History
The Department of Turkish Language and Literature at Samsun University, founded in 2018, is among the initial departments within the Faculty of Economic, Administrative, and Social Sciences.
The structure of our department’s curriculum is informed by mandatory and optional modules, which aim to address theoretical inquiries relating to the formal and semantic composition, workings, and historical changes of the Turkish language, as well as the production, composition, and comprehension of written works in both poetry and prose. Courses, including Literary Theories and Hermeneutics, Language Theories, Origins of Classical Turkish Literature, Sufi Literature, Turkish Syntax, and Semantics, aim to comprehend the temporal, historical, and cultural origins of texts at the structural and semantic level. They help conceptualize and classify textual structures, effects, and different communicative phenomena, while also facilitating explanations of emerging new linguistic-literary events.
Thus, our department is molded by a range of diverse perspectives that enable students to form interdisciplinary links with social, political, ethical, spiritual, sociological, psychological, cultural, aesthetic, and philosophical innovations and predicaments. This variety facilitates the application of unique personal viewpoints and interpretations to literature and languages from various cultures, allowing for comparative analysis and recognition of the constantly growing interconnectedness between different cultures.
The Department of Turkish Language and Literature has a Double Major Protocol agreement with the Departments of History, Communication Design and Management, Geography, Translation and Interpreting, Psychology and Sociology. Interdisciplinary cooperation with other departments within our university is paramount.
Our department strives to maintain a balanced approach to all sub-disciplines within Turkish Language and Literature, avoiding the dominance of any one field. Our sub-disciplinary boundaries have been intentionally designed to be flexible, promoting collaboration and consultation among faculty members with varying areas of expertise. In line with this approach, a thorough update of the curriculum was collaboratively conducted in July 2020. In 2023, a collaborative study was conducted, resulting in the restructuring of our curriculum with consideration given to our university’s quality and FEDEK accreditation processes. This led to several changes, which included the expansion of elective courses within our curriculum.
Our department welcomed its inaugural cohort of undergraduate students during the 2019-2020 academic year. We emphasise a collaborative approach to pedagogy, eschewing hierarchy in communication both in-class and beyond. Our primary objective is to nurture attitudes of independence, analytical thinking, and innovation among our student body. We prioritize not just imparting knowledge but also gaining insight from their viewpoints. Our emphasis lies in fostering a conversational atmosphere that nurtures both teaching and learning.
Our department has successfully established a Master’s degree programme aimed at cultivating individuals with a deep understanding of Turkish language and literature from ancient to contemporary times, as well as its historical and theoretical contexts. Our first master’s cohort joined us in the Spring semester of the 2021-2022 academic year.
Furthermore, we have recently signed our first Erasmus agreement with Konstantin Preslavsky University of Shumen in Bulgaria. The quantity of such agreements will steadily rise, granting students the chance to acquaint themselves with a variety of cultures and acquire experiences.