Dr. Selim Kuru

Biography

Selim Sırrı Kuru is an Associate Professor and the Director of the Turkish Ottoman Studies Program at the University of Washington. He specializes in medieval and early modern Western Anatolian Turkish literature, with a strong foundation in philology. His research spans from the 14th to the early 20th centuries, focusing particularly on the pivotal late 15th and early 16th centuries. He explores literature's universal human experience, with particular attention to gender, literary circles, and competition among Anatolian Turkic city-states during the Ottoman Empire. Kuru's research interests include the development of Western Anatolian Turkish as a written medium in 13th-century Anatolia and its evolution into the official literary language of the Ottoman Empire, which has become a foundational aspect of Turkish identity in the Republic of Turkey. His current projects involve the translation of five late 18th-century versified narratives and the editing of an early 16th-century Ottoman Turkish literary text. Kuru aims to create a dynamic learning environment for his students, encompassing a broad range of literary works and cultural contexts from the Ottoman and modern Turkish literary heritage.

Research Interests