Feyda Sayan-Cengiz is a political sociologist whose research explores the intersections of gender politics, identity, authoritarian populism, Islamic cultural patterns, and therapeutic culture in contemporary Turkey. She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Bilkent University in 2014 and was a visiting researcher at Columbia University’s Department of Anthropology in 2009–2010. Before joining Manisa Celal Bayar University in 2018, she served as an assistant professor in the Media Studies Department at Istanbul Bilgi University.

Sayan-Cengiz’s scholarship follows two main trajectories. First, she examines the contestations over identity in Turkey’s gender politics and their representations in popular culture with a focus on Islamic self-help and therapeutic discourses. Secondly, she investigates the discursive, performative and affective dimensions of populist radical right politics, particularly in the context of increasing polarization. Her research has been supported by the Turkish Scientific and Technological Research Institute (TÜBİTAK), the Bonn University STEP Program, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

Her first book, Beyond Headscarf Culture in Turkey’s Retail Sector (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), critically analyzes the entanglements of identity politics surrounding the headscarf issue and the dynamics of insecurity in the labor market. Her articles have appeared in Patterns of Prejudice, Women’s Studies International Forum, Turkish Studies, and the International Journal of Communication, among others.

At SCAS, Sayan-Cengiz will be working on a project that investigates the rise of both Islamic-oriented and secular therapeutic cultures in Turkey and how they relate to collective identities, belonging, and affective polarization. The project aims to shed light on how therapeutic culture intersects with the emotional landscapes of authoritarian populist discourses in the current socio-political context.

Feyda Sayan-Cengiz is in residence in the spring of 2026.
This information is accurate as of the academic year 2025-26.