Reading an Alevi Ritual Manual In Early Republican Turkey: ‘Ayn-i Erkân Risâlesi

Yasemin Karakus

Date and Time

March 10, 2026
04:30PM - 06:00PM EDT

The Center for Middle Eastern Studies presents

Yasemin Karakuş
Assistant Professor in the Department of Turkish Language and Literature at Istanbul University, specializing in Ottoman Literature; Visiting Scholar, CMES.

Karakuş' research focuses on classical Ottoman poetry and prose, cultural history, and the intersections of literature with historical and social contexts. She completed her Ph.D. with a dissertation titled “Social Criticism in Classical Ottoman Prose (16th Century),” which specifically focused on how 16th-century Ottoman biographers incorporated social and moral critiques into 'şuara tezkireleri' (collections of poets' lives), analyzing the intersection of literary biography and social commentary.

As a TÜBİTAK postdoctoral fellow, she is currently working on the identification and classification of literary texts in the Alevi-Bektashi Digital Archive Project during her visiting scholarship at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University.

Contact: Liz Flanagan