Teaching
I teach archaeology as a way of asking questions about human life: how people make homes, shape identities, remember the past, dress their bodies, use objects, and create meaning in everyday worlds.
My courses are designed for students from diverse disciplinary backgrounds, including those encountering archaeology for the first time. I combine lectures, seminars, museum visits, creative reflections, and object-based learning to help students see material culture not as passive evidence, but as something deeply entangled with human experience.
Guiding Questions
My teaching is guided by three questions:
• What can objects tell us that texts cannot?
• How do bodies, materials, and spaces shape social life?
• How can archaeology help students think critically about the present as well as the past?
In the Classroom
I aim to create a classroom where students learn to look closely, question categories, and connect ancient material worlds with contemporary debates about identity, memory, gender, heritage, and belonging.
At Kadir Has University’s Core Program, I have taught interdisciplinary undergraduate courses that bring archaeology into conversation with anthropology, history, material culture studies, gender studies, and the social sciences.
History of Humankind | Kadir Has University, Core Program · Summer 2026
A broad undergraduate course exploring major transformations in human history, from human evolution to modern societies. The course introduces students to different ways of relating to the past and asks how history, archaeology, and the social sciences shape our understanding of humanity.
Things Do Tell Tales: An Archaeology of Objects | Kadir Has University, Core Program · Spring 2026
An interdisciplinary course on material culture and the lives of objects. Through archaeology, anthropology, history, seminars, museum visits, and creative assignments, students explore how objects tell stories about memory, identity, value, labour, care, and social life.
Dressing the Past: Archaeology of Clothing, Adornment and Public Appearance | Kadir Has University, Core Program · Spring 2026
A course on dress, bodily adornment, and public appearance from prehistory to the present. Students examine how clothing, ornaments, and embodied display shape identity, gender, status, belonging, and social difference across time.
Learning the Past: Museum Visits and Workshops
