Prof. ZEYNEP ZEREN ATAYURT FENGE

     I received my BA and MA degrees in English Language and Literature from Ankara University in 1999 and 2002, respectively. Between 2002 and 2008, I pursued postgraduate studies at the University of Leeds with a scholarship from the Council of Higher Education in Türkiye. I completed my second MA degree in Twentieth Century Literature in 2003 and received my PhD in 2008 with a dissertation on the representations of female embodiment in contemporary women’s writing. I have been affiliated with the Department of English Language and Literature at Ankara University since 1999, beginning as a research assistant and subsequently serving as assistant professor and associate professor, before being appointed professor in 2024.    

     My academic research has been diverse in its theoretical scope, encompassing cultural studies and health humanities within the critical cultural context of representations of the body and gender in 20th and 21st century English literature, particularly in the novel and the short story. My recent publications have concentrated on body and embodiment theories, culinary imagery in English literature, disability studies, and, most recently, representations of ageing in women’s writing. I have taught in these subjects internationally via the Erasmus academic staff mobility scheme at Parma University and Chemnitz University of Technology, as well as teaching in the role of guest lecturer and invited speaker at the University of Mazandaran in Iran. In addition, I have translated works by D.H. Lawrence, Angela Carter, and Wilkie Collins into Turkish.

    I also contributed to the publication processes of the Ankara University Journal of the Faculty of Languages and History-Geography from 2010 to 2022, serving as a member of the editorial board and later as the associate editor. Between 2019 and 2023, I worked as the director of the School of Foreign Languages at Ankara University.

    I teach courses on cultural studies, the contemporary British short story and the novel, and representations of the body in literature. I have supervised many master’s and doctoral theses, participated as a jury member in thesis monitoring committees and vivas, and continue to serve on academic review boards both within and outside the institution.