He was born to a cosmopolitan family; his mother was the Cypriot poet Pembe Marmara, and his father was the prominent psychiatrist of the island, Sedat Baker.
He completed his studies at the Department of Sociology in Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara and began his academic life in the same institution shortly thereafter.
Although he had always taught within academic institutions, his relation with academia had certain tensions and breaks; he only completed his Ph.D. in 2002 with a thesis titled "From Opinions to Images: Towards a Sociology of Affects", he was uninterested in having a stable academic position, and after 2000 till his death, he had various teaching gigs in different universities in Ankara and Istanbul besides his main affiliation at Middle East Technical University.
From late 80's till his death, he frequently wrote for major Turkish scholarly journals such as Birikim, Toplum ve Bilim, Virgül, and Defter.
He significantly contributed to the rise of interest in the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Baruch Spinoza through a variety of translations and lecture series.