- Portland, OR, United States
Pelin Basci
Portland State University, Urban Honors College, Faculty Member
Listening to the Vestibules: the Other City Built by Sounds in the Novel "Luminous Cevriye"
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This book explores responses to authoritarianism in Turkish society through popular culture by examining feature films and television serials produced between 1980 and 2010 about the 1980 coup. Envisioned as an interdisciplinary study in... more
This book explores responses to authoritarianism in Turkish society through popular culture by examining feature films and television serials produced between 1980 and 2010 about the 1980 coup. Envisioned as an interdisciplinary study in cultural studies rather than a disciplinary work on cinema, the book advocates for an understanding of popular culture in discerning emerging narratives of nationhood. Through feature films and television serials directly dealing with the coup of 1980, the book exposes tropes and discursive continuities such as “childhood” and “the child”. It argues that these conventional tropes enable popular debates on the modern nation’s history and its myths of identity.
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This article offers a critical reading, from the perspective of gender studies, of films produced in the politically charged environment of the 1990s and 2000s by directors Tomris Giritlioğlu and Yeşim Ustaoğlu. Giritlioğlu’s Ms. Salkım’s... more
This article offers a critical reading, from the perspective of gender studies, of films produced in the politically charged environment of the 1990s and 2000s by directors Tomris Giritlioğlu and Yeşim Ustaoğlu. Giritlioğlu’s Ms. Salkım’s Diamonds (Salkım Hanımın Taneleri, 1999) and Autumn Pain (Güz Sancısı, 2008) were based on Yılmaz Karakoyunlu’s novels Salkım Hanım’ın Taneleri (1990) and Güz Sancısı (1992), while Ustaoğlu’s Waiting for the Clouds (Bulutları Beklerken, 2004) was inspired by Yorgo Andreadis’ biography, Tamama (1993). The films claim artistic license in presenting individual stories, yet they embellish their representation through documentary footage about silenced historical traumas, depicting female subjects as the store of traumatic national memories, such as the exodus of Pontic Greeks in 1916, the anti-minority Wealth Tax of 1942, and the anti-Greek pogroms of 1955. Underscoring Julia Kristeva’s notion of the “feminine” as a crucial aspect of these films, this article traces two strategies used by the directors: (1) recording personal stories in order to complicate nationalist narratives and their appeal to essentialized identities, and (2) gendering trauma as female suffering inflicted by patriarchal authority. The article concludes that, regardless of their public positions to the contrary, the directors engage in feminist politics by questioning the relationship between women and the nation, by broaching issues of social justice, and by highlighting the hybridity of identities and plurality of cultures.
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First comprehensive study of the 1980 coup through films and television serials over a thirty-year period. One of few studies in English on Turkey’s popular culture. Examines construction of the military coup of 1980 in cinema and on... more
First comprehensive study of the 1980 coup through films and television serials over a thirty-year period. One of few studies in English on Turkey’s popular culture. Examines construction of the military coup of 1980 in cinema and on television as a way of exploring cultural chang
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This study aims to re-examine Women\u27s World, (a Middle Eastern women\u27s publication that was active between 1913 and 1921), from a gender aware, but broadly constructed, interdisciplinary perspective that integrates women\u27s... more
This study aims to re-examine Women\u27s World, (a Middle Eastern women\u27s publication that was active between 1913 and 1921), from a gender aware, but broadly constructed, interdisciplinary perspective that integrates women\u27s studies with studies of advertising and consumption. A feminist journal with a relatively long publication life, Women\u27s World contained a substantial number of advertisements encouraging the consumption of modem goods and services. Many of these notices promised to address the beauty, health and fashion needs of modem women, thus constructing in effect the public image of the new woman. of that image, in turn, should facilitate our understanding of both the construction of the modem self in the emerging commercial culture and the ambivalent relationship between gender and modernity in the late-Ottoman Middle East
During the last three decades, the 1980 military coup has acquired increased visibility in Turkish cinema. Films that treat the 1980 coup record two aspects of it as parts of a cinematographic narrative: some films explore the... more
During the last three decades, the 1980 military coup has acquired increased visibility in Turkish cinema. Films that treat the 1980 coup record two aspects of it as parts of a cinematographic narrative: some films explore the socio-political reasons behind the coup by capturing the period preceding the takeover, while others explore the human impact of the coup by capturing the period following it. Films in both groups interrupt the silence maintained by the official narrative about the coup, critique the justifications for military intervention, and expose the violence that was perpetrated in the name of the state
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Book Review: Turkish Kaleidoscope: Fractured Lives in a Time of Violence Story by Jenny White; art by Ergu¨n Gu¨ndu¨z Princeton University Press, 2021
A graphic novel written by a noted scholar contributes to a recent opening in Turkish culture for revisiting the era of the country’s 1980 coup, previously a taboo subject. The book evokes a time of political violence and student unrest... more
A graphic novel written by a noted scholar contributes to a recent opening in Turkish culture for revisiting the era of the country’s 1980 coup, previously a taboo subject. The book evokes a time of political violence and student unrest and idealism, before a turn to repression and neoliberal capitalism.
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This article offers a critical reading, from the perspective of gender studies, of films produced in the politically charged environment of the 1990s and 2000s by directors Tomris Giritlioğlu and Yeşim Ustaoğlu. Giritlioğlu’s Ms. Salkım’s... more
This article offers a critical reading, from the perspective of gender studies, of films produced in the politically charged environment of the 1990s and 2000s by directors Tomris Giritlioğlu and Yeşim Ustaoğlu. Giritlioğlu’s Ms. Salkım’s Diamonds (Salkım Hanımın Taneleri, 1999) and Autumn Pain (Güz Sancısı, 2008) were based on Yılmaz Karakoyunlu’s novels Salkım Hanım’ın Taneleri (1990) and Güz Sancısı (1992), while Ustaoğlu’s Waiting for the Clouds (Bulutları Beklerken, 2004) was inspired by Yorgo Andreadis’ biography, Tamama (1993). The films claim artistic license in presenting individual stories, yet they embellish their representation through documentary footage about silenced historical traumas, depicting female subjects as the store of traumatic national memories, such as the exodus of Pontic Greeks in 1916, the anti-minority Wealth Tax of 1942, and the anti-Greek pogroms of 1955. Underscoring Julia Kristeva’s notion of the “feminine” as a crucial aspect of these films, this ...
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... Long before the first American missionaries set foot on Ottoman soil, the European style" for dominating, restructuring, and having author-ity over the Orient," had been informing the educated American perception of the Near... more
... Long before the first American missionaries set foot on Ottoman soil, the European style" for dominating, restructuring, and having author-ity over the Orient," had been informing the educated American perception of the Near East. ...
The 27th volume of Gender & Society could not have been produced without the help of the following individuals, who, along with the Editorial Board members, thoughtfully and expeditiously carried out the formal peer-review process.... more
The 27th volume of Gender & Society could not have been produced without the help of the following individuals, who, along with the Editorial Board members, thoughtfully and expeditiously carried out the formal peer-review process. This list includes those who submitted reviews between July 1, 2012 and June 30, 2013. 519740 GASXXX10.1177/0891243213519740<italic>Gender & Society</italic> research-article2013
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To create separate homogenous nation-states, Greece and Turkey have been sorting out their crossed destinies and kindred lineages on the southeastern edge of Europe for at least a century now. The article presents cultural studies... more
To create separate homogenous nation-states, Greece and Turkey have been sorting out their crossed destinies and kindred lineages on the southeastern edge of Europe for at least a century now. The article presents cultural studies scholarship on cinema in light of modern Greek and Turkish history, particularly the 1923 population exchange and 1964 deportations of Greek citizens from Turkey. Marking a turn for the transnational, the films A Touch of Spice (2003) and My Grandfather’s People (2011) offer revisions of early twentieth-century nationalism in Greece and Turkey. Using Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of embodied capital, the paper demonstrates how popular cinema frames the transmission of cultural capital from one generation to the other.
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This chapter appears in an edited volume on Sevgi Soysal&#39;s oeuvre. The chapter focuses on identity, gender and performative transformations in Sevgi Soysal&#39;s short-story &quot;Painting the Moon.&quot; It is... more
This chapter appears in an edited volume on Sevgi Soysal&#39;s oeuvre. The chapter focuses on identity, gender and performative transformations in Sevgi Soysal&#39;s short-story &quot;Painting the Moon.&quot; It is published in S. Şahin and İ. Şahbenderoğlu (eds.) Isyankar Neşe. Sevgi Soysal Kitabı [Rebellious Joy. The Book of Sevgi Soysal]. İstanbul: İletişim, 2015.
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To create separate homogenous nation-states, Greece and Turkey have been sorting out their crossed destinies and kindred lineages on the southeastern edge of Europe for at least a century now. The article presents cultural studies... more
To create separate homogenous nation-states, Greece and Turkey have been sorting out their crossed destinies and kindred lineages on the southeastern edge of Europe for at least a century now. The article presents cultural studies scholarship on cinema in light of modern Greek and Turkish history, particularly the 1923 population exchange and 1964 deportations of Greek citizens from Turkey. Marking a turn for the transnational, the films A Touch of Spice (2003) and My Grandfather’s People (2011) offer revisions of early twentieth-century nationalism in Greece and Turkey. Using Pierre Bourdieu’s notion of embodied capital, the paper demonstrates how popular cinema frames the transmission of cultural capital from one generation to the other.
are individual Israeli tourists under surveillance in Jordan? As Kissinger (allegedly) said, "even paranoids have real enemies." In her epilogue she quotes a fear voiced immediately following Oslo that "tourists from the... more
are individual Israeli tourists under surveillance in Jordan? As Kissinger (allegedly) said, "even paranoids have real enemies." In her epilogue she quotes a fear voiced immediately following Oslo that "tourists from the whole world...foreigners will fill the streets...until it is no longer clear who lives here and who is a tourist." She then suggests that the "foreigner" designates the Israeli nightmare of the returning Palestinian refugees. This is reading in bad faith. Itineraries in Conflict turns a welcome spotlight on the everyday practices often overlooked in the focus on the macro-politics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Stein shows how tourism and consumption can become clarifying mirrors of socio-political processes; she raises questions and lays some important foundations for a future political ethnography of Israeli tourism that will place these insights in a broader historical and sociological context. H
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Authored as a contribution to the online Festschrift compiled in honor of Dr. Erika H. Gilson, this paper examines the storyteller's narration as the theatrical dimension of Orhan Pamuk's My Name Is Red.
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This article offers a critical reading, from the perspective of gender studies, of films produced in the politically charged environment of the 1990s and 2000s by directors Tomris Giritlioğlu and Yeşim Ustaoğlu. Giritlioğlu’s Ms. Salkım’s... more
This article offers a critical reading, from the perspective of gender studies, of films produced in the politically charged environment of the 1990s and 2000s by directors Tomris Giritlioğlu and Yeşim Ustaoğlu. Giritlioğlu’s Ms. Salkım’s Diamonds (Salkım Hanımın Taneleri, 1999) and Autumn Pain (Güz Sancısı, 2008) were based on Yılmaz Karakoyunlu’s novels Salkım Hanım’ın Taneleri (1990) and Güz Sancısı (1992), while Ustaoğlu’s Waiting for the Clouds (Bulutları Beklerken, 2004) was inspired by Yorgo Andreadis’ biography, Tamama (1993). The films claim artistic license in presenting individual stories, yet they embellish their representation through documentary footage about silenced historical traumas, depicting female subjects as the store of traumatic national memories, such as the exodus of Pontic Greeks in 1916, the anti-minority Wealth Tax of 1942, and the anti-Greek pogroms of 1955. Underscoring Julia Kristeva’s notion of the “feminine” as a crucial aspect of these films, this article traces two strategies used by the directors: (1) recording personal stories in order to complicate nationalist narratives and their appeal to essentialized identities, and (2) gendering trauma as female suffering inflicted by patriarchal authority. The article concludes that, regardless of their public positions to the contrary, the directors engage in feminist politics by questioning the relationship between women and the nation, by broaching issues of social justice, and by highlighting the hybridity of identities and plurality of cultures.
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This chapter appears in an edited volume on Sevgi Soysal's oeuvre. The chapter focuses on identity, gender and performative transformations in Sevgi Soysal's short-story "Painting the Moon." It is published in S. Şahin and İ.... more
This chapter appears in an edited volume on Sevgi Soysal's oeuvre. The chapter focuses on identity, gender and performative transformations in Sevgi Soysal's short-story "Painting the Moon." It is published in S. Şahin and İ. Şahbenderoğlu (eds.) Isyankar Neşe. Sevgi Soysal Kitabı [Rebellious Joy. The Book of Sevgi Soysal]. İstanbul: İletişim, 2015.