Mert Ertunga

Mert received his B.A. in French from the University of Alabama in Birmingham (UAB) in '07. He previously received his B.S. in Finance ('89-UAB) and his M.B.A. ('93-UAB).  In 2016, he completed his PhD degree in French Literature with a dissertation on the negotiation of literary identity during the height of the “philosophe vs. anti-philosophe” conflict in the middle of the 18th century.  His research focuses on the literary output of writers whose careers were influenced by the two camps during the period of 1750-65, as well as writers who neither joined one camp nor the other during the conflict. He has been teaching undergraduate French courses at all levels since 2012. 

A specialist of 18th-century Enlightenment writer Charles Tiphaigne de la Roche, Mert prepared the critical edition of Tiphaigne's Sanfrein, ou Mon dernier séjour à la campagne for the modern two-volume publication of the author's collected works – Oeuvres complètes de Tiphaigne de la Roche (Paris: Classiques-Garnier, 2019).

Ex-professional tennis player and coach, Mert writes articles for tennis publications on each side of the Atlantic Ocean and keeps a blog.

He was born in Istanbul, has lived and studied in Switzerland and France, and has a daughter, Erin.