Robert Dankoff is Professor Emeritus of Ottoman & Turkish Studies, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at University of Chicago.^[1]

Robert Dankoff was born on 24 September 1943 in Rochester, New York. In 1964, he received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Columbia University, and in 1971 got a Ph.D. from Harvard. He taught Arabic at Brandeis University as an assistant professor in 1969-1975. He taught Turkish in University of California (1976-77), and University of Arizona (1977-1979). He joined the department of Near Eastern languages and civilizations at Chicago University in 1979 as an assistant professor, where he became an associate professor in 1982, and a professor in 1987. He taught Turkish, Old Turkish, Ottoman Turkish, Azeri, and Uzbek there until retiring in 2006.^[2]

His research interests lie in Ottoman Literature and Turcology.^[3] He has published extensively on Turkish texts from Central Asia and the Ottoman Empire, including text editions and translations of portions of the Seyahatname of Evliya Çelebi.^[4]

Honors

• Order of Merit of the Republic of Turkey, 20 October 2008
• Honorary doctorate from Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, 2021^[5]

Publications

• An Ottoman Traveller: Selections from the book of Travels by Evliya Çelebi. Eland Publishing, 2011. ISBN 1906011583
• Ottoman Explorations of the Nile: Evliya Çelebi's Map of the Nile and The Nile Journeys in the Book of Travels (Seyahatname). Gingko Library, 2018. ISBN 1909942162
• From Mahmud Kasgari to Evliya Celebi Studies in Middle Turkic and Ottoman Literatures. Gorgias Press, Piscataway, NJ, 2009. ISBN 9781463216931
• An Ottoman Mentality: The World of Evliya Çelebi (Ottoman Empire and Its Heritage, v. 31) (No. 31) (Brill Academic Publishing, 2004) ISBN 978-9004137158^[6]
• Armenian Loanwords in Turkish (Harrassowitz, 1995)^[7]
• The Intimate Life of an Ottoman Statesman, Melek Ahmed Pasha, (1588-1662: As Portrayed in Evliya Çelebi's Book of Travels. SUNY Press, 1991. ISBN 978-0791406410^[8]
• Wisdom of Royal Glory (Kutadgu Bilig): A Turko-Islamic Mirror for Princes by Yusuf Khass Hajib (Publications of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, 1983)^[9]