Modern Turkish Literature

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

The aim of the course is to examine a range of modern Turkish literature – poems, fiction and plays – from the end of the nineteenth century, through the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the rise of the modern Turkish state and into the twenty first century. The course will have a direct relationship to politics – the background of many of the texts we are studying will be examined in all of their historical/contextual depth. Broad questions concerning Turkish national identity – and the status of other minority identities within that overall framework – will be tackled. Questions of gender, nation-state, historiography, sexual politics, religion and literary history will be addressed as central themes of the course. Finally, the course will also examine aspects of popular culture – cinema and television in particular – and the way they have been represented in Turkish literary texts. Probable Reading List: Halide Edip Adavar, b. 1884 Memoirs (1926), The Turkish Ordeal Yakup Kadri, b. 1889 “Rites of Nur Baba” Omer Seyfettin, “The Mahdi”, “The Refrain”, “After Gallipoli”, “beyaz lale/The White Tulip” Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar, Huzur, “Acibadem”, Orhan Veli, selected poems Aziz Nesin, “Dam da Deli var”, “Civilization’s Spare Part”, “A Man of the People”, “Savulunuz Sosyializm Geliyor” Tomris Uyar, born 1941 “The Guests at the Moribund Hotel” Inci Aral, b. 1944 Two Stories Murathan Mungan, extracts from his Mardin memoirs Oguz Atay, “Demiryolu Hikayelerci”, “Unutulan” Orhan Pamuk, Black Book, White Castle