Ana Frank, PhD

Ana Frank received her doctorate in 2013 at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Ljubljana. In 2007 she started to work at the Peace Institute as a young researcher participating in several Slovenian and European projects. Her areas of interest are mainly international relations, policy analysis, Europeanization and European integration, analysis of EU policies and the process of adaptation of national legislation, gender studies, cultural and religious studies, Orientalism and postcolonial studies, discourse analysis, discrimination, Turkey, Islam, migration, as well as visual and performing arts.

Between 2004 and 2007, she studied as a graduate student in Turkey at the University of Ankara and the University of Istanbul, where she studied Turkish language and attended lectures in gender studies, cultural studies and anthropology. She spent a lot of time with various activists, both privately and through various associations and institutions, listening to their life stories. These stories and their struggles were also the basis for the creation of the scientific monograph FEMINISM AND ISLAM: Turkish Women between the Orient and the West, which was published in 2014. In the book, the author wanted to show the diversity and complexity of women’s lives in Turkey and reveal deeper anthropological, cultural and historical levers that affect superficially invisible power relations. In 2012 and 2013, she was granted a scholarship from the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBITAK) and as a visiting student at Sabancı University in Istanbul, she conducted a research for her doctoral dissertation entitled: The Impact of the Context of Europeanization on Religious Discourses in Public Policies of Gender Equality and Intimate Citizenship in Turkey.

From 2010 to 2013, she was also a researcher and member of the Corners of Europe research and art team at the Exodos institute from Ljubljana. It has been an active platform for artists and audiences for many years, designed and run by cultural organizations on the edges of Europe. In Northern Ireland, together with other artists and researchers, she participated in the project Corners – Built to Contain, where (political) prisoners or convicted persons told their stories and performed them in a radio play developed together with international artists (actors, audio artists). Through a series of meetings and workshops, the stories were collected to create a unique 16-minute radio play that explores prison life, including daily routines, small acts of rebellion, communication with the world beyond the walls and imaginary escape.

Throughout the years, she traveled a lot and, among other activities, studied at the University of Łódź in Poland and at Florida International University in the USA. She has published several professional and scientific articles in domestic and foreign scientific journals, she is fluent in English, Italian and Turkish and occasionally translates, mainly Turkish language.

SICRIS