Jeannette Okur

Jeannette Okur serves as Associate Professor of Instruction and Turkish Program Coordinator at the University of Texas at Austin's College of Liberal Arts, Department of Middle Eastern Studies. She also participates in the MES & MELC GSC (Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures Graduate Studies Committee).

Dr. Okur coordinates the Turkish Studies program at UT Austin and has developed curricular materials for Turkish language instruction at all proficiency levels. She holds a Ph.D. from Ankara University (2007) and teaches courses including Intensive Turkish, Intermediate Turkish, Turkish Cinema, and Kurdish Fiction and Film.

Her research focuses on modern Turkish/Turkic literature, film and cultural studies, with particular interest in teaching culture in foreign language classrooms, comparative literature, and translation studies. Her current research explores relationships between perpetrators and victims of political violence in transnational novels by Turkish- and Iraqi-Kurdish writers in exile.

Dr. Okur's most significant publication is her openly licensed Turkish textbook 'Her Şey Bir Merhaba ile Başlar!' (Everything Begins with a Hello!), published by UT's COERLL in 2021, designed to help learners progress from Intermediate-Mid to Advanced-Mid proficiency. She also co-edited the 2022 proceedings of the 6th AATT Conference on teaching Turkish during the pandemic.

• Developed media-rich Turkish language curriculum
• Organizes UT Turkish & Ottoman Lecture Series
• Runs weekly Turkish conversation table
• Mentored students who have won 72 national/international awards