Selҫuk Esenbel is emerita Professor of Japanese and Asian History at the Department of History of Bogazici University where she worked since 1982 after finishing her Ph.D. in Japanese history at Columbia University. Esenbel was the founder of the Confucius Institute at Bogazici University and is a member of the Board of Advisors. She is also the founding Director and current Academic Coordinator of the Asian Studies Center and the Master of Arts in Asian Studies. She has received the Special Award of the Minister of Affairs of Japan, the Imperial Order of the Rising Sun, and the Alexander von Humboldt Georg Forster award for research. Esenbel is an honorary member of the Turkish Academy of Science (TÜBA), International Trustee of the Toynbee Prize Foundation and Fulbright Senior Scholar. She has published on the history of Japanese relations with the Turkish and Muslim worlds, Pan-Asianism, Turkish-Japanese relations, and the state of Asian Studies in Turkey.

Her recent publications in English include Japan on the Silk Road: Encounters and Perspectives of Politics and Culture in Eurasia (editor, 2017), Japan, Turkey, and the World of Islam (2011). She also edited American-Turkish Encounters Politics and Culture 1830-1989 (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2011). Esenbel has published in the American Historical Review, Bulletin of SOAS, Japan Review. Her publications in Turkish include Türkiye’de Ҫin’i Düşünmek(Thinking of China in Turkey) (Bogazici University Press, 2013) with Altay Atlı and Isenbike Togan, Japon Modernlesmesi ve Osmanlı (Japanese Modernization and the Ottomans) (Iletisim, 2011).