Department of Humanities and Social Sciences

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10679/5962

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Now showing 1 - 20 of 67

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Sleepwalking in İstanbul: a man in anguish in A. H. Tanpinar's A Mind at Peace
(Taylor & Francis, 2009) Günay-Erkol, Çimen; Humanities and Social Sciences; ERKOL, Çimen Günay
Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar's (1901-62) novels reflect the dichotomy within early twentieth-century Turkey: a nation maintaining past tradition yet concurrently embracing modernity. Tanpınar explores the Ottoman legacy of Turkish modernity and questions acute social and cultural change. Scholarly interest in this aspect of Tanpınar's novels has greatly eclipsed all other aspects, as most critics analyze Tanpınar's intentions primarily in light of his political ideologies or philosophical attachments. This article challenges Tanpınar's readers to consider him in a new light through an analysis of A Mind at Peace (2008), a multidimensional narrative that addresses an orphan boy's rites of passage, which lead to manhood, within a broad and perplexing story of continuity and change in Turkey. To understand the novel as a whole, this article asserts, one must first comprehend the protagonist's precarious masculinity and his gender anxieties.
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Post-imperial crises and liminal masculinity in Orhan Kemal’s My Father’s House–The Idle Years
(Wiley, 2012-09) Günay-Erkol, Çimen; Humanities and Social Sciences; ERKOL, Çimen Günay
My Father’s House–The Idle Years is an autobiographical novel by Orhan Kemal, one of the giants of Turkish literature. The novel’s explicit focus is on a boy who grows up pursuing self-realization in a working-class atmosphere. The story takes place during a period of abrupt transformation when the Republic of Turkey, newly born out of the ashes of the collapsed Ottoman Empire, is adapting to oppressive conditions introduced by a burgeoning capitalism. Scholarship on Orhan Kemal has extensively uncovered and charted his socialist realism and unorthodox look at the history of Turkey, but it has not concerned itself enough with the issue of masculinity, which is an indisputable part of Kemal’s view of labour and political power. This paper is an initial attempt to approach Kemal’s autobiographical novels with theories of masculinity. I argue that My Father’s House–The Idle Years explores rites of passages into manhood in what can be referred to as a crisis of imperial loss: the boy grows in an attempt to restore his father’s victimized manhood, in a symbolic parallel to the transformation of the disintegrated Ottoman Empire into self-governed nation-states. Kemal handles the loss metaphorically, using the instability generated by the gender anxieties of a young boy who fails to be like his father to represent the instability generated by the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. I examine My Father’s House–The Idle Years as the Oedipalized story of post-Ottoman Turkey.
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Issues of ideology and identity in Turkish literature during the Cold War
(2013) Günay-Erkol, Çimen; Humanities and Social Sciences; Ornek, C.; Ungor, C.; ERKOL, Çimen Günay
In the Cold War era, the period from the end of the Second World War to the fall of the Berlin Wall, Turkey was dominated by efforts of democratization and liberalization, economic growth and instability, intellectual and political quarrels, three successful (1960, 1971, and 1980) and two abortive military coups (1962 and 1963), and armed aggression in the streets which reached a peak toward the end of 1970s. The ruins left by military dictatorships are still relatively unexplored, and the neoliberal structure and hegemonic discourses introduced by them still influence contemporary life. The Cold War has left an imprint not only in literature but also in daily language, and its legacy is very much alive. The Turkish dictionary prepared and made online by the state-supported Turkish Language Association (TDK), for example, gives Moskof gâvuru (infidel of Moscow) as a synonym for the word Rus (Russian), linking an ethnic identity to a political system (the ideal of a Moscow-centered international dictatorship) and religious otherness at the same time.
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Cultivating and contesting order: 'European Turks' and negotiations of neighbourliness at 'home'
(Berghahn, 2013-12) Rottmann, Susan Beth; Humanities and Social Sciences; ROTTMANN, Susan Beth
This article examines how Turks returning from Germany to Turkey self-fashion as 'orderly neighbours'. By maintaining aesthetically pleasing homes and gardens, keeping public spaces clean, and obeying rules and laws in public, return migrants believe they act as modern 'European-Turks' and exemplify good neighbourliness. Many neighbours, however, feel these actions are unnecessary or even disruptive to Turkish communities. In conversation with the burgeoning anthropology of ethics, this research explores how local, national and transnational assemblages foster reflections and debates on neighbourly ethics. Further, this study highlights anxieties about individualism, reciprocity, 'modernity' and 'European-ness' in today's Turkey.
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Convict Labor in Turkey, 1936–1953: A Capitalist Corporation in the State?
(Cambridge University Press, 2016) Sipahi, Ali; Humanities and Social Sciences; SİPAHİ, Ali
The article proposes the institutional analysis of convict labor as an alternative to both (profit-oriented) economic and (discipline-oriented) political explanations. The specialized labor-based prisons in Turkey from 1936 to 1953 are brought to light by archival research and are presented here as a rich case to discuss the experiential/subjective conditions of unfree labor regimes and the structural effects of institutions on the convicts’ experiences. I argue that the state department responsible for prison labor in Turkey was transformed into a capitalist corporation with bureaucratic management, and the target of convict labor system was neither profit nor discipline, but the creation of the corporate bureaucracy itself. As a consequence, both for prisoners and for the prison staff, labor-based prisons appeared as privileged places. Hence, unfree labor was volunteered.
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Beyond headscarf culture in Turkey's retail sector
(Cambridge University Press, 2016) Birelma, Alpkan; Humanities and Social Sciences; BİRELMA, Alpkan
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Subcontracted employment and the labor movement’s response in turkey
(University Press of Colorado, 2017) Birelma, Alpkan; Humanities and Social Sciences; Durrenberger, E. P.; BİRELMA, Alpkan
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Ayfer Tunç'un modernizmle derdi: faillik ve iktidar
(Celal Bayar Üniversitesi, 2017) Günay-Erkol, Çimen; Humanities and Social Sciences; ERKOL, Çimen Günay
Türk edebiyatının önde gelen çağdaş yazarlarından biri olan Ayfer Tunç, romanlarında modernizmin açmazlarına vurgu yapmakta ve modernleşen dünyada, toplumdan ve doğadan yabancılaşan insanların çelişkilerine yer vermektedir. Tunç’un edebiyatında, “özgürlük”, “karar alabilme” ve “doğruyu arama” gibi temalar, modernizme ilişkin çeşitli toplumsal ve siyasal sorunlarla birleşerek genişler ve etkinleşir. Kamusal alan, bir ortak dünya yaratma eylemi olarak bu temalar çerçevesinde değerlendirilir. Tunç’un modernizmle hesaplaşma çabası, tıpkı 20. yüzyılın en önemli düşünürlerinden biri olan ve kitle siyaseti üzerine çalışan Hannah Arendt’inki gibi, “faillik”, “iktidar”, “kamusal alan”, “kötülük”, “şiddet” gibi kavramların gözden geçirilmesini de gerektirmektedir. Bu makalede, Tunç ve Arendt bir araya getirilmekte ve modernizmin bazı çıkmazlarını nasıl tartışmaya açtıkları ele alınmaktadır. Arendt’in ünlü “kötüğün sıradanlığı” kavramlaştırması, modernizme getirilen önemli bir eleştiri olarak tarihteki yerini almıştır. Tunç’un 2014’te yayımlanan romanı Dünya Ağrısı, Arendt’in altını çizdiği “kötülüğün sıradanlığı”nı gözler önüne sererken, yazarın 2009’da yayımlanan romanı Bir Deliler Evinin Yalan Yanlış Anlatılan Kısa Tarihi, bu kavramın önüne bir de “deliliğin sıradanlığı”nı eklemektedir. Bu makalede, Tunç’un iki romanından yola çıkılarak, yazarın modernizmde sezdiği ve kendine has bir üslupla edebiyata dönüştürdüğü çıkmazlara yer verilmiş ve bu çıkmazlar Arendt’in kuramsal tartışmaları ışığında ele alınmıştır.
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From competitive to multidirectional memory: a literary tool for comparison
(Taylor & Francis, 2018) Günay-Erkol, Çimen; Sert, Deniz Şenol; International Relations; Humanities and Social Sciences; ERKOL, Çimen Günay; SERT, Deniz
Recent research shows that Turkish society is very polarized and that different identities and ideological perspectives are in constant struggle with each other. In a multicultural society such as Turkey’s, the question of how to think about the relationship between different social groups’ histories of victimization becomes crucial. Following Michael Rothberg’s conceptualization of multi-directional memory – beyond competitive memory, this article presents an archive for comparative work through a data set of novels on the military coups in Turkey. The major argument here is that while these novels are promoting the idea of competitive memory as a zero-sum game, if it is looked at more closely, there are traces of multi-directionality, of ongoing negotiation, cross-referencing, and borrowing. Doing so, it is argued, would help to reframe justice in the society, where different victimizations are not competing with each other, but start to talk to each other. This article is an attempt to create a literary tool of comparison on different stories of victimization as a first step towards transitional justice in a polarized society.
Open Access
When local class unionism meets international solidarity: A case of union revitalisation in Turkey
(McMaster University, 2018) Birelma, Alpkan; Humanities and Social Sciences; BİRELMA, Alpkan
The article concerns the recent transformation and ensuing successes of a Turkish trade union of road transport workers called Tum Tasima Iscileri Sendikasi (TUMTIS). In the mid-2000s, TUMTIS was mainly organised in small-sized freight companies having around 1 500 members with collective contracts. The strategic choice of a new leadership to concentrate on a large-scale, international firm with the support of Global Unions was the turning point. The ensuing United Parcel Service campaign ended with a collective agreement for nearly 2 700 new members in 2011. The union won its second large-scale organising victory at DHL in 2014. At the time of writing, a third large-scale firm is on the verge of recognition. To scrutinise this case, I use the power resources approach in a critical way. To the approach, I add an examination of the subjectivities of union leaders by drawing on the debates about different types of unionisms, importance of the ideology and motivations. I argue that the agency behind this revitalisation can be only explained by taking both its objectivities and subjectivities into account. While the class unionism embraced by TUMTIS leaders explains the subjective side of the story, associational power from below and its meeting with international solidarity play the key role on the objective side.
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Becoming protestant: Greek Orthodox responses to conversion in 19th-century Ottoman Anatolia
(Koç Üniversitesi Suna & İnan Kıraç Akdeniz Medeniyetleri Araştırma Merkezi (AKMED), 2018) Erol, Merih; Humanities and Social Sciences; EROL, Merih
During the nineteenth century, through American missionaries’ efforts, some, albeit a small portion, of the Greek Orthodox subjects of the Ottoman sultan adopted Protestantism. This article explores various incidents of libel and violence, and the punishments of exile or banishment which the Greek Protestants faced. This study is mainly based on the official documentation at the Prime Ministry Ottoman Archives, and to a lesser extent, on the annual reports of the missionary organization, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. The article investigates the disputes between the Orthodox and the Protestant Greeks (Rum) in various parts of Anatolia, namely Izmir, Bursa, Burdur, Adana, and Ordu.
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Beyond mosque, church, and state: alternative narratives of the nation in the balkans
(Oxford University Press, 2018-02) Erol, Merih; Humanities and Social Sciences; EROL, Merih
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Some thoughts on class and class struggle as evoked by Durrenberger and Doukas’ article
(Springer Nature, 2018-03) Birelma, Alpkan; Humanities and Social Sciences; BİRELMA, Alpkan
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Citizenship ethics: German-Turkish return migrants, belonging, and justice
(Sage, 2018-08-01) Rottmann, Susan Beth; Humanities and Social Sciences; ROTTMANN, Susan Beth
This article examines citizenship for German-Turkish return migrants attending monthly meetings of the Rückkehrer Stammtisch (Returner’s Meetings) in Istanbul. Meeting attendees call themselves “world citizens” and remain deeply concerned about disrespect and inequality they experience as ethnic minorities in Germany and as citizens in Turkey. Drawing on the anthropology of ethics, this research demonstrates the importance of ethical relationships for understanding these migrants’ experience of citizenship. Moving beyond work that views citizenship primarily in terms of state power and legal disciplining, this research demonstrates that citizenship for these migrants is focused heavily on an ethics of care and responsibility developed in the course of personal interactions with fellow citizens. This article also adds ethnographic specificity to the concepts of belonging and justice. It analyzes how ethical relationships established among meeting attendees confer feelings of comfort, intimacy, and a sense of shared humanity that structure migrants’ inclusion in national spaces.
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In pursuit of belonging: Forging an ethical life in european-turkish spaces
(Berghahn Books, 2019-01-01) Rottmann, Susan Beth; Humanities and Social Sciences; ROTTMANN, Susan Beth
Belonging is a not a state that we achieve, but a struggle that we wage. The struggle for belonging is more difficult if one is returning to a homeland after many years abroad. In Pursuit of Belonging is an ethnography of Turkish migrants’ struggle for understanding, intimacy and appreciation when they return from Germany to their Turkish homeland. Drawing on an established tradition of life story writing in anthropology, Rottmann conveys the struggle to forge an ethical life by relating the experiences of a second-generation German-Turkish woman named Leyla.
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Global cities and organized crime: the shifting urban landscape of Gotham
(Wiley, 2019-02) Travlos, Ceren Mert; MERT TRAVLOS, Ceren
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Metric power
(Sage, 2019-03) Travlos, Ceren Mert; MERT TRAVLOS, Ceren
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Hotels and highways: The construction of modernization theory in cold war Turkey.
(Cambridge University Press, 2019-05) Sipahi, Ali; Humanities and Social Sciences; SİPAHİ, Ali
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Working-class entrepreneurialism: Perceptions, aspirations, and experiences of petty entrepreneurship among male manual workers in Turkey
(Cambridge University Press, 2019-11) Birelma, Alpkan; Humanities and Social Sciences; BİRELMA, Alpkan
This article examines working-class entrepreneurialism in Turkey from a comparative perspective. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in a working-class neighborhood of Istanbul, the article focuses on the perceptions, aspirations, and entrepreneurial attempts of manual workers employed in formal jobs. It aims to contribute to the understudied literature on working-class entrepreneurialism, which is often overlooked or underestimated by the critical research on labor and the working class. First, the article demonstrates that the level of entrepreneurialism among manual workers is rather high. Alongside revealing the popularity of aspirations for self-employment and the working-class roots of many self-employed individuals, I present an ethnographic account of five workers' transition from wage work to self-employment. Second, the article finds that a colloquial phrase, "el isi" or "a stranger's business," is widely used to refer to wage work. I argue that this phrase perfectly manifests the popular resentment felt toward wage labor in a social milieu where self-employment seems accessible. Finally, by drawing on a review of a scattered set of studies, I claim that entrepreneurialism among working-class men seems to be quite common, especially in peripheral countries.
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“All we hope is a generous revival”: The evangelization of the ottoman christians in western anatolia in the nineteenth century
(İstanbul 29 Mayıs Üniversitesi, 2020) Erol, Merih; Humanities and Social Sciences; EROL, Merih
This article examines the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions’ activities in the 1870s and 80s at the Manisa and Smyrna/İzmir stations in an attempt to evangelize Greeks and Armenians living in the region. The main body of sources used in this study are the letters of the missionary Rev. Marcellus Bowen (1874-1880) sent from Manisa to the headquarters of the ABCFM in Boston, and the letters of Rev. George Constantine (1880-1889) sent from İzmir to the same destination. These first-person narratives provide us with extremely rich material, due to the fact that they comment on phenomena and events directly and immediately. This article investigates a variety of themes, such as the efforts of the American missionaries to adapt their missionary work to Smyrna’s multicultural and multinational society; the missionaries’ decisions and arguments regarding which language to use in their preachings or at religious services for the Greeks and Armenians of the region; the means of persecution or opposition employed by the Greek Orthodox high-ranked clergy in Smyrna/İzmir against the Protestant missionaries; and the conditions under which foreigners could sell religious books or open / build schools and churches in the Ottoman lands, and which intermediaries the missionaries appealed to when they were challenged by the Ottoman authorities.

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