• Degree: Began PhD program in 2021
• Concentration: Film and Screen Studies
• Advisor: Roger Hallas

M.A. Comparative Literature, Dartmouth College

B.A. English, Bogazici University

 Arda Ozyenginer is a PhD candidate in English at Syracuse University. Situated at the intersection of transnational queer and trans studies, performance studies, ethnomusicology, and Middle Eastern cultural history, Arda's dissertation explores trans nightlife cultures in Turkey in the context of the rise of political Islam, tracing how cabaret venues—known as gazino and pavyon—have, since the 1970s, operated as dense social worlds shaped by creativity, labor, and survival for trans, travesti, and lubunya bodies. Rather than approaching gazino and pavyon venues through celebratory or nostalgic frames, Arda examines how they have often been dismissed as sites of gendered exploitation and racialization under shifting moral regimes—conditions that structured gender nonconforming performers’ vulnerability since the 1970s while also obscuring the complex forms of agency and solidarity that they have forged within them. Arda has served as a teaching assistant in film studies and game studies courses in the English Department and has independently taught courses that focus on academic writing, world cinema, gender and sexuality, and critical race and ethnic studies.