Dr. Mehmetcan Akpinar

Biography

Mehmetcan Akpinar is an Assistant Instructional Professor in Islamic Studies at the University of Chicago's Divinity School and the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. His research focuses on Early Medieval Islamic History and thought, particularly exploring the questions of transmission and intertextuality within Arabic historical and religious traditions. Akpinar's work scrutinizes scholarly mobility, textual transmission, and the social, religious, intellectual, and historical contexts surrounding these texts, editing new sources from the 8th century. His dissertation, "Narrative Representations of Abu Bakr in the 2nd/8th century," critically investigates the earliest Islamic narrative sources concerning the caliphate and offers a novel methodological approach to examine the conflicting reports of prominent figures in Early Islam. His significant contributions have been recognized with awards such as the Gorgias Press International Classical Islamic World Book Prize and mentions from the British Association for Islamic Studies and De Gruyter International Prize for the Study of Islam in the Muslim World. Akpinar is currently engaged in projects focusing on travelling texts of scholars during the Umayyad and Abbasid periods and is involved in collaborative editing and translation efforts to make key 8th-century sources available to the scholarly community.

Research Interests

Experience