Bir Dinozorun Eleştirileri: Mîna Urgan ve Erich Auerbach ile Virginia Woolf Okumak, 2023
The only monograph on Virginia Woolf in Turkish was written by a woman no less exceptional: write... more The only monograph on Virginia Woolf in Turkish was written by a woman no less exceptional: writer, activist, and academic Mina Urgan (1915-2000). The monograph provides clues regarding Urgan’s thoughts on gender, mental stability, and what makes good writing; it also includes a note on antisemitism, and a nod to her teacher, one of the many German Jewish refugees who taught at Turkish universities during the Nazi regime, and one of the founders of comparative literature as a discipline, Erich Auerbach. Taking the relationality of identity as its departure point, this article suggests a dialogue between three writers, and between life writing and critique. Articulating context to critique, the comparisons in this article suggest new networks of meaning through the transnational connections of literary criticism in Turkey. (The article is in Turkish)
The International Journal of the Humanities: Annual Review, 2007
Set in the Istanbul of 1591, My Name is Red (1998, 2001) by the 2006 Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk t... more Set in the Istanbul of 1591, My Name is Red (1998, 2001) by the 2006 Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk tells a story of love and murder around a secret book of miniature paintings. Winner of the IMPAC 2003 and considered Pamuk's masterpiece on masterpieces, the novel is a ...
With the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature, Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk who, in the words of the Sw... more With the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature, Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk who, in the words of the Swedish Academy, “has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures,” has been internationally acknowledged as a master-writer.1 Subsequent to the award, My Name Is Red (1998, 2001), Pamuk’s most acclaimed work and winner of the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2003, has been framed as a masterpiece by the accolades of both the writer and the text.2
ABSTRACT Istanbul's discursive positioning as a city of cultural ambiguity offers a productiv... more ABSTRACT Istanbul's discursive positioning as a city of cultural ambiguity offers a productive way of approaching disorientation conceptually: the image of the city reveals a struggle to orient itself amidst and across discourses of Orientalism and modernity. Within that struggle, the city's metaphorical fogs, from the prototypical representation of the city's fogs by the modernist poet Tevfik Fikret to Prince Abdülmecid's eponymous painting, from the Republican writer Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar's transmutative dream to the melancholy mists of Orhan Pamuk, constitute an unlikely guide to its exceptional experience of disorientation. The city constantly changes and various forms of literary or figurative fog accompany experiences of disorientation especially during the fraught transition between the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic, where the discourses of modernity and Orientalism coalesce and disorient one another. Each instance of fog/mist discloses something about the struggle to orient the city, as well as the struggle with ‘the Orient’.
In a world conceived through metropolises, the city has emerged as a site for new cultural claims... more In a world conceived through metropolises, the city has emerged as a site for new cultural claims and struggles, as well as a compelling narrative resource. Traditionally positioned on the imaginary divide between Europe and Asia, Istanbul disorients its visitors and inhabitants alike with its contrasts and constant changes. Istanbul’s history as a millennial metropolis at the crossroads of East and West provides the ground for innumerable stories that imitate, obliterate, and supersede one another. Something of Istanbul’s global image resonates in the work and career of Turkish novelist and 2006 Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk. The Nobel Citation posits Istanbul as Pamuk’s literary capital, and a twofold relationship between Pamuk and Istanbul, where the city and the writer feed each other. This paper introduces Pamuk’s capital through lenses that relate to Istanbul’s urban imaginary: east-west dynamics, labyrinthine cityscape, and melancholy, to reveal how Pamuk’s narrative establishes...
Kenize Mourad’in Saraydan Surgune (1987) adli romani Selma adindaki Osmanli prensesinin iki dunya... more Kenize Mourad’in Saraydan Surgune (1987) adli romani Selma adindaki Osmanli prensesinin iki dunya savasi arasinda kitalar, kulturler ve baskentleri kat eden (Istanbul, Beyrut, Badalpour ve Paris) hikayesini konu alir. Selma imparatorluklarin cokusu, milliyetciligin yukselisi ve dunya savaslari ile orulmus sorunlu bir donemin kilit tarihine taniklik etmektedir. Selma’nin bu gocebe oykusu yasanan felaketlere isik tutmanin yani sira susturulmus ve bastirilmis farkli kadin deneyimlerine de gondermede bulunmaktadir. Romanda Selma’nin yasadigi mekânsal degisimler ile icsel benliginin yasadigi baskalasim arasinda bir baglanti bulunmaktadir. Ayrica, kendini ifade etme araci olarak dans kavraminin varligi, Selma’nin kimliginin gelisimini tartismak icin uygun bir noktaya getirmektedir. Bu makale, romanda bir mekân olarak surgun kavraminin ve kadin varliginin ne sekilde temsil edildigini ve metnin gidis ve donusler arasindaki gezici niteliginin bu kavramlari nasil donusturdugunu incelemektedir...
Combining images and words when relating to a city has a long history; in Istanbul’s case, it has... more Combining images and words when relating to a city has a long history; in Istanbul’s case, it has its roots in the Orientalist tradition and in the great journeys to the “East.” For the Istanbul of the twenty-first century, the most renowned combination of photography and literature is Orhan Pamuk’s Istanbul: Memories and the City (2003), a portrait of the writer as a young artist accompanied with black-and-white photographs of Istanbul. Pamuk’s use of the photographs of Ara Guler draws from the tradition of travel writing and autobiography, documenting both the lost city and, conversely, endowing the melancholy of the narrative with a reality effect that is difficult to trace in writing. This paper discusses Pamuk’s use of photography in the memoir to address how his work supplies a heterogeneous archive of memories which both preserves and transforms the entangled pasts and presents of the city.
Waltzes in Exile: Exilic spaces and female presence in Kenizé Mourad's De la part de la princess morte, 2019
Regards from the Dead Princess (1989), Kenizé Mourad's much acclaimed début novel, tells the stor... more Regards from the Dead Princess (1989), Kenizé Mourad's much acclaimed début novel, tells the story of Selma, an Ottoman princess whose life traverses capitals, cultures and continents-Istanbul, Beirut, Badalpour, and Paris during the interbellum years. Selma bears witness to key turning points in a troubled period, namely the fall of empires, rise of nationalism, and world wars. Her life story provides insight to cataclysmic events, and its retelling in an errant narrative which weaves in female experiences that have been silenced. There is a link between the shifts in places and those her inner self undergoes. Moreover, the presence of dance as a means of self-expression makes an apt point in discussing the development of Selma's identity. This paper traces the ways in which the novel represents exilic spaces and their female experiencing through focus on displacement and practices of dance. By juxtaposing the themes of exile, movement and dance this paper highlights the complexity of the narrative and the circuitous forms of displacement. Sürgünde Vals: Kenizé Mourad'ın Saraydan Sürgüne adlı romanında sürgün ve kadın Öz Kenizé Mourad'ın Saraydan Sürgüne (1987) adlı romanı Selma adındaki Osmanlı prensesinin iki dünya savaşı arasında kıtalar, kültürler ve başkentleri kat eden (İstanbul, Beyrut, Badalpour ve Paris) hikayesini konu alır. Selma imparatorlukların çöküşü, milliyetçiliğin yükselişi ve dünya savaşları ile örülmüş sorunlu bir dönemin kilit tarihine tanıklık etmektedir. Selma'nın bu göçebe öyküsü yaşanan felaketlere ışık tutmanın yanı sıra susturulmuş ve bastırılmış farklı kadın deneyimlerine de göndermede bulunmaktadır. Romanda Selma'nın yaşadığı mekânsal değişimler ile içsel benliğinin yaşadığı başkalaşım arasında bir bağlantı bulunmaktadır. Ayrıca, kendini ifade etme aracı olarak dans kavramının varlığı, Selma'nın kimliğinin gelişimini tartışmak için uygun bir noktaya getirmektedir. Bu makale, romanda bir mekân olarak sürgün kavramının ve kadın varlığının ne şekilde temsil edildiğini ve metnin gidiş ve dönüşler arasındaki gezici niteliğinin bu kavramları nasıl
Özet Yazar, mutasavvıf, ideolog Sâmiha Ayverdi'nin eserleri bugün daha çok hocası Kenan Rıfai'nin... more Özet Yazar, mutasavvıf, ideolog Sâmiha Ayverdi'nin eserleri bugün daha çok hocası Kenan Rıfai'nin öğretileri ve tasavvuf ile birlikte anılsa da toplumsal ve bireysel belleğin iç içe geçtiği, hiçbir klasik edebiyat türüne sığmayan anlatıları onu sıradışı bir yazar yapar. stanbul, kaybolmuş bir medeniyetin başkenti, temsilcisi ve cisimleşmiş hali olarak Ayverdi'nin anlatılarında toplumsal ve bireysel hikâyelerin kesişme noktasını oluşturur. Bu çalışma, Ayverdi'nin stanbul'u odağına aldığı iki metne, stanbul Geceleri (1952) ve Boğaziçi'nde Tarih (1966) adlı eserlerine odaklanır. ki metnin bir diğer ortak özeliği yazarın kadınlık deneyimlerine yaptığı vurgudur. ki metindeki kadın imgeleri üç farklı ama aynı zamanda tamamlayıcı açıdan ele alınır; bunlar yazarın kendini anlatıcı olarak konumlandırması, şehri anlatan yabancı kadın yazarlara metninde yer vermesi, ve son olarak da stanbul'un bir kadın-şehir olarak tanımlanmasıdır. Yirminci yüzyıl Türk edebiyatında şehir, birey ve bellek arasındaki ilişkiyi bir kadın mutasavvıfın perspektifinden gösteren bu çalışma aynı zamanda bu perspektifin güncelliğini göstermeyi amaçlar. Abstract The work of Sâmiha Ayverdi (1905-1993), a prominent and prolific twentieth-century Turkish writer and Sufi, ranges from novels to political pamphlets and historiographic accounts, and mostly reflects her commitment to Sufism and to her mentor, Kenan Rifai. Another major theme in her work is Istanbul, the seat of the Ottoman Empire and its lost civilization. In Istanbul Geceleri (1952) and in Boğaziçi'nde Tarih (1966) Ayverdi takes the reader on a journey in time and space along the city, to seek the vision of the Ottoman past and elaborate on the many facets of loss, longing, and distance. These texts also share a similar emphasis on the female experience of the city, and this article seeks to explore this experience through three complimentary perspectives. The starting point is how the narrator identifies herself as a woman, next is the references to the accounts of the city by foreign female travellers, and finally the emphasis is on the description of the city as a female entity. By highlighting Ayverdi's idiosyncratic blend of the personal and the collective, the historical and the spiritual in her accounts of Istanbul's cityscape, this paper traces the links between the construction of the self and memory from the perspective of a female Sufi writer.
Yazar, mutasavvıf, ideolog Sâmiha Ayverdi'nin eserleri bugün daha çok hocası Kenan Rıfai’nin öğre... more Yazar, mutasavvıf, ideolog Sâmiha Ayverdi'nin eserleri bugün daha çok hocası Kenan Rıfai’nin öğretileri ve tasavvuf ile birlikte anılsa da toplumsal ve bireysel belleğin içiçe geçtiği, hiçbir klasik edebiyat türüne sığmayan anlatıları onu sıradışı bir yazar yapar. İstanbul, kaybolmuş̧ bir medeniyetin başkenti, temsilcisi ve cisimleşmiş hali olarak Ayverdi’nin anlatılarında toplumsal ve bireysel hikâyelerin kesişme noktasını oluşturur. Bu çalışma, Ayverdi'nin İstanbul’u odağına aldığı iki metne, İstanbul Geceleri (1952) ve Boğaziçi’nde Tarih (1966) adlı eserlerine odaklanır. İki metnin bir diğer ortak özeliği yazarın kadınlık deneyimlerine yaptığı vurgudur. İki metindeki kadın imgelerini üç farklı ama aynı zamanda tamamlayıcı açıdan gösteren bu çalışma, yirminci yüzyıl Türkiye yazınında şehir, birey ve bellek arasındaki ilişkiyi bir kadın mutasavvıfın perspektifinden de göstermeyi amaçlar.
Istanbul’s discursive positioning as a city of cultural ambiguity
offers a productive way of appr... more Istanbul’s discursive positioning as a city of cultural ambiguity offers a productive way of approaching disorientation conceptually: the image of the city reveals a struggle to orient itself amidst and across discourses of Orientalism and modernity. Within that struggle, the city’s metaphorical fogs, from the prototypical representation of the city’s fogs by the modernist poet Tevfik Fikret to Prince Abdu¨lmecid’s eponymous painting, from the Republican writer Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar’s transmutative dream to the melancholy mists of Orhan Pamuk, constitute an unlikely guide to its exceptional experience of disorientation. The city constantly changes and various forms of literary or figurative fog accompany experiences of disorientation especially during the fraught transition between the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic, where the discourses of modernity and Orientalism coalesce and disorient one another. Each instance of fog/mist discloses something about the struggle to orient the city, as well as the struggle with ‘the Orient’.
Bir Dinozorun Eleştirileri: Mîna Urgan ve Erich Auerbach ile Virginia Woolf Okumak, 2023
The only monograph on Virginia Woolf in Turkish was written by a woman no less exceptional: write... more The only monograph on Virginia Woolf in Turkish was written by a woman no less exceptional: writer, activist, and academic Mina Urgan (1915-2000). The monograph provides clues regarding Urgan’s thoughts on gender, mental stability, and what makes good writing; it also includes a note on antisemitism, and a nod to her teacher, one of the many German Jewish refugees who taught at Turkish universities during the Nazi regime, and one of the founders of comparative literature as a discipline, Erich Auerbach. Taking the relationality of identity as its departure point, this article suggests a dialogue between three writers, and between life writing and critique. Articulating context to critique, the comparisons in this article suggest new networks of meaning through the transnational connections of literary criticism in Turkey. (The article is in Turkish)
The International Journal of the Humanities: Annual Review, 2007
Set in the Istanbul of 1591, My Name is Red (1998, 2001) by the 2006 Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk t... more Set in the Istanbul of 1591, My Name is Red (1998, 2001) by the 2006 Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk tells a story of love and murder around a secret book of miniature paintings. Winner of the IMPAC 2003 and considered Pamuk's masterpiece on masterpieces, the novel is a ...
With the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature, Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk who, in the words of the Sw... more With the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature, Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk who, in the words of the Swedish Academy, “has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures,” has been internationally acknowledged as a master-writer.1 Subsequent to the award, My Name Is Red (1998, 2001), Pamuk’s most acclaimed work and winner of the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2003, has been framed as a masterpiece by the accolades of both the writer and the text.2
ABSTRACT Istanbul's discursive positioning as a city of cultural ambiguity offers a productiv... more ABSTRACT Istanbul's discursive positioning as a city of cultural ambiguity offers a productive way of approaching disorientation conceptually: the image of the city reveals a struggle to orient itself amidst and across discourses of Orientalism and modernity. Within that struggle, the city's metaphorical fogs, from the prototypical representation of the city's fogs by the modernist poet Tevfik Fikret to Prince Abdülmecid's eponymous painting, from the Republican writer Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar's transmutative dream to the melancholy mists of Orhan Pamuk, constitute an unlikely guide to its exceptional experience of disorientation. The city constantly changes and various forms of literary or figurative fog accompany experiences of disorientation especially during the fraught transition between the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic, where the discourses of modernity and Orientalism coalesce and disorient one another. Each instance of fog/mist discloses something about the struggle to orient the city, as well as the struggle with ‘the Orient’.
In a world conceived through metropolises, the city has emerged as a site for new cultural claims... more In a world conceived through metropolises, the city has emerged as a site for new cultural claims and struggles, as well as a compelling narrative resource. Traditionally positioned on the imaginary divide between Europe and Asia, Istanbul disorients its visitors and inhabitants alike with its contrasts and constant changes. Istanbul’s history as a millennial metropolis at the crossroads of East and West provides the ground for innumerable stories that imitate, obliterate, and supersede one another. Something of Istanbul’s global image resonates in the work and career of Turkish novelist and 2006 Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk. The Nobel Citation posits Istanbul as Pamuk’s literary capital, and a twofold relationship between Pamuk and Istanbul, where the city and the writer feed each other. This paper introduces Pamuk’s capital through lenses that relate to Istanbul’s urban imaginary: east-west dynamics, labyrinthine cityscape, and melancholy, to reveal how Pamuk’s narrative establishes...
Kenize Mourad’in Saraydan Surgune (1987) adli romani Selma adindaki Osmanli prensesinin iki dunya... more Kenize Mourad’in Saraydan Surgune (1987) adli romani Selma adindaki Osmanli prensesinin iki dunya savasi arasinda kitalar, kulturler ve baskentleri kat eden (Istanbul, Beyrut, Badalpour ve Paris) hikayesini konu alir. Selma imparatorluklarin cokusu, milliyetciligin yukselisi ve dunya savaslari ile orulmus sorunlu bir donemin kilit tarihine taniklik etmektedir. Selma’nin bu gocebe oykusu yasanan felaketlere isik tutmanin yani sira susturulmus ve bastirilmis farkli kadin deneyimlerine de gondermede bulunmaktadir. Romanda Selma’nin yasadigi mekânsal degisimler ile icsel benliginin yasadigi baskalasim arasinda bir baglanti bulunmaktadir. Ayrica, kendini ifade etme araci olarak dans kavraminin varligi, Selma’nin kimliginin gelisimini tartismak icin uygun bir noktaya getirmektedir. Bu makale, romanda bir mekân olarak surgun kavraminin ve kadin varliginin ne sekilde temsil edildigini ve metnin gidis ve donusler arasindaki gezici niteliginin bu kavramlari nasil donusturdugunu incelemektedir...
Combining images and words when relating to a city has a long history; in Istanbul’s case, it has... more Combining images and words when relating to a city has a long history; in Istanbul’s case, it has its roots in the Orientalist tradition and in the great journeys to the “East.” For the Istanbul of the twenty-first century, the most renowned combination of photography and literature is Orhan Pamuk’s Istanbul: Memories and the City (2003), a portrait of the writer as a young artist accompanied with black-and-white photographs of Istanbul. Pamuk’s use of the photographs of Ara Guler draws from the tradition of travel writing and autobiography, documenting both the lost city and, conversely, endowing the melancholy of the narrative with a reality effect that is difficult to trace in writing. This paper discusses Pamuk’s use of photography in the memoir to address how his work supplies a heterogeneous archive of memories which both preserves and transforms the entangled pasts and presents of the city.
Waltzes in Exile: Exilic spaces and female presence in Kenizé Mourad's De la part de la princess morte, 2019
Regards from the Dead Princess (1989), Kenizé Mourad's much acclaimed début novel, tells the stor... more Regards from the Dead Princess (1989), Kenizé Mourad's much acclaimed début novel, tells the story of Selma, an Ottoman princess whose life traverses capitals, cultures and continents-Istanbul, Beirut, Badalpour, and Paris during the interbellum years. Selma bears witness to key turning points in a troubled period, namely the fall of empires, rise of nationalism, and world wars. Her life story provides insight to cataclysmic events, and its retelling in an errant narrative which weaves in female experiences that have been silenced. There is a link between the shifts in places and those her inner self undergoes. Moreover, the presence of dance as a means of self-expression makes an apt point in discussing the development of Selma's identity. This paper traces the ways in which the novel represents exilic spaces and their female experiencing through focus on displacement and practices of dance. By juxtaposing the themes of exile, movement and dance this paper highlights the complexity of the narrative and the circuitous forms of displacement. Sürgünde Vals: Kenizé Mourad'ın Saraydan Sürgüne adlı romanında sürgün ve kadın Öz Kenizé Mourad'ın Saraydan Sürgüne (1987) adlı romanı Selma adındaki Osmanlı prensesinin iki dünya savaşı arasında kıtalar, kültürler ve başkentleri kat eden (İstanbul, Beyrut, Badalpour ve Paris) hikayesini konu alır. Selma imparatorlukların çöküşü, milliyetçiliğin yükselişi ve dünya savaşları ile örülmüş sorunlu bir dönemin kilit tarihine tanıklık etmektedir. Selma'nın bu göçebe öyküsü yaşanan felaketlere ışık tutmanın yanı sıra susturulmuş ve bastırılmış farklı kadın deneyimlerine de göndermede bulunmaktadır. Romanda Selma'nın yaşadığı mekânsal değişimler ile içsel benliğinin yaşadığı başkalaşım arasında bir bağlantı bulunmaktadır. Ayrıca, kendini ifade etme aracı olarak dans kavramının varlığı, Selma'nın kimliğinin gelişimini tartışmak için uygun bir noktaya getirmektedir. Bu makale, romanda bir mekân olarak sürgün kavramının ve kadın varlığının ne şekilde temsil edildiğini ve metnin gidiş ve dönüşler arasındaki gezici niteliğinin bu kavramları nasıl
Özet Yazar, mutasavvıf, ideolog Sâmiha Ayverdi'nin eserleri bugün daha çok hocası Kenan Rıfai'nin... more Özet Yazar, mutasavvıf, ideolog Sâmiha Ayverdi'nin eserleri bugün daha çok hocası Kenan Rıfai'nin öğretileri ve tasavvuf ile birlikte anılsa da toplumsal ve bireysel belleğin iç içe geçtiği, hiçbir klasik edebiyat türüne sığmayan anlatıları onu sıradışı bir yazar yapar. stanbul, kaybolmuş bir medeniyetin başkenti, temsilcisi ve cisimleşmiş hali olarak Ayverdi'nin anlatılarında toplumsal ve bireysel hikâyelerin kesişme noktasını oluşturur. Bu çalışma, Ayverdi'nin stanbul'u odağına aldığı iki metne, stanbul Geceleri (1952) ve Boğaziçi'nde Tarih (1966) adlı eserlerine odaklanır. ki metnin bir diğer ortak özeliği yazarın kadınlık deneyimlerine yaptığı vurgudur. ki metindeki kadın imgeleri üç farklı ama aynı zamanda tamamlayıcı açıdan ele alınır; bunlar yazarın kendini anlatıcı olarak konumlandırması, şehri anlatan yabancı kadın yazarlara metninde yer vermesi, ve son olarak da stanbul'un bir kadın-şehir olarak tanımlanmasıdır. Yirminci yüzyıl Türk edebiyatında şehir, birey ve bellek arasındaki ilişkiyi bir kadın mutasavvıfın perspektifinden gösteren bu çalışma aynı zamanda bu perspektifin güncelliğini göstermeyi amaçlar. Abstract The work of Sâmiha Ayverdi (1905-1993), a prominent and prolific twentieth-century Turkish writer and Sufi, ranges from novels to political pamphlets and historiographic accounts, and mostly reflects her commitment to Sufism and to her mentor, Kenan Rifai. Another major theme in her work is Istanbul, the seat of the Ottoman Empire and its lost civilization. In Istanbul Geceleri (1952) and in Boğaziçi'nde Tarih (1966) Ayverdi takes the reader on a journey in time and space along the city, to seek the vision of the Ottoman past and elaborate on the many facets of loss, longing, and distance. These texts also share a similar emphasis on the female experience of the city, and this article seeks to explore this experience through three complimentary perspectives. The starting point is how the narrator identifies herself as a woman, next is the references to the accounts of the city by foreign female travellers, and finally the emphasis is on the description of the city as a female entity. By highlighting Ayverdi's idiosyncratic blend of the personal and the collective, the historical and the spiritual in her accounts of Istanbul's cityscape, this paper traces the links between the construction of the self and memory from the perspective of a female Sufi writer.
Yazar, mutasavvıf, ideolog Sâmiha Ayverdi'nin eserleri bugün daha çok hocası Kenan Rıfai’nin öğre... more Yazar, mutasavvıf, ideolog Sâmiha Ayverdi'nin eserleri bugün daha çok hocası Kenan Rıfai’nin öğretileri ve tasavvuf ile birlikte anılsa da toplumsal ve bireysel belleğin içiçe geçtiği, hiçbir klasik edebiyat türüne sığmayan anlatıları onu sıradışı bir yazar yapar. İstanbul, kaybolmuş̧ bir medeniyetin başkenti, temsilcisi ve cisimleşmiş hali olarak Ayverdi’nin anlatılarında toplumsal ve bireysel hikâyelerin kesişme noktasını oluşturur. Bu çalışma, Ayverdi'nin İstanbul’u odağına aldığı iki metne, İstanbul Geceleri (1952) ve Boğaziçi’nde Tarih (1966) adlı eserlerine odaklanır. İki metnin bir diğer ortak özeliği yazarın kadınlık deneyimlerine yaptığı vurgudur. İki metindeki kadın imgelerini üç farklı ama aynı zamanda tamamlayıcı açıdan gösteren bu çalışma, yirminci yüzyıl Türkiye yazınında şehir, birey ve bellek arasındaki ilişkiyi bir kadın mutasavvıfın perspektifinden de göstermeyi amaçlar.
Istanbul’s discursive positioning as a city of cultural ambiguity
offers a productive way of appr... more Istanbul’s discursive positioning as a city of cultural ambiguity offers a productive way of approaching disorientation conceptually: the image of the city reveals a struggle to orient itself amidst and across discourses of Orientalism and modernity. Within that struggle, the city’s metaphorical fogs, from the prototypical representation of the city’s fogs by the modernist poet Tevfik Fikret to Prince Abdu¨lmecid’s eponymous painting, from the Republican writer Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar’s transmutative dream to the melancholy mists of Orhan Pamuk, constitute an unlikely guide to its exceptional experience of disorientation. The city constantly changes and various forms of literary or figurative fog accompany experiences of disorientation especially during the fraught transition between the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic, where the discourses of modernity and Orientalism coalesce and disorient one another. Each instance of fog/mist discloses something about the struggle to orient the city, as well as the struggle with ‘the Orient’.
Everyday objects and spaces, albeit appealing to different senses, may join forces in evoking the... more Everyday objects and spaces, albeit appealing to different senses, may join forces in evoking the materialities of Islam. In the work of the leading Rifai mystic Semiha Ayverdi (1905-1993), the rhythms and rituals of bygone Istanbul help keep a record of Sufi thought and sensoria. In Ibrahim Efendi Konağı (1964), part memoir and part fiction, the writer places emphasis on the everyday practices of women in and around the mansion, from coffee-serving to Ramadan. Ayverdi’s account of intimate spaces and the life indoors brings out the secular and the spiritual sides of the everyday life of women in Ottoman society. Household pleasures and duties engage the senses of their practitioners and their audiences in ways that discipline both their morals and spirit, towards the achievement of Insan-ı Kâmil, the Mature Human. The paper traces how everyday household practices appealing to different senses, such as coffee and prayers, are conjoined in the material and the spirit of Islam.
The Tatar man of letters, activist, and ideologue Ayaz Ishaki (1878-1954) spent most of his life ... more The Tatar man of letters, activist, and ideologue Ayaz Ishaki (1878-1954) spent most of his life in exile from his native Kazan, in pursuit of cementing a Turkish community and establishing their cultural and political unity across borders and continents. Following the long dissolution of the Russian and the Ottoman empires, and the emergence of new states in their former territories meant the reconfiguration of political and cultural identities of their subjects. The Turkish communities were among those who underwent drastic cultural and geographical changes. Ishaki’s career, in a manner that reflects this flux, crisscrossed Japan, Germany, Poland and Turkey, to network and orientate the Turkic diaspora around a shared identity. Yet, due to the cultural void between the Turkish peoples and cultures Ishaki worked towards filling, and the threat it posed to the states such policies took shape in, notably the Soviet Republic, the emerging Japan and the Turkish republic, Ishaki’s prolific career and work remained neglected, most notably in Turkey, where he spent the last fifteen years of his life.
Among his few works available in Turkish, the one that clearly reveals his ideology is his novel Uyge Taba (Towards Home), a Turanian fantasy of homecoming. Written in Tatar, or Eastern Turkish in Ishaki’s words, the novel was published in Berlin in 1922. Ishaki translated it to what he calls Anatolian Turkish in 1941, with the aim of introducing to the Turks of Turkey the lifestyle and values of the Turks from other lands, notably from former Russia. The novel tells the story of Miralay Demir Ali, a frustrated Turkic lieutenant in the Russian army, and how, through chance encounters with fellow Turks, especially through dinners with the family of his late wife’s friend, he remembers his Turkish identity and his true affiliations. Demir Ali then plots his desertion of the Russian Army, inciting his Turkish soldiers to accompany him in joining the Ottoman army, in the true Turanian spirit. Uyge Taba mobilizes the imagery of home to build a shared motherland for a scattered people. This paper looks at how the idea of a common home – origin and destination – is imagined in the novel and how historical symbols and everyday practices join forces in building the imaginary homeland.
In November 2012, a delegation of writers from PEN International, the world association of writer... more In November 2012, a delegation of writers from PEN International, the world association of writers, visited Istanbul and Ankara to raise long-standing concerns about the state of freedom of expression in Turkey. During the visit, the writers met with Turkey’s then President Abdullah Gül. The discussion was frank. Among the topics raised were: the large numbers of writers then in prison and on trial; the use of anti-terror legislation to stifle dissent; writers who had served years of untried detention; and suppression of the Internet. The meeting was amicable and Gül gave assurances that he was following the situation closely. He made an important observation, that he recognised that freedom of expression in his country was problematic, saying: “There are many good things unfolding in Turkey, but these concerns cast a shadow over the progress we are achieving.“ In November 2014, the Norwegian PEN Centre is presenting a report which explores how the situation for freedom of expression has developed since the visit in 2012. - See more at: http://www.pen-international.org/centresnews/norwegian-pen-launches-comprehensive-report-on-free-expression-in-turkey/#sthash.I82gwfOc.dpuf
"Fuhrmann's ambitious undertaking looks at modern Ottoman culture in relation to the 'West' in Sa... more "Fuhrmann's ambitious undertaking looks at modern Ottoman culture in relation to the 'West' in Salonica, Smyrna, and Constantinople. An unusual array of archival material, supplemented by the author's vast knowledge of literature, is called upon to depict the urban space as a site of ambivalence and as a stage for the multitude of identities intimately intertwined with with the European landscape."
Becoming Post-Communist: Jews And The New Political Cultures Of Russia And Eastern Europe , 2023
This chapter studies two recent books on the Eastern Mediterranean port cities of the former Otto... more This chapter studies two recent books on the Eastern Mediterranean port cities of the former Ottoman empire. Malte Fuhrmann’s Port Cities of the Eastern Mediterranean (2020) is a sweeping panorama of the region, while Dina Danon’s The Jews of Ottoman Izmir (2020) is a microhistory of Izmir. Fuhrmann’s ambitious undertaking looks at modern Ottoman culture in relation to “the West” in Salonica, Smyrna, and Constantinople. It focuses on the lower classes, the European poor—and, in particular, women whose lives crossed cultural and physical borders in search of work and security. In The Jews of Ottoman Izmir, Dina Danon provides a unique panorama of single port city via the perspective of a Jewish community on the cusp of modernity.
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Papers by Esra Almas
Sürgünde Vals: Kenizé Mourad'ın Saraydan Sürgüne adlı romanında sürgün ve kadın Öz Kenizé Mourad'ın Saraydan Sürgüne (1987) adlı romanı Selma adındaki Osmanlı prensesinin iki dünya savaşı arasında kıtalar, kültürler ve başkentleri kat eden (İstanbul, Beyrut, Badalpour ve Paris) hikayesini konu alır. Selma imparatorlukların çöküşü, milliyetçiliğin yükselişi ve dünya savaşları ile örülmüş sorunlu bir dönemin kilit tarihine tanıklık etmektedir. Selma'nın bu göçebe öyküsü yaşanan felaketlere ışık tutmanın yanı sıra susturulmuş ve bastırılmış farklı kadın deneyimlerine de göndermede bulunmaktadır. Romanda Selma'nın yaşadığı mekânsal değişimler ile içsel benliğinin yaşadığı başkalaşım arasında bir bağlantı bulunmaktadır. Ayrıca, kendini ifade etme aracı olarak dans kavramının varlığı, Selma'nın kimliğinin gelişimini tartışmak için uygun bir noktaya getirmektedir. Bu makale, romanda bir mekân olarak sürgün kavramının ve kadın varlığının ne şekilde temsil edildiğini ve metnin gidiş ve dönüşler arasındaki gezici niteliğinin bu kavramları nasıl
offers a productive way of approaching disorientation conceptually: the image of the city reveals a struggle to orient itself amidst and across discourses of Orientalism
and modernity. Within that struggle, the city’s metaphorical fogs, from the prototypical representation of the city’s fogs by the modernist poet Tevfik Fikret to Prince Abdu¨lmecid’s eponymous painting, from the Republican writer Ahmet
Hamdi Tanpınar’s transmutative dream to the melancholy mists of Orhan
Pamuk, constitute an unlikely guide to its exceptional experience of disorientation. The city constantly changes and various forms of literary or figurative fog accompany experiences of disorientation especially during the fraught transition between the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic, where the discourses of modernity and Orientalism coalesce and disorient one another. Each instance of fog/mist discloses something about the struggle to orient the city, as well as the struggle with ‘the Orient’.
Sürgünde Vals: Kenizé Mourad'ın Saraydan Sürgüne adlı romanında sürgün ve kadın Öz Kenizé Mourad'ın Saraydan Sürgüne (1987) adlı romanı Selma adındaki Osmanlı prensesinin iki dünya savaşı arasında kıtalar, kültürler ve başkentleri kat eden (İstanbul, Beyrut, Badalpour ve Paris) hikayesini konu alır. Selma imparatorlukların çöküşü, milliyetçiliğin yükselişi ve dünya savaşları ile örülmüş sorunlu bir dönemin kilit tarihine tanıklık etmektedir. Selma'nın bu göçebe öyküsü yaşanan felaketlere ışık tutmanın yanı sıra susturulmuş ve bastırılmış farklı kadın deneyimlerine de göndermede bulunmaktadır. Romanda Selma'nın yaşadığı mekânsal değişimler ile içsel benliğinin yaşadığı başkalaşım arasında bir bağlantı bulunmaktadır. Ayrıca, kendini ifade etme aracı olarak dans kavramının varlığı, Selma'nın kimliğinin gelişimini tartışmak için uygun bir noktaya getirmektedir. Bu makale, romanda bir mekân olarak sürgün kavramının ve kadın varlığının ne şekilde temsil edildiğini ve metnin gidiş ve dönüşler arasındaki gezici niteliğinin bu kavramları nasıl
offers a productive way of approaching disorientation conceptually: the image of the city reveals a struggle to orient itself amidst and across discourses of Orientalism
and modernity. Within that struggle, the city’s metaphorical fogs, from the prototypical representation of the city’s fogs by the modernist poet Tevfik Fikret to Prince Abdu¨lmecid’s eponymous painting, from the Republican writer Ahmet
Hamdi Tanpınar’s transmutative dream to the melancholy mists of Orhan
Pamuk, constitute an unlikely guide to its exceptional experience of disorientation. The city constantly changes and various forms of literary or figurative fog accompany experiences of disorientation especially during the fraught transition between the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic, where the discourses of modernity and Orientalism coalesce and disorient one another. Each instance of fog/mist discloses something about the struggle to orient the city, as well as the struggle with ‘the Orient’.
Among his few works available in Turkish, the one that clearly reveals his ideology is his novel Uyge Taba (Towards Home), a Turanian fantasy of homecoming. Written in Tatar, or Eastern Turkish in Ishaki’s words, the novel was published in Berlin in 1922. Ishaki translated it to what he calls Anatolian Turkish in 1941, with the aim of introducing to the Turks of Turkey the lifestyle and values of the Turks from other lands, notably from former Russia. The novel tells the story of Miralay Demir Ali, a frustrated Turkic lieutenant in the Russian army, and how, through chance encounters with fellow Turks, especially through dinners with the family of his late wife’s friend, he remembers his Turkish identity and his true affiliations. Demir Ali then plots his desertion of the Russian Army, inciting his Turkish soldiers to accompany him in joining the Ottoman army, in the true Turanian spirit. Uyge Taba mobilizes the imagery of home to build a shared motherland for a scattered people. This paper looks at how the idea of a common home – origin and destination – is imagined in the novel and how historical symbols and everyday practices join forces in building the imaginary homeland.