Rachel Rosenthal, as a prominent performance artist, strikingly depicts the social, political, an... more Rachel Rosenthal, as a prominent performance artist, strikingly depicts the social, political, and ecological dangers of the contemporary era, blending them with autobiographical elements. In Pangaean Dreams: A Shamanic Journey (1990), an intriguing example of ecodramaturgy, Rosenthal, initiating a long journey into the entire history of nature, attempts to make sense of the pain in her body relating it to the global, cosmic, and geological pains in the body of nature. This relation becomes dominantly evident in the use of two motifs, Pangaea-the supercontinent in Wegener's scientific theory, and Gaia-the mythical primordial goddess. In this shamanic journey, Rosenthal identifies with Pangaea and Gaia through which she rethinks the chthonian realities of nature and rejects the romantic idealization of nature. Using Camille Paglia's scrutiny of the term chthonian as a theoretical framework, this study elaborates on how Rosenthal's shamanistic ecodramaturgy is based on an awareness of chthonian nature through which destruction pairs with regeneration in a meaningful circularity.
Jean-Marc Vallée's film Wild (2014), adopted from Cheryl Strayed's memoir From Lost to Found on t... more Jean-Marc Vallée's film Wild (2014), adopted from Cheryl Strayed's memoir From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail (2012), portrays the real-life story of Cheryl Strayed's solo hike experience in the Pacific Crest Trail, abbreviated as PCT. The plot of Wild is adapted from a real-life story that takes place on a real long-distance hiking trail that reaches from the United States/ Mexico border to the United States/ Canada border. Reminiscent of the mythical wilderness journeys and road narratives in American culture and literature, Wild presents Strayed's journey blending the difficulties and gifts of the journey in nature. From the very beginning of the film, as it is presented mainly in the flashbacks or Strayed's memories that accompany her on her trail in the wild, before this journey, Strayed is a grieving and traumatized woman unable to overcome especially the death of her mother. Towards the end of the film, this journey in nature enables her to heal her wounds, resolve her traumas, find her true self, and be ready to become a part of the culture. From this perspective, the hiking experience of the main character resembles an initiation ritual maintaining change for the ritual subject. This article, using a significant sociological survey on the relation between ritual and liminality provided by Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner, examines the redemptive change of limen personae, Cheryl Strayed, journeying on a limen space, the wild.
Wallace Shawn's play The Designated Mourner (1996) centers on the relationship among the three ch... more Wallace Shawn's play The Designated Mourner (1996) centers on the relationship among the three characters: Jack, his wife Judy, and his father-in-law Howard. In a memory play structure, Jack remembers not only the tensions in his private life with Judy and Howard but also the social and political unrest that emanates from the totalitarian ideology in public life. Set in an unnamed society, the play displays violence and authoritarianism along with practices of incarceration and execution in which the individuals who may criticize the state policies are punished, silenced, and eliminated. Judy, Howard, and the friends they mention in their monologues, who stand as representatives of highbrow elite intellectuals, are victimized under this fascist, totalitarian state. Since Judy, Howard, and other elites are executed, Jack becomes the only survivor who laments for the deceased. The ritual is one of the most potent and impressive forms in The Designated Mourner since the play ends the same way it begins in which Jack introduces himself as "the designated mourner" who grieves for the disappearance of a very special little world. This paper elaborates on how rituals emerge as patterns enabling individuals to overcome crises, focusing on Jack's disorienting experiences in this unnamed fascist society.
In The Tree of Life, Terrence Malick presents Jack O'Brien's attempts to come to terms with his p... more In The Tree of Life, Terrence Malick presents Jack O'Brien's attempts to come to terms with his past. The most traumatic experience in his past is his brother's death which gives not only Jack but also other members of the family a great agony. Similarly, Miracles from Heaven deals with affliction. Inspired by a true story, Patricia Riggen dives into the lives of the Beams projecting both physical and psychological agony since the 10-year-old daughter Anna (Annabel) suffers from a deathly illness. Even though Anna is miraculously healed in the end by divine intervention, both films interrogate death and suffering as a process that threatens the meaningful order of a cosmos ruled by an almighty powerful transcendental creator. Pondering on especially the term theodicy as a theoretical framework, this paper elucidates how these two films deal with the problem of suffering in which humanity loses touch with a meaningful cosmos and how they offer spiritual solutions to this problem by engaging in cosmic voyages.
Subject and State. Ideology, State Apparatuses and Interpellation in Fahrenheit 451, 2015
In Fahrenheit 451 (1953), Ray Bradbury portrays an authoritarian social formation in which readin... more In Fahrenheit 451 (1953), Ray Bradbury portrays an authoritarian social formation in which reading and keeping books are strictly forbidden. The protagonist Montag who works as a fireman charged for burning books happens to question both his job and the dominant anti-intellectual ideology. Following a crisis of conscience period, Montag challenges the function of repressive state apparatus and manages to flee to wilderness where he meets a group of men who are willing to reconstruct society by enabling people to learn about their cultural heritage through the books they have secretly memorized. Using Althusser’s theory on ideology, this paper reinterprets Bradbury’s imaginative society scrutinizing the use of state apparatuses to interpellate subjects by the ruling ideology and the motif of resistance to such a powerful disseminating ideological call.
THE DUALITY OF HOPE AND DESPAIR: THORNTON WILDER’S APOCALYPTIC VISION IN THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH, 2011
Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth is one of the earliest precursors of apocalyptic themes i... more Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth is one of the earliest precursors of apocalyptic themes in modern American drama. The play, written in 1942 when America was plunging into the enormity of World War II, criticizes the progress of humanity, life struggle, unity of American family, rise of technology and war using apocalypse as a metaphor. The focus of the play is on the Antrobuses—a typical American family with two children and a maid who have to survive apocalypses such as the glacier, the deluge and the war respectively in three acts. The recurrent image of apocalypse reveals a sense of both an ending—despair and a new beginning—hope. This study examines Wilder’s apocalyptic vision in The Skin of Our Teeth by comparing it to the traditional form of apocalypse which contains the duality of hope and despair.
BOUNDARIES OF CONNECTION AND DISTINCTION: AN OUTSIDER’S MANEUVERS, PRACTICES, AND TASTES IN GUARE’S SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION, 2013
In John Guare’s Six Degrees of Separation, the protagonist Paul integrates himself in other peopl... more In John Guare’s Six Degrees of Separation, the protagonist Paul integrates himself in other people’s lives, using fake identities. The imposter Paul indeed yearns to overcome the boundaries formed by distinct factors such as class, race, and sexual orientation. These boundaries provide a basis for a consideration of the possibility to connect and to transcend markers of social distinction. In order to revive the discussion about the dichotomy between connection and distinction in Guare’s play, this article argues that this dichotomy is based on the depiction of space, spatial maneuvers, practices, and tastes. This study primarily draws attention to the outstanding role of space and spatial maneuvers in the commentary on boundaries through de Certeau’s examination of space, tactics, strategies, and practices and then investigates the determiners of membership through Bourdieu’s scrutiny on habitus, taste, and capital.
‘That Light is not Bright’: Cosmos vs. Chaos in Stein’s Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights, 2015
Written in 1938 by Gertrude Stein, Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights reinterprets the Faustian myt... more Written in 1938 by Gertrude Stein, Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights reinterprets the Faustian myth presenting the character Doctor Faustus as a man who has sold his soul to Mephistopheles to make electric light. The setting of the play is a chaotic universe in which the cycle of day and night is broken. Doctor Faustus, along with his companions, is stuck in this artificially lit space in which they are perpetually subject to the “unbright” light of electricity. The use of the light/dark opposition in the play is reminiscent of a similar use in biblical literature in which the cosmos/chaos opposition is accompanied by the opposition of light/dark, with the light serving as a metaphor for providing the cosmos and abolishing chaos. The aim of this study is to compare the use of light in biblical narratives as a necessary divine tool to create an ordered cosmos out of a dark chaos with Stein’s metaphoric use of “electric light” in order to understand Stein’s criticism of modern technological chaos.
Control and Resistance in the Heterotopic Spatiality of Pleasantville, 2015
Pleasantville presents the experience of the teenage twins David and Jennifer who are transported... more Pleasantville presents the experience of the teenage twins David and Jennifer who are transported to the 1950s TV soap opera named Pleasantville via the TV remote control. The twins introduce free sex, arts, literature, rock and roll, and jazz to this perfected town in which residents live in order. This clash of cultures results in social unrest as the residents become aware that the order is an outcome of submission and challenge the roles attributed to them. The transformation from control to resistance is the dominant motif of the film. Using Foucault’s theory of heterotopia, this study scrutinizes how the heterotopian principles in the spatial presentations provide a good lens to negotiate forms of control and resistance.
Liberating Serpentine Goddesses on the Borderlands: Cherrie Moraga’s Feminist Architecture in The Hungry Woman: A Mexican Medea, 2018
Cherrie Moraga’s The Hungry Woman: A Mexican Medea takes place in a future dystopia in which the ... more Cherrie Moraga’s The Hungry Woman: A Mexican Medea takes place in a future dystopia in which the protagonist Medea is exiled from her homeland Aztlán due to her love affair with another woman. She lives with her girlfriend, son and mother in Phoenix—a wasteland populated by the people unwanted by the patriarchal authorities of Aztlán. In order to prevent her son’s attempt to get back to Aztlán to live with the corrupted patriarchs and thereby to protect his purity, Medea kills her son and is sent to a prison psychiatric ward tormented by the memory of her infanticide. In this reinterpretation of Euripides’ Medea, Moraga refers to several mythical, folkloric and literary female figures to touch upon the exclusion of the queer subject. Among them, there are female deities such as Cihuatateo and Coatlicue that have been recuperated as prominent cultural symbols to question the female consciousness in contemporary Chicana feminism. This paper examines how Moraga reappropriates and discerns these archetypal goddesses in the context of Chicana indigenous feminism.
PRODUCING SPACE, REPRESENTING GRIEF: SEPTEMBER 11 MEMORIAL IN AMY WALDMAN’S THE SUBMISSION, 2018
Published a decade after September 11, 2001, Amy Waldman’s novel The Submission recounts the even... more Published a decade after September 11, 2001, Amy Waldman’s novel The Submission recounts the events about the project to build a memorial for September 11.Two years after the attack, a jury is commissioned to decide the winner of the blind memorial competition. After winnowing five thousand entries, the jury chooses two finalists: the designs named “the Garden” and “the Void.” Following the long discussions about how the tragedy should be remembered in that memorial space, the design named “the Garden” wins. When the submission file is opened, the winner’s identity as a Muslim-American is revealed which leads to a debate among the jury members. The news regarding the identity of the winner is leaked to a journalist and the chaos in the jury becomes nationwide. The debate on the symbolic associations and the practice of the memorial space goes along with ruminations on mourning, art, Islam, equality and democracy. Using Henri Lefebvre’s socio-spatial dialectics as a theoretical framework, this study examines the representation and practice of “the Garden” in The Submission as a space to memorialize and mourn.
Rachel Rosenthal, as a prominent performance artist, strikingly depicts the social, political, an... more Rachel Rosenthal, as a prominent performance artist, strikingly depicts the social, political, and ecological dangers of the contemporary era, blending them with autobiographical elements. In Pangaean Dreams: A Shamanic Journey (1990), an intriguing example of ecodramaturgy, Rosenthal, initiating a long journey into the entire history of nature, attempts to make sense of the pain in her body relating it to the global, cosmic, and geological pains in the body of nature. This relation becomes dominantly evident in the use of two motifs, Pangaea-the supercontinent in Wegener's scientific theory, and Gaia-the mythical primordial goddess. In this shamanic journey, Rosenthal identifies with Pangaea and Gaia through which she rethinks the chthonian realities of nature and rejects the romantic idealization of nature. Using Camille Paglia's scrutiny of the term chthonian as a theoretical framework, this study elaborates on how Rosenthal's shamanistic ecodramaturgy is based on an awareness of chthonian nature through which destruction pairs with regeneration in a meaningful circularity.
Jean-Marc Vallée's film Wild (2014), adopted from Cheryl Strayed's memoir From Lost to Found on t... more Jean-Marc Vallée's film Wild (2014), adopted from Cheryl Strayed's memoir From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail (2012), portrays the real-life story of Cheryl Strayed's solo hike experience in the Pacific Crest Trail, abbreviated as PCT. The plot of Wild is adapted from a real-life story that takes place on a real long-distance hiking trail that reaches from the United States/ Mexico border to the United States/ Canada border. Reminiscent of the mythical wilderness journeys and road narratives in American culture and literature, Wild presents Strayed's journey blending the difficulties and gifts of the journey in nature. From the very beginning of the film, as it is presented mainly in the flashbacks or Strayed's memories that accompany her on her trail in the wild, before this journey, Strayed is a grieving and traumatized woman unable to overcome especially the death of her mother. Towards the end of the film, this journey in nature enables her to heal her wounds, resolve her traumas, find her true self, and be ready to become a part of the culture. From this perspective, the hiking experience of the main character resembles an initiation ritual maintaining change for the ritual subject. This article, using a significant sociological survey on the relation between ritual and liminality provided by Arnold van Gennep and Victor Turner, examines the redemptive change of limen personae, Cheryl Strayed, journeying on a limen space, the wild.
Wallace Shawn's play The Designated Mourner (1996) centers on the relationship among the three ch... more Wallace Shawn's play The Designated Mourner (1996) centers on the relationship among the three characters: Jack, his wife Judy, and his father-in-law Howard. In a memory play structure, Jack remembers not only the tensions in his private life with Judy and Howard but also the social and political unrest that emanates from the totalitarian ideology in public life. Set in an unnamed society, the play displays violence and authoritarianism along with practices of incarceration and execution in which the individuals who may criticize the state policies are punished, silenced, and eliminated. Judy, Howard, and the friends they mention in their monologues, who stand as representatives of highbrow elite intellectuals, are victimized under this fascist, totalitarian state. Since Judy, Howard, and other elites are executed, Jack becomes the only survivor who laments for the deceased. The ritual is one of the most potent and impressive forms in The Designated Mourner since the play ends the same way it begins in which Jack introduces himself as "the designated mourner" who grieves for the disappearance of a very special little world. This paper elaborates on how rituals emerge as patterns enabling individuals to overcome crises, focusing on Jack's disorienting experiences in this unnamed fascist society.
In The Tree of Life, Terrence Malick presents Jack O'Brien's attempts to come to terms with his p... more In The Tree of Life, Terrence Malick presents Jack O'Brien's attempts to come to terms with his past. The most traumatic experience in his past is his brother's death which gives not only Jack but also other members of the family a great agony. Similarly, Miracles from Heaven deals with affliction. Inspired by a true story, Patricia Riggen dives into the lives of the Beams projecting both physical and psychological agony since the 10-year-old daughter Anna (Annabel) suffers from a deathly illness. Even though Anna is miraculously healed in the end by divine intervention, both films interrogate death and suffering as a process that threatens the meaningful order of a cosmos ruled by an almighty powerful transcendental creator. Pondering on especially the term theodicy as a theoretical framework, this paper elucidates how these two films deal with the problem of suffering in which humanity loses touch with a meaningful cosmos and how they offer spiritual solutions to this problem by engaging in cosmic voyages.
Subject and State. Ideology, State Apparatuses and Interpellation in Fahrenheit 451, 2015
In Fahrenheit 451 (1953), Ray Bradbury portrays an authoritarian social formation in which readin... more In Fahrenheit 451 (1953), Ray Bradbury portrays an authoritarian social formation in which reading and keeping books are strictly forbidden. The protagonist Montag who works as a fireman charged for burning books happens to question both his job and the dominant anti-intellectual ideology. Following a crisis of conscience period, Montag challenges the function of repressive state apparatus and manages to flee to wilderness where he meets a group of men who are willing to reconstruct society by enabling people to learn about their cultural heritage through the books they have secretly memorized. Using Althusser’s theory on ideology, this paper reinterprets Bradbury’s imaginative society scrutinizing the use of state apparatuses to interpellate subjects by the ruling ideology and the motif of resistance to such a powerful disseminating ideological call.
THE DUALITY OF HOPE AND DESPAIR: THORNTON WILDER’S APOCALYPTIC VISION IN THE SKIN OF OUR TEETH, 2011
Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth is one of the earliest precursors of apocalyptic themes i... more Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth is one of the earliest precursors of apocalyptic themes in modern American drama. The play, written in 1942 when America was plunging into the enormity of World War II, criticizes the progress of humanity, life struggle, unity of American family, rise of technology and war using apocalypse as a metaphor. The focus of the play is on the Antrobuses—a typical American family with two children and a maid who have to survive apocalypses such as the glacier, the deluge and the war respectively in three acts. The recurrent image of apocalypse reveals a sense of both an ending—despair and a new beginning—hope. This study examines Wilder’s apocalyptic vision in The Skin of Our Teeth by comparing it to the traditional form of apocalypse which contains the duality of hope and despair.
BOUNDARIES OF CONNECTION AND DISTINCTION: AN OUTSIDER’S MANEUVERS, PRACTICES, AND TASTES IN GUARE’S SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION, 2013
In John Guare’s Six Degrees of Separation, the protagonist Paul integrates himself in other peopl... more In John Guare’s Six Degrees of Separation, the protagonist Paul integrates himself in other people’s lives, using fake identities. The imposter Paul indeed yearns to overcome the boundaries formed by distinct factors such as class, race, and sexual orientation. These boundaries provide a basis for a consideration of the possibility to connect and to transcend markers of social distinction. In order to revive the discussion about the dichotomy between connection and distinction in Guare’s play, this article argues that this dichotomy is based on the depiction of space, spatial maneuvers, practices, and tastes. This study primarily draws attention to the outstanding role of space and spatial maneuvers in the commentary on boundaries through de Certeau’s examination of space, tactics, strategies, and practices and then investigates the determiners of membership through Bourdieu’s scrutiny on habitus, taste, and capital.
‘That Light is not Bright’: Cosmos vs. Chaos in Stein’s Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights, 2015
Written in 1938 by Gertrude Stein, Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights reinterprets the Faustian myt... more Written in 1938 by Gertrude Stein, Doctor Faustus Lights the Lights reinterprets the Faustian myth presenting the character Doctor Faustus as a man who has sold his soul to Mephistopheles to make electric light. The setting of the play is a chaotic universe in which the cycle of day and night is broken. Doctor Faustus, along with his companions, is stuck in this artificially lit space in which they are perpetually subject to the “unbright” light of electricity. The use of the light/dark opposition in the play is reminiscent of a similar use in biblical literature in which the cosmos/chaos opposition is accompanied by the opposition of light/dark, with the light serving as a metaphor for providing the cosmos and abolishing chaos. The aim of this study is to compare the use of light in biblical narratives as a necessary divine tool to create an ordered cosmos out of a dark chaos with Stein’s metaphoric use of “electric light” in order to understand Stein’s criticism of modern technological chaos.
Control and Resistance in the Heterotopic Spatiality of Pleasantville, 2015
Pleasantville presents the experience of the teenage twins David and Jennifer who are transported... more Pleasantville presents the experience of the teenage twins David and Jennifer who are transported to the 1950s TV soap opera named Pleasantville via the TV remote control. The twins introduce free sex, arts, literature, rock and roll, and jazz to this perfected town in which residents live in order. This clash of cultures results in social unrest as the residents become aware that the order is an outcome of submission and challenge the roles attributed to them. The transformation from control to resistance is the dominant motif of the film. Using Foucault’s theory of heterotopia, this study scrutinizes how the heterotopian principles in the spatial presentations provide a good lens to negotiate forms of control and resistance.
Liberating Serpentine Goddesses on the Borderlands: Cherrie Moraga’s Feminist Architecture in The Hungry Woman: A Mexican Medea, 2018
Cherrie Moraga’s The Hungry Woman: A Mexican Medea takes place in a future dystopia in which the ... more Cherrie Moraga’s The Hungry Woman: A Mexican Medea takes place in a future dystopia in which the protagonist Medea is exiled from her homeland Aztlán due to her love affair with another woman. She lives with her girlfriend, son and mother in Phoenix—a wasteland populated by the people unwanted by the patriarchal authorities of Aztlán. In order to prevent her son’s attempt to get back to Aztlán to live with the corrupted patriarchs and thereby to protect his purity, Medea kills her son and is sent to a prison psychiatric ward tormented by the memory of her infanticide. In this reinterpretation of Euripides’ Medea, Moraga refers to several mythical, folkloric and literary female figures to touch upon the exclusion of the queer subject. Among them, there are female deities such as Cihuatateo and Coatlicue that have been recuperated as prominent cultural symbols to question the female consciousness in contemporary Chicana feminism. This paper examines how Moraga reappropriates and discerns these archetypal goddesses in the context of Chicana indigenous feminism.
PRODUCING SPACE, REPRESENTING GRIEF: SEPTEMBER 11 MEMORIAL IN AMY WALDMAN’S THE SUBMISSION, 2018
Published a decade after September 11, 2001, Amy Waldman’s novel The Submission recounts the even... more Published a decade after September 11, 2001, Amy Waldman’s novel The Submission recounts the events about the project to build a memorial for September 11.Two years after the attack, a jury is commissioned to decide the winner of the blind memorial competition. After winnowing five thousand entries, the jury chooses two finalists: the designs named “the Garden” and “the Void.” Following the long discussions about how the tragedy should be remembered in that memorial space, the design named “the Garden” wins. When the submission file is opened, the winner’s identity as a Muslim-American is revealed which leads to a debate among the jury members. The news regarding the identity of the winner is leaked to a journalist and the chaos in the jury becomes nationwide. The debate on the symbolic associations and the practice of the memorial space goes along with ruminations on mourning, art, Islam, equality and democracy. Using Henri Lefebvre’s socio-spatial dialectics as a theoretical framework, this study examines the representation and practice of “the Garden” in The Submission as a space to memorialize and mourn.
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Papers by Evrim Ersöz Koç
to interpellate subjects by the ruling ideology and the motif of resistance to such a powerful disseminating ideological call.
revive the discussion about the dichotomy between connection and distinction in Guare’s play, this article argues that this dichotomy is based on the depiction of space, spatial maneuvers, practices, and tastes. This study primarily draws attention to the outstanding role of space and spatial maneuvers in the commentary on boundaries through de Certeau’s examination of space, tactics, strategies, and practices and then investigates the determiners of membership through Bourdieu’s
scrutiny on habitus, taste, and capital.
and challenge the roles attributed to them. The transformation from control to resistance is the dominant motif of the film. Using Foucault’s theory of heterotopia, this study scrutinizes how the heterotopian principles in the spatial presentations provide a good lens to negotiate forms of control and resistance.
regarding the identity of the winner is leaked to a journalist and the chaos in the jury becomes nationwide. The debate on the symbolic associations and the practice of the memorial space goes along with ruminations on mourning, art, Islam, equality and democracy. Using Henri Lefebvre’s socio-spatial dialectics as a theoretical framework, this study examines the representation and practice of “the Garden” in The Submission as a space to memorialize and mourn.
to interpellate subjects by the ruling ideology and the motif of resistance to such a powerful disseminating ideological call.
revive the discussion about the dichotomy between connection and distinction in Guare’s play, this article argues that this dichotomy is based on the depiction of space, spatial maneuvers, practices, and tastes. This study primarily draws attention to the outstanding role of space and spatial maneuvers in the commentary on boundaries through de Certeau’s examination of space, tactics, strategies, and practices and then investigates the determiners of membership through Bourdieu’s
scrutiny on habitus, taste, and capital.
and challenge the roles attributed to them. The transformation from control to resistance is the dominant motif of the film. Using Foucault’s theory of heterotopia, this study scrutinizes how the heterotopian principles in the spatial presentations provide a good lens to negotiate forms of control and resistance.
regarding the identity of the winner is leaked to a journalist and the chaos in the jury becomes nationwide. The debate on the symbolic associations and the practice of the memorial space goes along with ruminations on mourning, art, Islam, equality and democracy. Using Henri Lefebvre’s socio-spatial dialectics as a theoretical framework, this study examines the representation and practice of “the Garden” in The Submission as a space to memorialize and mourn.