Prof. Dr. Robert Dankoff Elected as TÜBA Honorary Member
Prof. Dr. Robert Dankoff, known for his research on Turkish and Islam, who is in Turkiye with TÜBA's Scientist Invitation Program from Abroad, was elected as an Honorary Member of TÜBA.
Prof. Dr. Dankoff, who attended the I. International Evliya Çelebi Symposium titled "History and Culture of Travel" held at Fatih Sultan Mehmet Vakıf University (FSMV) Haliç Campus as the guest of honor, made his opening speech titled "Travel is Hell" (Sefer Sakar) and Other Metaphors Relating to Travel in the Seyahatname.
After his speech, Prof. Dankoff was presented with the honorary membership certificate by Prof. Ahmet Cevat Acar and Prof. Mustafa Çiçekler, the Full Members of TÜBA, as TÜBA President Prof. Dr. Muzaffer Şeker was abroad. Prof. Acar stated that Prof. Dankoff's membership of the Academy is very valuable and said that he was honored to undertake the task of presenting the certificate to him.
Who is Prof. Dr. Robert Dankoff?
Born on September 24, 1943 in Rochester, New York. He learned English at home and Hebrew at pre-school. He majored in mathematics in high school and learned Latin. From 1960 to 1964, he studied philosophy, German and Ancient Greek in college at Columbia University (New York City). Over time, his interest shifted from philosophy to languages and cultural history.
Throughout his life, being able to delve into the history of culture through language, literature and art, and being able to conduct research and analysis has been his greatest curiosity.
In 1964, he joined the Peace Corps and traveled to Türkiye as a Peace Corps volunteer. Before coming to Türkiye, he attended accelerated Turkish courses in the United States. In Türkiye, he first stayed at Robert College in Istanbul for a short time, and after taking Turkish lessons from Turkish teachers, he went to Sinop, where he was to be stationed. Between 1964 and 1966, he taught English at a secondary school for two years. In Sinop, he had the opportunity to closely observe and get to know the Turkish society and culture, improved his Turkish, and learned Arabic by taking private lessons.
This introduction to Türkiye set him on his academic path. After his return to the US, he studied Turkology at Harvard University in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Literatures. He learned old and new Turkic languages and literatures from Omeljan Pritsak and Şinasi Tekin, famous Turkology professors at Harvard University.
In addition to Turkish, he also improved his Arabic and Persian. He also learned French. Having mastered European languages, Dankoff also mastered Eastern languages with the same competence. His passion for Turkish and Turkology led him to the beginning of Islamic Turkish literature. His teacher Omeljan Pritsak encouraged him to work on Dîvânü Lugati't-türk, one of the focal points of his classical Turkological studies, which had not yet been sufficiently studied. He did his doctoral work on this work at Harvard University, finishing in 1971. He then produced an excellent English translation of Dîvânü Lugati't-türk as part of a project in which his friend James Kelly also participated.
He taught Arabic as an assistant professor at Brandeis University (Massachusetts) between 1969 and 1975, Turkish at the University of California in 1976-77 and at the University of Arizona in 1977-1979. In 1979, he began teaching as an assistant professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. In 1982, he became an assistant professor in the same department, and in 1987 he was given a full professorship. Until his retirement in 2006, he taught Turkish, Old Turkish, Ottoman Turkish, Azerbaijani Turkish and Uzbek. He also taught courses on "Introduction to Islamic civilization" and "Word and image in Islamic literature and art".
Robert Dankoff had a vibrant and active academic life. In addition to his teaching duties, he did a great deal of research and publication. He was invited by many universities and scientific institutions, gave conferences, seminars and presented papers at international congresses. In 1999, he gave lectures at the Chair of Turkology at Otto-Friedrich University (Bamberg) in Germany, in 2000 at Ecol des Hautes Etudes en Science Sociales (Paris) in France, and in 2008 as a visiting professor at the Department of Turkish Literature at Bilkent University (Ankara) in Türkiye.