Dr N. Kivilcim Yavuz

Profile

Between September 2019 and August 2022, I was the first Ann Hyde Postdoctoral Researcher at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas. At Kansas, I worked on enhancing access to the library’s substantial holdings of medieval and early modern European manuscripts by conducting new research and creating digital catalogue records for an open access digital repository for the manuscripts. Between August 2018 and August 2019, I was Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Arnamagnæan Institute at the University of Copenhagen. My work on the Latin manuscripts in the Arnamagnæan Collection resulted, among her other findings, in the rediscovery of a long-thought-to-be-lost library catalogue of Ferdinand Columbus. I serve on the Advisory Board of an ongoing project on this manuscript, ‘The Book of Books: Hernando Colón’s Libro de los Epítomes’, which is funded by the Carlsberg Foundation and which aims to create a digital edition of the fifteenth-century catalogue. Between August 2016 and August 2018, I was Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellow at the Arnamagnæan Institute at the University of Copenhagen, working on my EU-funded digital humanities project entitled ‘Transtextual Networks in the European Middle Ages: A Digital Corpus of the Trojan Narrative in Latin Manuscripts’.

I completed my doctoral studies at the Institute for Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds (2016), with a thesis entitled the ‘Transmission and Adaptation of the Trojan Narrative in Frankish History between the Sixth and Tenth Centuries’. I received my BA in Comparative Literature at Istanbul Bilgi University (2001) and my MA in Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds (2003). Between my MA and PhD studies, from 2003 to 2011, she worked in Istanbul in arts and culture, publishing, and the higher education industry, primarily in corporate communication and marketing.

I am involved in a newly establishing independent open access publishing house, Kısmet Press, as Co-founder and General Editor. In August 2021, I was elected to the Digital Medievalist Executive Board for a two-year term. In August 2022, I became the Director of the Executive Board. I also serve on the MDR (Database of Medieval Digital Resources) Committee of the Medieval Academy of America and am a member of the Advisory Board of the Transcription Challenge Framework. 

Responsibilities

• School of History Digital Education Academic Lead (2022-2023)
• Institute for Medieval Studies Steering Committee Member

Research interests

I work at the intersection of medieval studies and digital humanities with expertises in two areas: medieval historiography, specifically origin stories of medieval peoples and nations, and European manuscript culture, specifically the role of manuscripts as material artefacts in textual transmission and book history. My research interests in medieval historiography include classical reception and comparative litearture/history, particularly the reception of the story of Troy and the image of the Turk in European Middle Ages. With respect to manuscript studies, I am especially interested in digitisation of manuscripts as cultural heritage items and creation, collection and interpretation of data and metadata in the context of digital repositories. 

I post about manuscripts on Twitter and Instagram with the handle @manuscriptsetc.

<h4>Research projects</h4> <p>Some research projects I'm currently working on, or have worked on, will be listed below. Our list of all <a href="https://ahc.leeds.ac.uk/dir/research-projects">research projects</a> allows you to view and search the full list of projects in the faculty.</p>

• Digital Explorations: Opening the Medieval Manuscript Fragments from the Ripon Cathedral Library

Qualifications

• PhD in Medieval Studies, University of Leeds
• MA in Medieval Studies, University of Leeds
• BA in Comparative Literature, Istanbul Bilgi University

Professional memberships

• Digital Medievalist (Director of the Executive Board since August 2022)
• Medieval Academy of America
• Renaissance Society of America
• Society for Late Antiquity
• Association for Computers and the Humanities
• European Association for Digital Humanities
• Text Encoding Initiative Consortium
• British Comparative Literature Association
• International Comparative Literature Association

Research groups and institutes

• Women, Gender, and Sexuality
• Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums

<h4>Postgraduate research opportunities</h4> <p>We welcome enquiries from motivated and qualified applicants from all around the world who are interested in PhD study. Our <a href="https://phd.leeds.ac.uk">research opportunities</a> allow you to search for projects and scholarships.</p>