Özge Samanci
A Room of One's Own 2717 Atwood Ave., Madison, Wisconsin 53704
Shirley Adams
Özge Samanci at a desk.
Özge Samanci
The first graphic novel by Özge Samanci, Dare to Disappoint: Growing Up in Turkey, was an autobiographical coming of age story. Samanci’s new graphic novel, Evil Eyes Sea, draws on her college years in Turkey, but this time for a fictional mystery. Set in the 1990s and Turkey’s male-dominated culture, the story follows two friends who witness a death that may or may not be an accident. They get tangled up with a corrupt politician and have to make what may be a life-altering decision. Samanci, an associate professor at Northwestern, discusses the novel with UW-Madison faculty member Nâlân Erbil.
media release: A Room of One's Own is thrilled to welcome Dr. Özge Samanci for a reading and conversation on her new graphic novel Evil Eyes Sea. Join us for this conversation with Dr. Nâlân Erbil to learn more about this feminist political mystery inspired by Özge's own life.
Special thanks to the Institute for Regional and International Studies-National Resource Center (IRIS-NRC), Kemal H Karpat Center for Turkish Studies, Middle Eastern and Mediterranean Language Institute (MEDLI), Middle East Studies Program (MESP) at UW Madison for making this event possible.
This is an in person event at A Room of One's Own.
About the Book
A feminist political mystery set in Istanbul during the 1995 elections tells the story of two broke students who witnessed an unusual death on a scuba diving expedition. As the case deepens, they become increasingly entangled with political corruption, religious pressure, and possibly murder.
The two students try to return to their every day, but their lives are increasingly entangled with the political corruption, religious pressure, and economic instability that results from their experience.
Samanci says, "The autobiographically-inspired story I tell in Evil Eyes Sea emerged from my college years in Istanbul, my quirky friends, and my struggles with being a young woman in Turkey's male-centric culture. In this book, I share a window into a country where narrow political views limit personal power — a place that can be beautiful, but also cruel."
Özge Samanci, media artist and graphic novelist, is an associate professor in Northwestern University’s School of Communication. Her interactive installations have been exhibited internationally, including Museu do Amanhã, Siggraph Art Gallery, FILE festival, Currents New Media, The Tech Museum of Innovation, WRO Media Art Biennial, Athens International Festival of Digital Arts and New Media, Piksel Electronic Arts Festival, ISEA among others. Her autobiographical graphic novel Dare to Disappoint (Farrar Straus Giroux, 2015) received international press attention and was positively reviewed in The New York Times, The Guardian, Slate along with many other media outlets. Her drawings appeared in The New Yorker, The Wall Street Journal, Slate Magazine, The Huffington Post, Airmail, Guernica, The Rumpus.
Nâlân Erbil is teaching faculty in the department of German, Nordic, and Slavic+ and pedagogy director of the Middle Eastern and Mediterranean Language Institute and the Turkish Flagship Language Initiative at UW-Madison. She holds a master of arts degree and doctorate iin Asian languages and cultures with a minor in comparative literature from UW-Madison, and a bachelor's degree in English from Boğaziçi University, Istanbul. As an interdisciplinary teacher-scholar, Nâlân teaches modern Turkish and late Ottoman languages, and migration to Europe in literature and media. Growing up in rural Turkey, she identifies as a first-generation college graduate and academic