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Celia Kerslake (1946–7 February 2023) was a British Turkologist. She was the University Lecturer in Turkish and a Fellow of St Antony's College at the University of Oxford (1988–2011). She is known as the author of Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar (2005) and Turkish: An Essential Grammar (2011), both written jointly with Aslı Göksel.

Education

Kerslake attended St Paul's Girls' School in Hammersmith, West London. She was admitted to read history at the University of Cambridge in 1965, but was inspired in her second month of studies by Susan Skilliter to change her subject to Turkish and Arabic, and graduated with a Double First in Oriental Studies from Girton College. She pursued her DPhil at St Anne's College, Oxford from 1968, preparing a critical edition and translation of the first part of the history of Ottoman sultan Selim I's reign (1512–20) written by the retired head of chancery (nişancı) Celalzade Mustafa Çelebi (de) (1490/1–1567).

Career

After completing her doctorate Kerslake held research fellowships at New Hall, Cambridge and Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. She was appointed to a lectureship in Turkish at the University of Edinburgh in 1980. In October 1988, she succeeded Geoffrey Lewis as the University Lecturer in Turkish at the University of Oxford and held the position until her retirement in 2011. She was a member of the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and a Fellow of St Antony's College where she served as Senior Tutor and Tutor for Admissions during the 1990s. She taught Turkish language, language politics, literary texts, and history since the 19th century.

She was Chair of the British Association of Turkish Area Studies (BATAS) from 2010 to 2023. Among her publications are entries contributed to the Encyclopedia of Islam. She translated Aysel Özakın's 1980 novel Genç Kız ve Ölüm into English (The Prizegiving, The Women's Press, 1988).

Personal life and public involvement

In her youth Celia Kerslake trained in gymnastics and was involved with the Girl Guides. Later, she became a long-standing member of the Green Party and a campaigner for environmental conservation. She lived in Chipping Norton and served as the membership secretary of the Green Party's West Oxfordshire branch. She kept an active interest in Turkish politics and culture, and spent much of her time in Turkey with her partner for over 50 years, Gülen (d. 2021). She was the eldest of three sisters.

Notes

1. ^ Goodman 2023b, p. 61.
2. According to an academic reviewer, "a quite outstanding presentation of practically everything one might wish to know about modern Turkish ... covering all structures in common usage, giving an enormous number of examples, and offering careful explication of difficult areas". Anonymous 2007, pp. 100–1.
3. ^ Vaughan 2023, p. 66.
4. "In Memoriam" (PDF), Anglo-Turkish Society Newsletter, 16: 6, 2023–2024, archived (PDF) from the original on 15 August 2024
5. ^ Goodman 2023a.
6. ^ MacGregor 2023.
7. Woodhead 2017.
8. "Celia J. Kerslake", Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford, archived from the original on 2017-09-15
9. Sindall 2023, p. 61.
10. Baird, Nick, BATAS obituary notice, archived from the original on 2023-07-12
11. ^ "West Oxfordshire Green Party Officers", West Oxfordshire Green Party, archived from the original on 2023-09-23, retrieved 2023-09-23{{citation}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
12. ^ Göksel 2023, p. 62.
13. Göksel 2023, pp. 62–63.

References

• Anonymous (2007), "Review of Göksel, Asli & Kerslake, Celia. Turkish: A Comprehensive Grammar", Forum for Modern Language Studies, 43: 100–101, doi:10.1093/fmls/cql143
• Goodman, Roger (2023a), "Tribute to Celia Kerslake 1946 – 2023", St Antony's College, archived from the original on 1 October 2023
• Goodman, Roger (2023b), "Celia's Academic Career" (PDF), Turkish Area Studies Review, 41: 61–62, ISSN 1474-0125
• Göksel, Aslı (2023), "Celia – a Fellow Traveller into Turkish" (PDF), Turkish Area Studies Review, 41: 62–63, ISSN 1474-0125
• MacGregor, Rosie (2023). Memorial in honour of Derek Hopwood OBE and Celia Kerslake (audio recording). Middle East Centre, University of Oxford. 16:00–21:20.
• Sindall, Jill (2023), "Celia, Our Chair(person)" (PDF), Turkish Area Studies Review, 41: 61, ISSN 1474-0125
• Vaughan, Hilary (2023), "A Tribute to My Sister" (PDF), Turkish Area Studies Review, 41: 66, ISSN 1474-0125
• Woodhead, Christine (2017), "Celalzade Mustafa Çelebi", Encyclopedia of Islam (3 ed.), doi:10.1163/1573-3912_ei3_COM_32041

• 1946 births
• 2023 deaths
• Alumni of Girton College, Cambridge
• Alumni of St Anne's College, Oxford
• British women academics
• Fellows of St Antony's College, Oxford
• People educated at St Paul's Girls' School
• Turkologists
• Linguists of Turkish
• People from London