Primary Investigator: Dr. Pieter Verstraete is Assistant Professor at University of Groningen, the Netherlands, and Marie Sklodowska-Curie fellow at Free University Berlin, Germany. He received his PhD from the University of Amsterdam in 2009, where he worked in the Institute of Theatre Studies on different occasions. He lectured also at the Radboud University of Nijmegen, the Drama Department in Exeter, and various universities in Turkey. As a precarious academic worker who researched and worked in Turkey, Verstraete has moved back to Europe in 2017 due to political pressures on his partner. He has first-hand experience with the crises in Turkey as well as the implications of exilic life.
Research Assistant: Dr. Mehmet Özgür Bahçeci is temporary Lecturer at the University of Groningen and a theatre director and actor at Gastkollektiv Berlin. He obtained his PhD in 2021 from the Institute for Theatre Studies of the Free University of Berlin. Previously, he was working as a research assistant in the Performance Management program of Istanbul Bilgi University. Bahçeci assisted in the ExiLives project by setting up, transcribing and translating interviews.
Project Advisor: Prof. Dr. Jan Lazardzig is since 2017 Professor in Theatre Studies at the Free University Berlin. He is an expert in the fields of theatre historiography (methods and theory), theatre censorship and surveillance, theatricality in the European Early Modern Period, and contemporary experimental cultures in art and science. Before, he was, among others, Feodor Lynen Research Fellow at the University of Chicago and guest professor at the Art Academy Münster.