Onur Oztemir

Prior to coming to Princeton, Onur attended Amherst College, majoring in Philosophy and Psychology and taking courses in German literature from the seventeenth century onward. Their work on German writers has included early Romantics, Expressionists, Thomas Mann, Ludwig Tieck, and Franz Kafka. In Onur’s junior year, they wrote a lengthy analysis of Der Heizer, where they attempted a cohesive reading with minimal interpretation. They also deeply enjoy literary translation and have rendered poems by Georg Trakl and Ahmet Haşim into English for publication.

Outside of literature, Onur’s academic training is in cognitive psychology, philosophy of language, and analytic metaphysics. They authored a paper in 2024 defending McTaggart’s argument against the reality of time, which was selected for presentation at the blind-reviewed Five Colleges Philosophy Conference at Smith College. That same year, they completed a special topics project on the written style of college-aged students with ADHD.

Now joining Princeton’s Ph.D. program in German, Onur aims to bring an interdisciplinary framework and cultural insights to new research in literature. Their current research interests center on outsider figures, such as R. Walser, Jünger, Jahnn, and Bernhard, and their anti-rationalist tendencies.