is investigating early modern continental treatises on prelapsarian Nature in the […]
Two new books on feminist philosophy by Sandrine Bergès
Sandrine Bergès Professor Sandrine Bergès, from the Department of Philosophy, has recently published two new books: Why Read Wollstonecraft Today? (Cambridge University Press) and No Place Like Home: Women Philosophers’ Struggles with Domesticity (Oxford University Press). In Why Read Wollstonecraft Today, she offers a fresh reading of Mary Wollstonecraft’s feminist arguments, demonstrating their enduring relevance to contemporary debates in social […]
Kirill Chepurin receives Klaus Heyne Award for research in German Romanticism
Dr Kirill Chepurin from the Program in Cultures, Civilizations, and Ideas is the recipient of this year’s Klaus Heyne Award. The award, conferred by Goethe University Frankfurt, recognizes outstanding scholarly contributions in the field of German Romanticism. Dr Chepurin received the award in recognition of his important monograph Bliss against the World: Schelling, Theodicy, and the Crisis of Modernity (Oxford […]
New book by James Kinkaid explores Husserl’s influence on Heidegger
James Kinkaid, from the Department of Philosophy, has published a new study of Martin Heidegger’s early phenomenology and its complex relationship to the phenomenological project of Edmund Husserl. The book offers an opinionated introduction to Heidegger’s phenomenology, framing its central themes and ambitions in terms of Heidegger’s debts to, and departures from, Husserl. Rather than treating Heidegger’s thought in isolation, […]