Ayça Çubukçu is Associate Professor in Human Rights at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where she served as the Co-Director of LSE Human Rights for six years (2018-2024). Before her appointment at the LSE, Dr Çubukçu taught for the Committee on Global Thought at Columbia University and the Committee on Degrees in Social Studies at Harvard University.
A transdisciplinary scholar by training, Dr. Çubukçu holds a BA in Government (with Distinction in All Subjects) from Cornell University and a PhD (with Distinction) from the Department of Anthropology at Columbia University.
Dr Çubukçu has held a number of international fellowships and visiting appointments, including a Senior Fellowship at the Fung Global Fellows Program at Princeton University; Max Weber Fellowship at the European University Institute, Florence; Visiting Fellowship at the Institute for Philosophy, Freie Universität-Berlin; Visiting Professorship at the Department of Political Science and International Relations, Bogaziçi University, Istanbul; Visiting Professorship at the Central European University, Budapest; and the Visiting Faculty Fellowship at the Committee on Globalization and Social Change at the Graduate Center, City University of New York.
Broadly construed, Dr Çubukçu’s research and teaching interests are in global critical theory. Her scholarship has addressed socio-political, legal, and historical aspects of internationalism, postcolonial studies, transnational solidarity, war and violence, human rights, and radical social movements. Some of her work has been translated into Greek, French, German, Portuguese, Turkish, and Italian.
Dr Çubukçu leads the Internationalism, Cosmopolitanism and the Politics of Solidarity lecture series at LSE since 2013. She is also an Honorary Member of the Centre on Social Movement Studies at Scuola Normale Superiore, Florence; Co-editor of LSE International Studies Series at Cambridge University Press; Co-editor of Humanity Journal, and Co-Editor of Jadaliyya’s Turkey Page (2013-2023).
Dr. Çubukçu is the recipient of multiple teaching awards, including the Harvard University Certificate of Teaching Excellence; the Award for Outstanding Teaching given by the Students’ Union of LSE; Major Review Teaching Award and the Excellence in Education Award by the London School of Economics and Political Science.
A scholar committed to public engagement, Dr. Çubukçu has written for the Guardian, Los Angeles Review of Books, Al Jazeera English, Boston Review, Rep Pepper Magazine, Truthout, Jadaliyya, and Africa Is A Country among other publications. She has also appeared on BBC3’s Free Thinking, BBC2’s Newsnight, and BBC Arabic’s television programmes.
Selected Publications
Book:
Ayça Çubukçu (2018), For the Love of Humanity: The World Tribunal On Iraq, University of Pennsylvania Press (Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights Series).
Academic Publications:
Ayça Çubukçu (2024),“David Graeber’s Anthropology of Human Possibilities,” in boundary 2, 51 (4): 115–127.
Ayça Çubukçu (2024), “On Left Internationalism,” South Atlantic Quarterly 123 (3): 569–586.
Ayça Çubukçu (2022), "Vorwort zu Fragmente einer anarchistischen Anthropologie," Introduction to the German Edition of David Graeber's Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology
Ayça Çubukçu (2022), "On Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology," in FOCAAL: Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology Blog
Ayça Çubukçu (2022), "BOOK REVIEW: Decolonizing Politics: An Introfuction by Robbie Shilliam," in E-International Relations
Ayça Çubukçu (2021), "After Seeing Like a State: The Imperialism of Epistemic Claims,” in Polity, Volume 53, No 3 (online first).
Ayça Çubukçu (2021), "Decolonizing Humanity: A Review of Out of the Dark Night: Essays on Decolonization by Achille Mbembe," in LSE Review of Books & Africa is a Country
Ayça Çubukçu, Adom Getachew, Darryl Li, Karim Malak, Shaunna Rodrigues (2021), "Worldmaking and Empire: Humanity and Universals Not Sought. A Conversation,” in Borderlines.
Ayça Çubukçu, Noura Erakat, Neve Gordon, Nicola Perugini, John Reynolds (2021), "Human Shields and the Location of Agency," in Third World Approaches to International Law Review.
Ayça Çubukçu (2020), “Another End of the World is Possible,” in Thesis 11.
Ayça Çubukçu (2020), Of Rebels and Disobedients: Reflections on Arendt, Race, Lawbreaking in Law and Critique (DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10978-020-09271-x)
Ayça Çubukçu (2020), Book Review. The Force of Nonviolence: An Ethico-Political Bind by Judith Butler in Contemporary Political Theory
Ayça Çubukçu (2019), The Political Imaginary of the World Tribunal on Iraq, Humanity Journal, November 13.
Ayça Çubukçu (2019), Response to the Reviews, Book Symposium on Ayça Çubukçu’s For the Love of Humanity, Humanity Journal, March 11.
Ayça Çubukçu and Jadaliyya (2018), New Texts Out Now: For the Love of Humanity, interview with Jadaliyya Editors, December 11.
Ayça Çubukçu (2017), Thinking Against Humanity in London Review of International Law, 5 (2): 1-17
Ayça Çubukçu (2015), On the Exception of Hannah Arendt, in Law, Culture and the Humanities, DOI: 10.1177/1743872115588442.
Talal Asad and Ayça Çubukçu (2013), Neither Heroes, Nor Villains: A Conversation with Talal Asad on Egypt After Morsi, Jadaliyya, July 23. Republished here in Arabic translation.
Ayça Çubukçu (2013), The Responsibility to Protect: Libya and the Problem of Transnational Solidarity, Journal of Human Rights, special issue on Humanitarianism and Responsibility, Volume 12, Issue 1, pp. 40-58.
Partha Chatterjee and Ayça Çubukçu (2012), Empire as a Practice of Power: An Interview, published online by Humanity: An International Journal of Human Rights, Humanitarianism and Development. Republished in The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol 10, Issue 41, No. 1.
Ayça Çubukçu (2011), On Cosmopolitan Occupations: the Case of the World Tribunal on Iraq, Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, Vol. 13 (3): 422-442.
Ayça Çubukçu (2010), Few Prime Fragments for a Radical Title, Parallax, special issue on Affirmation, edited by Gary Peters, Vol. 16 (3).
Ayça Çubukçu (2009), On the Uneven Geography of Islamic Globalization: the Fact of Iraqi Constitution, the Fatalism of Human Rights, in Hamilton Magalhaes Neto (ed.) Human Rights and their Possible Universality, Rio de Janeiro: Editora Universitária Candido Mendes, pp. 475-549.
Ayça Çubukçu (2006), Can the Network Speak? A review of Multitude: War and Democracy in the Age of Empire by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, Arab Studies Journal, Vol. 8 (2)/Vol. 9 (1): 168-174.
Ayça Çubukçu (2006), Paradoxes of Sovereignty: War, Justice and the World Tribunal on Iraq, in Rachel Riedl, Sada Aksartova and Kristine Mitchell (eds.) Bridging Disciplines, Spanning the World: Approaches to Inequality, Identity, and Institutions, Princeton, NJ: Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies Monograph Series, No 4: 185-198.
Ayça Çubukçu (2005), ‘Neither their War, Nor their Peace,’ Birikim, special issue on Counter-Globalization Movements: Between Dystopia and Utopia, edited by Zafer Yenal et al., Issue 197: 57-60. Published in Turkish.
Public writings include:
Ayça Çubukçu (2024), "Leadership and Liberation: An Exchange" with Jodi Dean, in Boston Review
Ayça Çubukçu (2024), "At Columbia and beyond, disobedience for Palestine becomes a duty," in the New Arab
Ayça Çubukçu (2024), "Many Speak for Palestine," in the Boston Review
Ayça Çubukçu (2023), "Not Excepting Palestine,” in Verso Blog
Ayça Çubukçu (2023), “Against Capitalist Realism,” in Red Pepper Magazine
Ayça Çubukçu (2023), “After Erdogan’s Victory, Movements in Turkey Must Fight beyond the Ballot Box,” in Truthout
Ayça Çubukçu (2022), "We Are All Criminals," in Jadaliyya
Ayça Çubukçu (2021), "A Continuum of Intervention," published in the VERSO Blog.
Ayça Çubukçu (2021), “Opposing the Invasion of Afghanistan,” Los Angeles Review of Books.
Ayça Çubukçu (2021), “Law & Critique: Arendt, Race and Lawbreaking” in Critical Legal Thinking. Portuguese translation published here.
Seda Altug, Ayça Çubukçu, Saygun Gokariksel (2021), "An Interview with Boğaziçi University Faculty on Contemporary Protests,” in Jadaliyya
Ayça Çubukçu (2020), Humanity in Public Seminar, Sentencing the Present: Critical Conversations in a Time of Crisis Series.
Ayça Çubukçu (2016), It’s the will of the Turkish people, Erdogan says. But which people? The Guardian, July 26.
Ayça Çubukçu (2013), In this Sublime Struggle of Ours: After Egypt, on Turkey and Terror, Al Jazeera English, August 23. Republished by T24, Sendika.org and Jadaliyya in Turkish, translated by Balam Kenter.
Ayça Çubukçu (2013), New Texts Out Now: Ayça Çubukçu, ‘Responsibility to Protect: Libya and the Problem of Transnational Solidarity, interview with Jadaliyya editors, May 29.
Ayça Çubukçu (2011), Turkey: the ‘Progressive’ Land of Repression, The Guardian, December 11.
Ayça Çubukçu (2011), ‘Operational Accidents’: On the Turkish State and Kurdish Deaths, Jadaliyya, December 30.
Ayça Çubukçu (2011), Killing in the Name of: Libya, Sovereignty, Humanity, Jadaliyya, March 11. Also available on Immanent Frame, the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) blog on Secularism, Religion, and Public Life.
Ayça Çubukçu (2011), New Texts Out Now: Ayca Cubukcu, ‘On Cosmopolitan Occupations: the Case of the World Tribunal on Iraq’, interview with Jadaliyya editors, November 16.