Assistant Editor
Turkish
First Language(s): Turkish
Second Language(s):
English,
German
Eren Paydaş was born in İzmir, Turkey and now lives between Berlin and İstanbul. He studied law in Turkey, and while pursuing his academic career in Turkey in the field of Philosophy of Law, he also worked as a translator and musician. His life took a turn after signing a petition named "Academics for Peace," forcing him to leave Turkey due to political tensions. In 2016, he arrived in Germany. While working on his PhD dissertation, which focused on comparing creation myths and constitutions, he began participating in reading and discussion groups, primarily with people from the Global South.
Through these interactions, he became increasingly involved in exploring ways of expressing the self and understanding others in a non-native language. He witnessed the political and cultural significance of transforming English into a different kind of lingua franca, where experiences of histories and subjectivities of remote geographies became intelligible to each other through a tongue that is partially imposed and fully foreign to all.
He's the author of the book Tales of the Constituent Moment (Nomos Verlag, 2023), which compares creation myths from around the world with modern constitutions. Recently, he contributed to a critical encyclopedia project that narrates "The 100 Years of Turkey through 100 Objects" (Alfa Press, 2024). In recent years, he has been working as a journalist, editor, and translator in multilingual outlets, including Die Tageszeitung. Meanwhile, he has also served as a coordinator for Off-University, an institution that supports persecuted scholars from around the world, promoting academic freedom.
Supported by:
