Kenan Behzat Sharpe joined the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Sabancı University after completing a postdoctoral fellowship with Keyman Modern Turkish Studies at Northwestern University. He was previously a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) research fellow at the American Research Institute in Turkey (ARIT).
Trained in world literature and cultural studies, his research and publications focus primarily on poetry, popular music, and social movements in Turkey, Greece, and the United States. He is currently completing his first book manuscript, Rockers and Radicals in Anatolia: Turkish Psychedelic Rock and the World 1960s.
In addition to his academic work, Sharpe has contributed extensively as a journalist, covering the intersections of popular culture and politics in contemporary Turkey for outlets such as The Washington Post and Al-Monitor.