Kutay started the PhD program at Columbia in 2019 after receiving his MA from the Boğaziçi University in Istanbul. His master’s thesis, titled “Text and Image in Dialogue: Revisiting Iron Age Neo-Hittite Stelae” explored the capacity of the Hieroglyphic Luwian script to create multi-tiered meanings by exploiting its visual, textual and organizational characteristics as well as the figurative imagery on the monuments. His research interests are primarily focused on the relationship between historical consciousness and visual representation in ancient Mesopotamia and Anatolia as well as theories of representation and temporality. Kutay is also interested in field archaeology and is a member of the Boğaziçi University’s Tarsus-Gözlükule archaeological research project.
