Ayten Gündoğdu is an assistant professor of political science at Barnard College-Columbia University. At Barnard she teaches courses on political theory and human rights. Professor Gündoğdu’s current research centers on critical approaches to human rights, contemporary problems of citizenship, and political and ethical dilemmas of international migration. She examines these topics in her book, Rightlessness in an Age of Rights (Oxford University Press, 2015), which offers a critical inquiry of human rights by engaging with the works of twentieth-century political theorist Hannah Arendt. At the center of this critical inquiry are the challenging questions posed by the contemporary rights struggles of asylum-seekers, refugees, and undocumented immigrants. Professor Gündoğdu is the recipient of a postdoctoral fellowship from the Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard University, Sawyer Dissertation Fellowship from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and several other grants and awards from Barnard College and the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.
