Utku, S. Buran

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Education

2005 Ataturk University, B.A.
2008 Ataturk University, M.A.
2014 Ataturk University, Ph.D.

Courses Taught

AWR 201: Academic Writing and Research

Career Specialties

Buran Utku specializes in Anglo-American fiction and world literature with a specific focus on science fiction and speculative fiction. She delves into the areas of digital and post-humanities, postcolonialism, film and culture, Anthropocene and ecocriticism, and new materialism, with a particular interest in feminist technoscience studies.

Professional and Community Activities

Utku is the co-founding and managing editor of the Journal of Posthumanism, the editor of the Posthumanism Series and advisory board of the Transnational Press London, research committee board of GIRES, scientific coordination committee member of the European Observatory on Femicide (EOF), a BIPOC committee member of IAFA and a country representative member of SFRA.

Utku is the editor of Posthumanism in Literature (2020), and the author of “Violence against Women in Science: The Future of Gender and Science in Gwyneth Jones’s Life” (Critique, 2021).  She is the co-editor of Technologies of Feminist Speculative Fiction: Gender, Artificial Life, and Politics of Reproduction (Palgrave, 2022), as well as Posthumanism in Multidisciplinary Studies (TpLondon 2022). Currently she has several forthcoming publications: Religious Futurisms (Manchester University Press), Beyond the Occident: Perspectives on Past, Present and Speculative Future in Fiction, Art, Media and Film (Routledge), first Anthology of Turkish Science Fiction (TpLondon), Shades of Violence: Multidisciplinary Reflections on Violence in Literature, Culture and Arts (TpLondon) and her monograph titled SuFi: Sufi Science Fiction (UP). 

Utku served as a long-term visiting researcher in the Department of English at the University of Florida from 2022 to 2024, and as a visiting scholar in the Department of English and Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of California Riverside from 2018 to 2022. Additionally,Utku served as a short-term international exchange lecturer and visiting academic at the University of Zagreb/Croatia, the Higher State School in Wloclawek/Poland, and the Department of Art, Design, and Humanities at De Montfort University, Leicester/UK from 2013 to 2015. Between 2006 and 2018, Utku held multiple administrative positions at various universities, which included roles such as president of international affairs, president of international projects office, faculty administrative committee and program coordinator for the Erasmus, Bologna, Mevlana and Farabi programs. Additionally, she served as the director of the Writing Center, director of curriculum design and program, curriculum committee member, assistant director of the Placement Testing Office, and director of student clubs, thus demonstrating her leadership in various academic and student-oriented programs.

Honors and Awards

Outstanding Editor Award by Transnational Press London for excellent service as the editor of the Posthumanism Series and co-founding managing editor of the Journal of Posthumanism, 2021.

The UC Speculative Futures Collective Research Grant Award by The UC Speculative Futures Collective, Speculative Futures Grant Recipient, 2020.

TUBITAK Science Fellowship Grant Award for Post-Doctoral Research Award, 2018.

Patent: Trademark Registration of Literary Value, Intellectual Property and Registration by Turkish Patent and Trademark Institution, 2016.

Scientific Promotion Award: Success in Scholarly Book in Humanities by AU, 2015.