Recommendations

This page is broader than a limited resource list formed around my academic interests. Alongside publications that inform my professional work, I bring together personal discoveries from literature, music and cinema. My choices are shaped not by popularity, recency or a single standard of evaluation, but by the space each work has opened in my thinking and experience. The result includes markedly different periods, genres and forms of expression. Rather than a finished and unchanging list, the page should be read as a personal cultural archive that continues to develop as I read, listen and watch.

Listening

Some music stays with us well beyond the moment in which we hear it. The pieces gathered here have accompanied different parts of my life: hours of work, journeys, and times when I simply wanted quiet company. Different languages, periods and musical traditions sit side by side because my relationship with music has never remained within the boundaries of a single genre. At times a compelling performance was enough to bring a piece here; at others it was a memorable melody or an unexpected connection with a moment from the past. This evolving playlist can be played directly on the page or opened in Spotify.

Gulls rising along the waterfront, with the bay and hills beyond — Alsancak, İzmir · February 2015

Reading

Here I keep the books that have stayed alive in my mind. Some made me rethink my views, others stayed with me through their characters or their language. Literature, thought, mythology and psychology sharing one shelf is a natural result of my reading history. The list is not a ranking but a reading journal that will keep growing. Click a cover to open its Goodreads page.

Cover of Papirüs: Antik Dünyada Kitapların İcadı

Papirüs: Antik Dünyada Kitapların İcadıIrene Vallejo

On İkiye Bir VarHaldun Taner

HobbitJ. R. R. Tolkien

Bir Dinozorun AnılarıMina Urgan

Güz Alacakaranlığı EjderhalarıMargaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

Dört Yol Ağzından ÖykülerVarious authors

MülksüzlerUrsula K. Le Guin

İyi Hissetmek: Yeni Duygudurum TedavisiDavid D. Burns

Benim Adım KırmızıOrhan Pamuk

Palyatif Toplum: Günümüzde AcıByung-Chul Han

Anayurt OteliYusuf Atılgan

Mitoloji ve Felsefe: Büyük Yunan Mitlerinin AnlamıLuc Ferry

Amerikan TanrılarıNeil Gaiman

Sakin Olmak: Yaşlanırken KazandıklarımızWilhelm Schmid

Esir Şehrin İnsanlarıKemal Tahir

Baldıran Kâsesi: Sokrates, Atina ve İyi Hayat ArayışıBettany Hughes

Yorgunluk Çağı: Daha Anlamlı Bir Yaşam MümkünAslı Aktümen

Yeniden Çarmıha Gerilen İsaNikos Kazancakis

Cover of Hayatın Anlamı ve Büyük Filozoflar

Hayatın Anlamı ve Büyük FilozoflarStephen Leach and James Tartaglia (Eds.)

SarıyazMahir Ünsal Eriş

Yüzüklerin EfendisiJ. R. R. Tolkien

Mutsuz Olmak: Bir YüreklendirmeWilhelm Schmid

Dar Koridor: Devletler, Toplumlar ve Özgürlüğün GeleceğiDaron Acemoğlu and James A. Robinson

BüyülenmeHermann Broch

Watching

This section makes no claim to rank the defining works of cinema history. Its films were chosen because they remind me of moments when cinema moves beyond the simple telling of a story. Some have earned a place in my cinematic memory through their characters, some through the relationship between image and sound, some through the atmosphere they create, and others through questions whose answers are left to the viewer after the film ends. The presence of films from different countries, periods and directorial traditions reflects that varied viewing experience. I think of this not as a completed favourites list, but as a personal viewing notebook of films I want to revisit and share. Click a poster to open the film’s MUBI page.