Dr. Seçkin Sertdemir Özdemir is currently visiting fellow in Contemporary Turkish Studies, European Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She was previously visiting researcher in the Centre for Research on Modern European Philosophy, Kingston University from 2016 to 2017, and worked as a research fellow from 2003 to 2016 and then an assistant professor in the department of philosophy at Galatasaray University in 2016. After completing her joint PhD thesis on the subject of political freedom of Alexis de Tocqueville and Hannah Arendt at Paris VII-Denis Diderot University and Galatasaray University, her primary research goal was directed towards understanding the meaning of democracy and its paradoxes and on the current problems of political philosophy such as civil disobedience, voluntary servitude, the meaning of action, and political rights.

Her vision for the field of political philosophy is an interdisciplinary and international one that seeks to relate real-world problems and events to larger questions about political participation and ethical ways of living together in a swiftly shrinking world. She is currently leading an interdisciplinary research project “Academia in Exile: The Turkish Case” funded by British Academy/Leverhulme Small Research Grant in collaboration with Dr Esra Özyürek of the LSE.