Hande Gürses, originally from Istanbul, is a scholar of comparative literature. She holds a PhD in Literary Studies from University College London. Her primary research interests include contemporary world literature, migration, cosmopolitanism, ecocriticism, and critical animal studies. She co-edited a volume on ecocritical approaches to contemporary Turkish literature titled Animals, Plants, and Landscapes: An Ecology of Turkish Literature and Film (Routledge Press, 2019). In her first monograph Displacing Fictions of Orhan Pamuk: Beyond the Bridge (Lexington Press, 2023) she studies the imagery of the bridge in the construction and representation of distinct identity categories. She held positions at UMass Amherst, University of Toronto, Toronto Metropolitan University, and Simon Fraser University. Currently she is teaching at Capilano University in North Vancouver.
Focusing on the representations of belonging and borders in contemporary world literature and film, in her research Dr. Gürses studies new ways of thinking about identity, citizenship, and hospitality as well as new ways of belonging for the politically, ontologically, and aesthetically displaced.