Elif Karakaya

Elif Karakaya is a PhD candidate in Visual and Cultural Studies at the University of Rochester, New York, and currently a visiting student at the Center of Turkish, Ottoman, Balkanic, and Central Asian Studies at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in Paris. Her dissertation, Unfinished Empire: Place and Memory in Post-Ottoman Visual Art, examines how contemporary artists of Greek, Armenian, and Arab descent—descendants of communities displaced by the collapse of the Ottoman Empire—engage with inherited memories of loss and reimagine ancestral geographies through visual media.

She is also an editorial board member of InVisible Culture, a peer-reviewed journal on visual culture run by graduate students. Previously, she studied philosophy at Boğaziçi University in Istanbul and Paris 1 Panthéon- Sorbonne University. In addition to her academic work, she has translated several books from French into Turkish by authors such as Georges Didi-Huberman and Jacques Rancière. Her broader research interests include memory, migration, diaspora studies, artistic intervention in archive, and Post- Ottoman studies. 

Articles Related to Elif Karakaya

2025-06-02

Announcing the 2025 Cohort of the CCL/Mellon Foundation Seminar in Curatorial Practice

The Center for Curatorial Leadership (CCL) is pleased to announce the 2025 cohort of the CCL/Mellon Foundation Seminar in Curatorial Practice. Now in its eleventh year, the Seminar will provide twelve outstanding students from around the world with the opportunity to engage in the critical responsibilities of museums today.  The ... Read More >