Meet the Professor: Duygu Ula

Professor Duygu Ula is a Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Barnard First-Year Writing faculty. 

What classes are you teaching this semester?

I’m teaching three sections of a First-Year Writing course titled “Subverting the Script.” We’re reading texts by feminist and queer authors who challenge dominant narratives of race, gender, sexuality, nationality and citizenship, both through content and form. We are exploring questions of erasure, of creating alternative archives, and of how we, as scholars and readers, might push back against dominant scripts that shape our understanding of the world. This year, I’ve included some visual components as well – we’ve looked at artwork by Zanele Muholi, and the film Watermelon Woman by Cheryl Dunye – which was particularly exciting for me, as most of my own research focuses on queer visual media. 

What's your (heroic) backstory?

I’m a bit of a nomad. I was born and raised in Istanbul, Turkey, then I moved to the United States when I was 17 to attend Wellesley College, where I studied literature and film. I then moved back home to do a Master’s degree in Cultural Studies, and then came back to the United States, to do my Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan. During my Ph.D. years, I also lived in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia as part of my research, and now I’m mostly based in New York. This constant movement across borders have shaped my perspective deeply – both because I continually have to think about what it means to be an immigrant, and in terms of my research, which focuses broadly on how queerness is theorized and visualized outside of the Global North, specifically in the Balkans and the Middle East. 

Why teach First-Year Writing? 

The skills we teach in First-Year Writing are building blocks for everything that comes after: reading a text closely and deconstructing how an author achieves a particular effect; using critical theory to make sense of phenomena, whether that’s a text or a real-life event; developing complex, evidence-based arguments that are informed by scholarly research. Not only are these skills necessary for doing more advanced work in students’ future discipline, but they also equip students to engage with the world around them through a critical and intentional lens. I love seeing them take the skills we practice in the classroom and use them to analyze and deconstruct their own experiences in the world.  

What's your favorite part of teaching at Barnard? 

First and foremost, I’d have to say my students. I am continually impressed and energized by their enthusiasm and curiosity, their willingness to engage and open themselves up, and their unwavering support for one another as we tackle the complex and necessary conversations in my classes, 2020, and the world at large demands of us. My other favorite part about teaching at Barnard is my community in the First-Year Writing Program. I care a lot about antiracist, inclusive and feminist pedagogy, and finding a community of colleagues who cares about this as much as I do, who are willing to have conversations about race, gender, power and authority in the classroom, and who are unbelievably generous with their support and advice has made my transition to Barnard a really joyful experience.  

Why did you decide to teach at a historically women's college?

Predictably, in part because I went to a historically women’s college – Wellesley – myself. Being in an intentionally feminist space and a liberal arts environment where I had so much access to my professors helped me grow both as a person and as a scholar. I love the idea of being in and creating a space that is geared primarily and intentionally for women, trans*, nonbinary and queer students, that strives to upend oppressive dynamics that can go unchallenged in male-dominated spaces. 

Alyx Bernstein is a sophomore at Barnard and the Jewish Theological Seminary studying Comparative Literature (thanks in no small part to Professor Ula) and Talmud.