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Ali Karakaya

Department:
Slavic Languages and Literatures
Cohort
2025
Project Title
Who is (Y)Eva Biss(ová)?: Identity in Slovak-Ukrainian Literature through Computational Methods

Ali Karakaya is a PhD student in Stanford's Slavic Languages and Literatures Department. His research spans 19th, 20th, and 21st-century Russian and Ukrainian literatures, focusing on feminist, gender, and sexuality studies, postcolonial studies, digital humanities, cultural identity, and hybridity. His work also explores the intersections of Turkish, Crimean Tatar, and Czechoslovak studies. He examines women's literature and marginalized identities in Eastern Europe, aiming to amplify the voices of historically overlooked communities. In addition to his research, Ali translates to and from multiple languages.

Project Description

This project explores the multilingual and hybrid literary identity of Yeva Biss (1921–2005), a Slovak-Ukrainian writer, playwright, and painter. Using computational methods such as natural language processing (NLP) and frequency analysis, it examines her linguistic and stylistic patterns across Ukrainian, Russian, Slovak, German, and Carpatho-Rusyn texts. By situating Biss within broader literary traditions and addressing challenges posed by cross-linguistic comparisons, the study highlights her negotiation of cultural and national identities in 20th-century Eastern Europe. It also critiques the limitations of NLP tools for underrepresented languages (e.g. Carpatho-Rusyn), advocating for improved resources to support literary analysis of minority and diasporic texts. Ultimately, this project aims to shed light on the intersections of language, identity, and hybridity in peripheral Eastern European literatures.