Academic interests
- Modern Arabic and Turkish Literature
- Global and Arab-Anglophone Fiction
- Middle Eastern Studies
- Futurisms
- Environmental Humanities
- Speculative Fiction
- Anthropocene
- Feminist Theory
Background
Merve Tabur is lecturer in Comparative Literature at Utrecht University. She also works as a researcher affiliated with the ERC-funded CoFutures project at the University of Oslo.
Merve is a scholar of comparative literature and environmental humanities whose research examines representations of environmental destruction in speculative fiction, film, and the visual arts from the Middle East and its Anglophone diasporas. She works with Arabic, Turkish, and Anglophone sources that tackle issues such as climate change, extractivism, extinction, and environmental justice. Her research critically engages with the discourse of the Anthropocene and demonstrates how cultural production in the Middle East challenges and redefines universalist conceptualizations of the term. Her current book project examines conceptions of futurity and environmental justice in the Middle East from a comparative perspective.
Merve has received her Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Penn State University, where she has taught comparative literature, world literature, English composition, and Arabic language courses. She is a co-creator of the "Unraveling the Anthropocene: Race, Environment, and Pandemic" podcast series, run by the Liberal Arts Collective at Penn State. Merve has also translated academic books and articles on topics such as gender politics, cultural history, and literary theory.
Education
Ph.D. Pennsylvania State University, Comparative Literature
MA Dartmouth College, Comparative Literature
MA Boğaziçi University, History
BA Boğaziçi University, Sociology and History
Publications
Peer-reviewed articles
"Settling the Desert, Unsettling the Mirage: Urban Ecologies of Arab and Gulf Futurisms in Ahmed Naji's Using Life." Utopian Studies , vol. 35, no. 1, 2024, pp. 187-208. https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.35.1.0187
“Once Upon a Time in the Anthropocene: Myths, Legends, and Futurity in Turkish Climate Fiction.” Middle Eastern Literatures, vol. 26, no. 1, 2023, 76-98. pp. https://doi.org/10.1080/1475262X.2023.2223161
"A View from the Moon: Allegories of Representation in Tawfīq al-Ḥakīm and HG Wells." Alif: Journal of Comparative Poetics 39 (2019): 63-90. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26596424
Book chapters
Tabur, Merve and Chattopadhyay, Bodhisattva. "CoFutures." Arabofuturs: Science-fiction et nouveaux imaginaires, edited by E. Bouffard, N. Dehina, and J. Grandjean. Paris: Manuella Editions, 2024.
Edited issues
Kayışçı Akkoyun, Burcu, Atasoy, Emrah, and Tabur, Merve. "Critical Forum Introduction: Cultural Encounters and Textual Speculations in the Mediterranean." Utopian studies, vol. 35, no. 1, 2024, pp. 127-131. https://doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.35.1.0127
Select translations
Erturk, Nergis. Grammatology and Literary Modernity in Turkey. Oxford UP, 2011. [ T ürkiye'de Gramatoloji ve Edebi Modernlik . İletişim Press, 2018.]
'Honor': Crimes, Paradigms and Violence Against Women . Eds. Lynn Welchman and Sara Hossain. Zed Books, 2005. [ Manners . Translated with Ayten Sönmez, Canan Tanır and Sinem Şekercan. BGST Press, 2014.]
McCants, William F. Founding Gods, Inventing Nations: Conquest and Culture Myths from Antiquity to Islam . Princeton UP, 2012. [ Kültür Mitleri: Tanrıları Yaratmak, Ulusları İnşa Etmek . İthaki Press, 2012.]
Scott, Joan W. The Politics of the Veil . Princeton UP, 2010. [ Örtünmenin Siyaseti . Boğaziçi UP, 2012.]