Altan Atamer

Ph.D. Candidate

Education
University of Massachusetts, Boston, Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, Summa Cum Laude

My academic interests center around decolonial politics and the creation, implementation and sustenance of political identity(ies) in Turkey and the Americas. I contend that, in order to preserve their hegemony, imperial and neocolonial enterprises and institutions ascribe specific metanarratives that perpetuate inherently rigid and exclusionary identities devoid of any forms of fluidity, self-representation and recognition. Further, I focus my critique of political identity within an applied decolonial framework, paying particular attention to the endeavors of Ataturk as well as critical theorists such as Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, and Karl Marx, along with their contemporaries. In the future, I hope to generate discourse centered around a refoundational politics that contributes to the broader decolonial project.

Research Interests

Decolonialism, Political Identity, Critical Race Theory, Fanon, Said, Marxism, Representation and Recognition, African-American and Afro-Caribbean thought, Kemalism, Turkey, the Americas