Zeynel Gül, PhD
Assistant Professor
Anthropology, Sociocultural
Pronouns: He/Him
Contact
Building & Room:
BSB 3148C
Email:
CV Download:
About
I am a socio-cultural anthropologist at the Department of Anthropology at UIC. I completed my doctoral studies in cultural anthropology at Johns Hopkins University where I specialized in medical anthropology, anthropology of law, and science and technology studies. My book manuscript, tentatively titled The Violence of Evidence: Law, Medicine and the Right to Worker Health in Turkey, chronicles the stories of patients with silicosis – a chronic lung disease caused by inhalation of toxic dust particles at the workplace. The Violence of Evidence ethnographically explores how a state-led expansion of access to medical care for workers in Turkey shapes health litigation in courts, revealing the intertwining of law and healthcare governance in producing uncertainties in the medical field. My research recasts anthropological understandings of disease ontology and patient experience by investigating the embeddedness of law and governance in the production of medical knowledge. I have authored and co-authored several articles in American Ethnologist, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, Science, Technology and Human Values, SSRC Items Magazine, and the Journal of Occupational Health and Safety (TMA).
In 2020, I joined a multi-country research team to study the COVID-19 pandemic’s financial and health-related challenges for working-class households. I teach courses on environmental toxicity, medical anthropology, and legal anthropology. Before joining UIC, I also completed the certificate program in Environmental and Occupational Health at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.
Selected Publications
2025. “Diagnostic Ecologies: Medical Standards, Tinkering, and Worker Health in Turkey.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly 39, no. 2 (2025): e12903.
2025. “Doing STS Now: Of Hackers and Angels in Technoscience”. Science, Technology, & Human Values, 50(1), 3-11. [Co-authored]
Education
PhD in Anthropology from Johns Hopkins University, 2023
MA in Sociology from Boğaziçi University, 2015