11/07/2019
Showcasing Arab Excellence
Defne Bilir
Defne Bilir perfectly embodies Arab Excellence both on campus here at Florida State University and overseas in the Middle East. She earned her PhD in Interdisciplinary Humanities with an emphasis on Middle Eastern and Cultural Studies here at Florida State where she currently teaches a course on Arab Cinema and Culture. She has also taught several other courses on Arab culture, tradition, and media. Bilir is also the Coordinator of the Arabic Division Outreach Program here at FSU. In addition to being a professor and coordinator, Bilir also operates as a research associate in the school of communication, performing research on Arab cinema and media. She explains her motivation for devoting her life to studying this topic is to help be a part of the conversation that explains the modern Middle East to the Western World.
In addition to everything she contributes to FSU, Turkish born Bilir also runs her own business, Taste of Trends. This shop that she has created in September of 2019 sells Turkish towels, referred to as a peshtemal in Turkey. These beautiful and authentic peshtemals help Bilir share a piece of her culture around the globe. Taste of Trends is a company that came out of BLR Groups, which Bilir also founded and acts as the managing director. The goal of this company is to facilitate the trade of foods and textiles as imports and exports from Turkey. We commend Defne Bilir for all of her work for the Arab community.
Website: tasteoftrends.com
Instagram: | instagram.com/tasteoftrends
Facebook: | facebook.com/tasteoftrends
LinkedIn: | linkedin.com/company/tasteoftrends
Photos courtesy of Defne Bilir's LinkedIn and Taste of Trends page.