Utku Can Akın

Utku Can Akın works on the late Ottoman Empire’s socio-economic, cultural, and intellectual history, extending these questions into early Republican Turkey (1920s–1940s), particularly at the intersection of science and state-building. His doctoral research examines how knowledge was produced, circulated, and institutionalised in Istanbul (c. 1839–1876), focusing on scientific and literary societies and drawing on Science and Technology Studies (STS), the history and philosophy of science and technology, and the history of medicine. He earned an MA from Boğaziçi University, where his thesis, “A Critical Perspective on Scientific and Technological Input in Late Ottoman Cotton Cultivation, 1840–1876,” analysed how tools, observation practices, and entrepreneurship reshaped cotton production and its social meanings. His work has been supported by the Istanbul Research Institute Research and Write-Up Grant (2025–26), and his article in YILLIK: Annual of Istanbul Studies received the journal’s Early Career Article Prize (2025).

Education

• MA, Boğaziçi University
• BA, Bilkent University

Current Supervisor(s)

• Milena Methodieva
• Adrien Zakar

Publications

• “Ships to Wreck: Petar Zoranić Collided with World Harmony in the Bosporus” (with Mustafa Türkan), YILLIK: Annual of Istanbul Studies 7 (2025): 29–49. https://doi.org/10.53979/yillik.1691701 (recipient of the YILLIK: Annual of Istanbul Studies Early Career Article Prize, 2025).
• “The Holographic Atatürk: From Commemorative Pageantry to Technological Resurrection” (with Mustafa Türkan), Celebrity Studies.https://doi.org/10.1080/19392397.2025.2598207 (published online 4 December 2025).

Presentations (Selected)

• “How Not to Contextualise Materialism in Ottoman Historiography.” Scientiae 2025: Istanbul (Istanbul University, Faculty of Letters), 16–19 September 2025 (selected).