Symposium Presidents:
İbrahim Okan Akkın is a graduate of Middle East Technical University (METU, 2007) Department of Philosophy. He completed his MA (METU, 2011) with his thesis concerning the possibility of participatory democracy in light of Hannah Arendt’s theory of action, Rousseau’s notion of direct democracy and Habermasian theories of communicative action and decentred models of deliberation. In his PhD dissertation (METU, 2017), he focused on Deleuze’s conception of difference and becoming with an eye to trace the political outcomes of the ontology of becoming in contemporary art. His main areas of interest are social & political philosophy, aesthetics, history of art, mythology, 17th & 18th-century philosophy, contemporary philosophy and 21th-century philosophy. Between January 2010-June 2017, Akkın worked as a Research Assistant at METU, Department of Philosophy. In January 2017 he became a faculty member at Ardahan University, Department of Philosophy. Since January 2017, he is serving as the chair of the Department of Philosophy, and in July 2018 he was nominated as the Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Humanities & Literature at Ardahan University. During his PhD at METU, Akkın took part in the amateur theatre club of the university, and ever since he has been particularly interested in interdisciplinary studies on performance art and political theory. Apart from philosophy, travelling is the most indispensable engagement of his life.
Assist. Prof. Dr. Berivan Vargün is a faculty member of the Department of Sociology at Ardahan University. She received her BA degree from the Faculty of Language and History, Geography at Ankara University with her thesis; entitled, “an Investigation of the Ritual of Sacrificing in Terms of Symbolic Anthropology”. She received her MA degree from the School of Social Sciences at Ankara University with her thesis (based on field research); entitled, “an Investigation of the Points of View Concerning the Concept of Virginity as a Cultural Value in Terms of Social Anthropology”. In her PhD dissertation; entitled, “an Investigation of the Points of View Concerning Honour Crimes in Batman and Şanlıurfa in terms of Social Anthropology”, which she completed, again, at Ankara University, Vargün has examined the issues of social gender, family, chastity, culture and value. Her main areas of interest are transition rituals, customs-traditions, cultural images and symbols, mythology, social/cultural anthropology, symbolic patterns and myths shaping daily life, folk beliefs and their impact upon social life through the processes of cultural transition, social gender and rural senility. Besides her academic studies, Vargün has developed an interest in the matters of ethics, ethical leadership, quality management systems, human relations, communicational institutional behavior and formation of institutional culture, and she has undergone expert-trainings upon these issues, provided by several institutions and organizations.
Symposium Chair:
Dr Tonguç Seferoğlu did his undergraduate work at Middle East Technical University Department of Philosophyand also completed an Master’s there in 2013. He graduated from King’s College London in 2018 where he obtained his PhD in Philosophy for a thesis on Plato’s Phaedo. Dr Seferoğlu’sresearch interests centre around ancient Greek philosophy. He is interested in the role of dialogue form in Plato’s writings and Plato’s metaphilosophy. He also has interests in Neoplatonist tradition, especially their commentaries on Plato’s dialogues. During his Phd studies at King’s College London, Dr Seferoglu led weekly tutorial for modules on ancient Greek philosophy, Hume, Descartes and epistemology. Dr Seferoglu joined Ardahan University Department of Philosophy in 2019.
Erman Kaçar is a research assistant in the Department of Philosophy in Ardahan University. He is a graduate of Ankara University Department of Mathematics (Algebra and Geometry) and received his master’s degree from the Department of Philosophy (Systematic Philosophy and Logic), Ankara University. On his master thesis (A.U. 2016), Kaçar conducted a comparative analysis of the concepts of ‘the One’ and ‘the Void’ in the ontologies of Badiou and Spinoza. He worked on Badiou and Lacan ontologies, and gave seminars on Lacan ontology and topology. He calls contemporary French philosophy “the new face of philosophy” and focuses on the modern and postmodern spirit of this new face of philosophy in his work. In this context, his fields of study are ontology, ethics, psychoanalysis, mythology, post-structuralism and contemporary French philosophy. He is currently working on a PhD thesis entitled “Looking Through the Nietzsche(s’) Eye(s) on the Possibility of Morality: Nietzsche versus Kant”.
Neşe Şenel is a research assistant in the Department of English Language and Literature, Ardahan University. She graduated in 2012, with her BA major in American Culture and Literature and her minor in International Relations. She completed her MA in English Language and Literature at Erciyes University in 2015 with a master thesis entitled “An Ecofeminist Reading on Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Starhawk’s The Fifth Sacred Thing.” She is currently writing her PhD dissertation entitled as “A Comparative Analysis of Death and Suicide within the Poetry of Sylvia Plath and Nilgün Marmara” as a PhD student at Pamukkale University in the Department of English Language and Literature. Her research interests include ecocriticism, ecofeminism, gender studies, postmodern dystopian & utopian fiction, confessional poetry and psychoanalysis.
Secretariat:
Having graduated with a BA degree in 2008 at the Department of Journalism, Faculty of Communication, Erciyes University, with a BA thesis entitled as “The Importance of Bulletin and Advertising for the Local Press of Kayseri”, Cemre Karadaş graduated with an MA degree in 2018 from the Institute of Social Sciences, Ardahan University with her MA thesis entitled as “An Analysis of the Model of Political Elitism and Powerful Democratic Elitism”. Having entitled to attain the certificates of European Union Education and Sign Language, Karadaş worked as a teacher of Journalism at the Communication High School, and as an instructor of photography at the Public Education Center. She also has carried out the duties of working as written and visual media journalist/correspondent and page secretariat at various national and local TV and newspapers primarily of Dogan News Agency and Hürriyet. Karadaş, whose research interests include communication, journalism, media, political science, and political communication, currently pursues her preparation studies for the PhD programme and works at the office of private secretary of the Faculty of Fine Arts at Ardahan University.
Press Advisor:
Yaşar Öztürk is working as a Media and Public Relations Manager at Ardahan University. Öztürk, completed his bachelor’s degree at Near East University Department of Communication (2007). Öztürk, received his master’s degree from the Department of Business Management Cambridge College USA (2013). In 2018, he has started working as an academic member at the Department of Marketing and Advertising at Ardahan University. He is currently as a PhD student at Atatürk University Basic Communication Sciences Department. His Phd dissertation entitled as Digital Gastronomy: YouTube Food Influencers and Local Food Cultures. His research interests include culture industry, social media and food culture.
III. International Symposium on Mythology 