Dr. Esra Akkaya

Lecturer, Faculty of Humanities, University of Duisburg-Essen

Vita

since 2024 Lecturer in the Alfred Landecker Lecturer Programme,
Institute for Romance Languages and Literatures, University of Duisburg-Essen
Research project: 'Revisiting Turkish-Jewish History: Combating Anti-Semitism through Romance Philology'

2023 - 2024 Postdoctoral Fellowship, Comparative Literature, at the Martin Buber Society of Fellows, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Research project: 'The Writings of Beki L. Bahar (1926-2011): A Prolific Sephardic Turkish Author'

2019 - 2023 PhD, Romance Philology, Free University of Berlin
Dissertation: 'Schreiben ohne Macht: Sarah Kofmans Hinwendung zum literarischen Text' funded by Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich Studienwerk (2019-2022) and Ursula-Lachnit-Fixson Foundation (2022-2023) in association with the Selma Stern Centre for Jewish Studies

2014 - 2016 Master of Arts, Crossways in Cultural Narratives
Erasmus Mundus Masters Programme of Cultural and Literary Studies (Joint Degree)
Sept 2014 - Jan 2015 at Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Feb 2015 - Jan 2016 at The University of Sheffield
Feb 2016 - Jun 2016 at Université de Perpignan Via Domitia

2010 - 2014 Bachelor of Arts, Philosophy, English and American Studies, Ruhr University Bochum

Focus of Work

Esra Akkaya is a literary scholar at the Institute for Romance Languages and Literatures at the University of Duisburg-Essen.

Her academic interests include women’s writing, Jewish literatures, Romance and Turkish literatures, Cultural and Literary History. Recent publications concern writings of resistance and anti-essentialism, and deal with works by Sarah Kofman, Gloria Anzaldúa and Beki L. Bahar.

As an Alfred Landecker Lecturer, her current project focuses on Turkish-Jewish histories and literatures, exploring texts written in Ladino, French, and Turkish.

Publications (selection)

Monografie
Sarah Kofmans literarisches Werk. Frankreichs verdrängte Gedächtnisse. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2025. [im Druck]
 

Wissenschaftliche Artikel (peer-reviewed)
„Textual Intervention during the Spanish Civil War: Voices of Solidarity from Turkey”, in: Raanan Rein / Susanne Zepp-Zwirner (Hrsg.), Untold Stories of the Spanish Civil War. London: Routledge 2023.

„Textual Palimpsests: Unfolding Becoming in Más antes en los ranchos”, in: Marília  Jöhnk / Elena von Ohlen (Hrsg.), La actualidad de Gloria Anzaldúa. Nuevas lecturas de Borderlands/La Frontera. The New Mestiza. HeLix. Dossiers zur Romanischen Literaturwissenschaft, 2025. [im Druck]

 „Poetic Objection in Sarah Kofman’s Shoah (ou la Dis-Grâce)”, in: Laura Schmitz-Justen / Hanna Luise Kroll / Laura Wittmann / Laura Zander (Hrsg.), Feminist Perspectives on Law and Literature. Berlin: de Gruyter 2025. [im Druck]

„Sarah Kofman’s Literary Writing Facing Historical Revisionism“, in: Dubnow Institute Yearbook, Vol. 20., Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2025. [zur Publikation angenommen]

Keywords

Jewish literatures, Sephardic literatures and histories, Romance literatures, Turkish literatures, cultural and literary history

Casegroup

Languages and Cultural Studies, Art and Design