Bilal Akar

Cultural Sociology, Decolonial Studies, Theater and Performance Studies, Kurdish Studies
**University of Milan
**University of Vienna
**Playwright

[Bilal Akar @bil_akar]

Dear committee,
I regret to inform you that I was unable to act favorably on your rejection. This year's rejections far exceeded my capacity, and I was unable to accept many worthwhile rejections.
I have to reject your rejection.
Best of luck in your rejections!
#AcademicTwitter

[Bilal Akar @bil_akar]

@iftrcomms I would also like to thank Professors R. Ertuğ Altınay and Christina Banalopoulou for their support.

[Bilal Akar @bil_akar]

I have some good news! I was awarded the IFTR (International Federation for Theatre Research) New Scholar Prize.

“Do you know Koma Demhat?”
IFTR World Congress 2026

@iftrcomms

[Bilal Akar @bil_akar]

@iftrcomms I am deeply grateful to Fewzî Bilge and Mewlüt Oğuz, without whom this year-and-a-half-long research would not have been possible, and to all Koma Demhat members, hosts, and spectators who shared their stories with me.

[Bilal Akar @bil_akar]

@iftrcomms Through fifty-seven performances between 1988 and 1991, until the repeal of the ban on the Kurdish language, they turned homes into an underground counter-public sphere and kept stories of forced migration, oppression, resistance, and joy alive.

[Bilal Akar @bil_akar]

@iftrcomms Formed in 1988 by street vendors, rice sellers, mussel sellers, homemakers, university students, and a small number of artists, Koma Demhat collectively wrote their own plays, rehearsed in the basements of performers’ homes, and performed secretly in homes across Istanbul

[Bilal Akar @bil_akar]

@iftrcomms In the article, I approach Istanbul as a Kurdish diasporic city shaped by forced migration from Northern Kurdistan and by the conditions of colonial rule.

[Bilal Akar @bil_akar]

@iftrcomms My article, “Subaltern Counter-Publics and the Underground Stage: Koma Demhat and the Politics of Kurdish Performance in Turkey,” focuses on Koma Demhat, an amateur Kurdish theatre collective active in Istanbul in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

[yektan turkyilmaz @yektantyilmaz]

Halkın cihadistlerin eline düşmesi, o fanatikletin “vicdanına” kalması ihtimali gerçekten aklımı yiyip bitiriyor. Ya elden gelen herşey yapılacak ya da -kimimiz fiziken, kimimiz aklen, kimimiz vicdanen-buradan hiç kimse sağlam çıkamayacak!

[Bilal Akar @bil_akar]

@OsmanOzarslann Kaleminize sağlık, selamlar

[Bilal Akar @bil_akar]

Taze bitti, tadı damağımda.
Hovarda Alemi'nin de yazarı olan
Osman Özarslan'ın romanı Hafriyat

[Bilal Akar @bil_akar]

pokerin kendine has jargonu ise bu geçidin vardığı diyarın lisanıdır."

[Bilal Akar @bil_akar]

I got the American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR) Thomas Marshall Award!
Celebrating from Vienna since I don’t have a US visa to attend the conference ceremony in Denver.

[Bilal Akar @bil_akar]

This year, I’ll be at the Institute für Orientalistik/Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of Vienna, as a visiting researcher.

[Bilal Akar @bil_akar]

I am on UK tour.
I will present my papers at
University of Warwick on August 28
&
London Guildhall School of Music&Drama on September 4

[Bilal Akar @bil_akar]

I will present my paper at the conference:
Narrative Matters 2025
Disparate Narrative Worlds: Crisis, Conflict, and the Possibility of Hope
13-16 May 2025, Paris

Universite Paris Cite and The American University of Paris

[Bilal Akar @bil_akar]

I am presenting my paper titled
The “Kurdish Princess” of Modern Dance, Leila Bederkhan:Decolonial Historiography, Archival Gaps, and Intangible Performance Heritage
at
International Conference “Decolonising Cultural Heritage”, Siena, May 5-7, 2025

[Evrensel Gazetesi @evrenselgzt]

#SırrıSüreyyaÖnder'in kızı Ceren Önder Kandemir, babasının ardından seslendi: "Babalığa doyurdun beni ama dostluğuna doyamadım. O dostluğa doyulur mu?"

[Norveç Kürdü @norveclikurd]

AKM’nin içinde salon hınca hınç dolu. Koridorlar çok kalabalık. Bir de dışarıda binler var. Buradayız Sırrı abi. Tam da Gezi parkının karşısında