Academic Bio
Helga Anetshofer has taught a comparative course on historical and modern Turkic languages, as well as courses in Turkic languages and literatures at Free University, Berlin; Eastern Mediterranean University, Famagusta (Cyprus), and Harvard University before joining the University of Chicago in 2009. Anetshofer is an Ottoman philologist by training, and her research focuses on Old Anatolian Turkish (14th-15th centuries) grammar (morpho-syntax, lexicon, etymology) and literature (prose legends and epics, translation literature). Between 1996-2003 she regularly contributed to the late Andreas Tietze’s Historical and Etymological Dictionary of Turkish Project (Tarihi ve Etimolojik Türkiye Türkçesi Lugati; vols. 1, 2, 2002, 2009; new edition, vols. 1-4, 2016). Her research interests also include gender issues, as well as material culture and social history of Anatolian mysticism. Currently Anetshofer, together with Heidi Stein, is preparing an edition of Tietze’s German translation of the Old Anatolian Turkish story collection Ferec ba’de ş-şidde, known as Les mille et un jours in the West.