Ela Gezen
Photo: Annette Hornischer

Associate Professor of German, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Ellen Maria Gorrissen Fellow - Class of Spring 2023

Ela Gezen is an associate professor of German at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her work covers twentieth-century German and Turkish literature and culture, with a special focus on literatures of migration, minority discourses, historical and theoretical accounts of transnationalism, and literary and cultural theory. She completed her undergraduate degree at the Freie Universität Berlin, MA at Indiana University, and PhD at the University of Michigan. Gezen is author of Brecht, Turkish Theater, and Turkish-German Literature: Reception Adaptation, and Innovation after 1960 (Camden House, 2018), and the co-editor of Minorities and Minority Discourse in Germany since 1990 (Berghahn, 2022) as well as of two special issues, Colloquia Germanica (“Transnational Hi/Stories: Turkish-German Texts and Contexts”) and the Jahrbuch Türkisch-deutsche Studien (“Turkish-German Studies: Past, Present, and Future”). Together with Ben Schoefield, she co-edits the book series Transnational Approaches to Culture DeGruyter). Her work has been supported by the Europe in the Middle East (EUME), among others.

Project Description

Cultures in Migration: Turkish Artistic Practices and Cultural-Political Interventions in West Berlin

Gezen’s Academy project, “Cultures in Migration: Turkish Artistic Practices and Cultural-Political Interventions in West Berlin,” is situated at the nexus of cultural studies, history, migration studies, and the study of cultural policy. She examines cultural practices by Turkish artists, academics, and intellectuals during the late 1970s and early 1980s as an early manifestation of Turkish self-presentation in West Germany, and specifically as a key part of the formation of a Turkish public sphere in West Berlin. Central to this process, Gezen argues, was the founding of—and interactions among—cultural institutions designed to promote a variety of events in which culture was understood as an important factor within discourses on integration (as opposed to assimilation). Her project will prompt a reconsideration of past Turkish-German encounters and map out how their cultural-political legacies inflect contemporary cultural relations.

Academy Activities

16 Mar 23
Turkish Artistic Practices in West Berlin German Studies

Ellen Maria Gorrissen Lecture

Turkish Artistic Practices in West Berlin

Ela Gezen takes a closer look at the Turkish artists, intellectuals, and academics who founded numerous associations in West Berlin throughout the 1970s and '80s.

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27 Feb 23

Fellow Spotlight: Ela Gezen

Ela Gezen is an associate professor of German at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. At the Academy, she is working on a project entitled “Cultures in Migration: Turkish Artistic Practices and Cultural-Political Interventions in West Berlin,” which is situated at the nexus of cultural stud ...

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16 Mar 23

Turkish Artistic Practices in West Berlin

Turkish artists, intellectuals, and academics founded numerous associations in West Berlin throughout the 1970s and 80s, such as the German-Turkish Society and the Türkenzentrum e.V. The central objectives of these institutions were to promote Turkish culture beyond ethnic folklore, formulate commo ...

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