Evrim Emir-Sayers - The Paris Institute for Critical Thinking

EVRIM EMIR-SAYERS is a philosophy scholar who researches, teaches, writes, edits, and translates out of Paris, France. She is a co-founder and core faculty member of the Paris Institute for Critical Thinking (PICT).

Evrim received her Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Amsterdam in 2018. Her M.A. and M.Phil. degrees are from the Higher Institute of Philosophy, Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium). From 2013 to 2016, Evrim served as Lecturer in Philosophy at San Francisco State University, where she taught on “continental” philosophy, existentialism, and phenomenology. In the summer of 2013, she was a Research Fellow in Residence at the Netherlands Institute in Turkey (Istanbul). Evrim spent the academic year 2012-13 at Princeton University, where she was a Research Collaborator in the Near Eastern Studies Department and a Graduate Fellow at Wilson College.

Evrim’s article, “Gauging Proximities: An Inquiry into a Possible Nexus Between Middle Eastern and Western Painting,” was published in 2014 by the journal Philosophy and Literature. In November 2021, she co-authored the academic exposé, “The Real Academy in Exile,” with David Selim Sayers for The Faculty Lounge. Sparking a major debate on clique formation in contemporary academia, the article received extensive discussion in international media ranging from the German daily newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung to the state-run Turkish news agency Anadolu Ajansı. Evrim’s monograph, The Veil of Depiction: Painting in Sufism and Phenomenology, will appear from PICT Books in Fall 2023.

Evrim’s first published translations were of two dialogues by Plato (“Criton” and “Lysis”) in the volume, Platon Toplu Diyalogları I (Eos, 2008). She has since co-translated the memoirs of Turkey’s first professional female journalist, Sabiha Sertel; the volume, entitled The Struggle for Modern Turkey: Justice, Activism and a Revolutionary Female Journalist, was published by Bloomsbury in 2019. “A Cloud In Love,” her translation of a children’s tale by Nazım Hikmet, appeared in dePICTions in 2023. Since Fall 2022, Evrim has been co-translating works of Turkish poetry, including by Alevi-Turkish folk poet Âşık Veysel and Kurdish-Turkish poet Ahmed Arif, in The Faculty Lounge.

Since co-founding PICT in 2018, Evrim has played the guiding role in shaping the institute’s vision, as expressed in the PICT Manifestos and her podcast, The Anti-Education of PICT. Evrim is editor-in-chief of the PICT journal, The Faculty Lounge, as well as co-editor of PICT’s annual critical review, dePICTions, and of the PICT Books imprint.

To find out more about Evrim, check out her: