Yaprak Yildirim

Yaprak Damla Yıldırım (she/her) is in the combined Ph.D. program of American Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. She received her degrees in Business Management (BA, 2017), English Language and Literature (BA, 2017), and Critical and Cultural Studies (MA, 2019) from Boğaziçi University, İstanbul. She continued her education as a PhD student in Literature at the University of California San Diego for two years before joining the Yale community. Her research explores the intricate relationship between feminicide and neoliberalism that devalues women’s bodies and labor simultaneously. She is especially interested in the role neoliberalization, westernization, and Islamist fundamentalism play in the disposability of women and the construction of “proper” womanhood. She is a feminist activist, organizer, poet, translator, and Fulbright alumna.