Short Biography
Emine Fişek is Research Associate in the Institute for Urban and Regional Research (ISR) at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. A native of Istanbul, Fişek received her BA in English Literature and Theatre from Swarthmore College, and her PhD in Performance Studies from the University of California-Berkeley.
Fişek’s core research interest is in the relationship between theatre and politics, with special attention to questions of migration, community and memory. Her first book, Aesthetic Citizenship: Immigration and Theater in Twenty-First-Century Paris (Northwestern University Press, 2017) addressed the role played by theatrical performance in how immigration, citizenship, and national identity were addressed in Paris at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Her second book, Theatre & Community (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019) was published as part of the Theatre & Book Series and explored the history of community as an artistic or political ideal in the theatre. Fişek has published articles in Theatre Journal, Theatre Research International, Text and Performance Quarterly, Comparative Drama and French Cultural Studies. Her current research considers the impact that cultural memory, urban transformation and international migration have had on theatre in twenty-first-century Turkey.
From 2023-2028, Fişek will be the Principal Investigator of a multi-sited, collaborative research project on “Theatre and Gentrification in the European City,” funded by the European Research Council’s Consolidator Grant program.
Prior to joining the ISR, Fişek was a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of German and Romance Languages and Literatures at Johns Hopkins University (2010-2012), and Assistant (2012-2020) and Associate (2020-2023) Professor in the Department of Western Languages and Literatures at Boğaziçi University.
Research Areas
- Theatre and Performance Studies
- Migration and Memory
- Urban Transformation
- Political Theatre
Recent Publications
Fişek, Emine. (2024) "Mixing Methods in a Multi-Sited, Collaborative Project: Researching Migration, Working with Variation", The Cambridge Guide to Mixed Methods Research for Theatre and Performance Studies, edited by Tracy C. Davis and Paul Rae. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Fişek, Emine. (2022) “Whose Crisis? Syrian Refugees and the Turkish Stage,” Theatre Research International Vol. 47 (1)
Fişek, Emine. (2021) “The Mythic Migrant, The Witnessing Self: Hélène Cixous and Le Dernier Caravansérail: Odyssées” in Critical Perspectives on Contemporary Plays by Women: The Early Twenty-First Century, edited by Penny Farfan and Lesley Ferris. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press
Fişek, Emine. (2019) “Interculturalism, Humanitarianism, Intervention: Théâtre du Soleil in Kabul” in Performance and Interculturalism Now: New Directions, edited by Charlotte McIvor and Jason King. Palgrave Macmillan
Fişek, Emine. (2019) Theatre & Community. Bloomsbury Publishing
Fişek, Emine. (2018) “Palimpsests of Violence: Urban Dispossession and Political Theatre in Istanbul,” Comparative Drama, Special Issue on “Performing Turkishness: Theatre and Politics in Turkey and its Diasporas,” Hülya Adak and Rüstem Ertuğ Altınay, eds. Vol. 52 (3-4)
Fişek, Emine. (2018) “Rethinking Intouchables: Race and Performance in Contemporary France,” French Cultural Studies Vol. 29 (2)
Fişek, Emine. (2017) Aesthetic Citizenship: Immigration and Theater in Twenty-First-Century Paris. Northwestern University Press