RETIRED DEPARTMENT CHAIRS
Professor Hart was the first Departmental Chair of Social Anthropology and Ethnology at Istanbul University. He studied at the Universities of Sydney, Chicago, and London. He conducted his early studies with Bronisław Malinowski and Alfred Radcliffe-Brown, the pioneers of functionalism and structural-functionalism. He completed his Ph.D. research (1928-1929) among the Northern Australian Tiwis. He taught anthropology at the London School of Economics, the Universities of Toronto, and Wisconsin. From 1949 to 1952, he was the Editor of the academic journal American Anthropologist; and from 1958 to 1959, he served as the Society for Applied Anthropology President. Professor Hart published on the North Australian Tiwis and studied industrial relations in contemporary Canada.
Professor Nephan Saran received her undergraduate education from Ankara University Faculty of Law and her Master's and Doctoral degrees from St. Louis University (USA). In 1960, she started to work as a teaching assistant at Istanbul University’s Social Anthropology and Ethnology Department. She became an associate professor in 1965 and a professor in 1974. Saran served as the Head of the Department between 1969-1987. She was the Founder and Honorary President of the Anthropology Association based in Istanbul during the 1980s. She studied and taught in the areas of social-cultural anthropology on topics such as juvenile delinquency, migration and urbanization, peasantry, education, and youth in Turkey.
Professor Taylan Akkayan started to work as a teaching assistant at the Istanbul University Social Anthropology and Ethnology Department in 1970 and was awarded a Ph.D. degree by the Chair in 1975 for his dissertation on migration and change in Turkey. He completed his postdoctoral research at the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies in 1979, became an associate professor in 1982 and a professor in 1988. He served as the Head of the department from 1987 to 2012. Akkayan also served at Istanbul University as the Vice Dean of the Faculty of Letters, Faculty Board Member between 1991-2004, and Vice-Rector between 2000-2004. He studied and taught on themes of migration, urbanization, and cultural change in Turkey.