Meltem Şafak joined NCSSM in July 2023 as an Instructor of American Studies and Humanities on our Morganton campus. She earned her doctorate in the Department of Comparative Literature and Intercultural Studies at the University of Georgia with a focus on memory in Armenian and Turkish literatures. While at UGA, she taught a range of courses as a graduate teaching assistant and part-time instructor, including World Literature, Black Diaspora Literature, and Multiethnic American Literature. Her research interests include genocide studies, 19th- and 20th-century Ottoman history and literature, gender and identity studies, and diaspora studies. Meltem grew up in Turkey, and the multicultural nature of the region influenced her academic interests. She wrote about male hysteria in the 19th-century Ottoman novels, shared urban spaces of Ottoman-Muslim and Ottoman-Armenian communities, and the literary transformation of Armenian diasporic and Turkish national narratives. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Turkish language and literature at Boğaziçi University, her master’s degree in cultural studies at Istanbul Şehir University, and a second master’s in comparative history at Central European University. Meltem is an avid reader with a special interest in detective fiction. She also enjoys traveling, knitting, and painting.   BA, Turkish Language and Literature, Boğaziçi University MA, Cultural Studies, Istanbul Şehir University MA, Comparative History, Central European University PhD, Comparative Literature and Intercultural Studies, University of Georgia