Secil Yilmaz

Secil Yilmaz is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania's School of Arts & Sciences. Her research focuses on Ottoman social and intellectual history, particularly the intersections of sexuality, gender, medicine, and colonialism. She holds a Ph.D. from The Graduate Center, CUNY, and has held postdoctoral fellowships at Cornell University. Her current book project examines syphilis and biopolitical governance in the late Ottoman Empire. Yilmaz co-curates a podcast on Ottoman gender studies and has published on topics such as sexually transmitted diseases in imperial contexts and post-1980s Turkish cultural memory.

• Education: Ph.D., CUNY Graduate Center (History); M.A., Boğaziçi University (History); B.A., Middle East Technical University (History & Sociology)

Her research interests span Ottoman medicine, queer and feminist studies, and the history of emotions. She explores how life sciences and governance intersected in colonial and imperial settings. Recent articles analyze vectors of disease as political tools and colonial legacies in Middle Eastern sexuality studies.

Awards: 2017 Malcolm H. Kerr Dissertation Award. Courses Taught: 'Sex Matters: Politics of Sex in the Modern Middle East.'