Nocera Lea

Associate Professor in the M STAA/M sector (formerly L Or/13), she is a scholar of the social and cultural history of Republican Turkey. She has taught Turkish Language and Literature since 2007 and, from 2026, the course on History and Culture of Contemporary Turkey. Her recent research focuses on cultural relations and policies between Italy and Turkey in the early twentieth century.
She holds a degree in Political Science (Mediterranean Africa and the Middle East), a Master’s in Cultural Studies from Istanbul Bilgi University, and a PhD in Women’s History and Gender Identity (2008). Her dissertation on Turkish labor migration to West Germany, awarded the Franca Pieroni Bortolotti Prize, was published in an updated version by Bilgi University Press (2018).
She has carried out research as an EUME DAAD Fellow at the Forum Transregionale Studien in Berlin (2024), Visiting Fellow at the Türkei Europa Zentrum at the University of Hamburg (2017), and Research Fellow at the ZMO in Berlin (2014). In 2023 she was Visiting Professor at Bilgi University and Sabanci University.
She serves on the editorial boards of DİYÂR, Genesis, Studi Magrebini, and the series Il Porto delle Idee. She is a member of CEST – Consortium of European Symposia on Turkey, for which she organized the 6th Annual European Symposium on Turkey (2021), the Who owns the Nation symposium, and the Summer School The Politics of Archives in Turkey (2026).
She is on the board of SeSaMO and a member of GTOT, having served on the Scientific Committee of the Türkologentag (2023, 2025). She is also a member of the Italian Society of Women Historians, of which she was vice president.
At her university, she is vice president of the CUG and a member of the Doctoral College in Asia, Africa and the Mediterranean. She holds the ANVUR qualification as Associate Professor also in sector 11/A3 Contemporary History (2015).