Dilara Caliskan
Assistant Professor
dilarac2@illinois.edu
B.A. & B.S., Psychology, Istanbul Bilgi, 2011
M.A., Cultural Studies, Sabanci University, 2014
Dilara Caliskan (she/her) is a LGBTI+ rights activist in Turkey and a socio-cultural anthropologist. Across her activism and research, a question that drives Dilara’s work is about how studying family from trans/queer perspectives is more than focusing on gendered and sexualized ideologies of kinship; but about understanding how concepts such as time, language, and home become fused with each other as legacies of state power. Calıskan’s current book project, titled ‘A Big Family of Bad Bad Bad Girls’: Kinship, Memory, and Language among Trans Women who do Sex Work in Istanbul, positions memory as a trans/queer space of relatedness.
Teaching and Research Interests
Gender and Sexuality Studies Anthropology of Kin and Family-Making Time and Temporality Studies Memory Studies Trans/Queer Language Studies
