Interdisciplinarity, Multidisciplinarity and Transdisciplinarity in Humanities 144388796X, 9781443887960

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Interdisciplinarity, Multidisciplinarity and Transdisciplinarity in Humanities

Interdisciplinarity, Multidisciplinarity and Transdisciplinarity in Humanities Edited by

Banu Akçeşme, Hasan Baktır and Eugene Steele

Interdisciplinarity, Multidisciplinarity and Transdisciplinarity in Humanities Edited by Banu Akçeşme, Hasan Baktır and Eugene Steele This book first published 2016 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2016 by Banu Akçeşme, Hasan Baktır, Eugene Steele and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-8796-X ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-8796-0

CONTENTS

Introduction .............................................................................................. viii Carmen Dutu Part I: Literature and Criticism If Anarchism is Not Enough, Then What is? Generative Indeterminacy in Laura Riding Jackson .............................................................................. 2 Arsev Ayúen Arslano÷lu Yldran Green Literature: Cross- Fertilization between Literature and Ecology in Latife Tekin’s Berjin Kristin: Tales from the Garbage Hills ................ 10 Banu Akçeúme “The Seven Chambers of Light” Blurred: The Blind Owl as an AntiTranscendentalist Manifesto in the Post-1905 Constitutional Revolution in Iran ........................................................................................................ 25 Behzad Ghaderi Sohi Cherchez la Femme: Stereotypes in Conflict in Romanian Mid-nineteenthcentury Sentimental Novels ....................................................................... 44 Carmen Dutu The Cultural Adaptation Process in Timothy Mo’s Sour Sweet ................ 53 Derya Bdelc Oriental Elements in Lord Byron’s Don Juan Canto V: The Harem Episode ................................................................................... 62 Eda Kevser ùahn A Portrait of a More Habitable England in Hanif Kureishi’s Borderline .. 68 ùermn Sezer Orientalising the Minority: Representation of the Ottoman Christian Community in Eighteenth-Century English Literary Texts ....................... 76 Hasan Baktir

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Contents

A Model of Sheela Na Gg in Lybeaus Desconus and The Squıre of Low Degree ....................................................................................................... 92 Hülya Tafli Düzgün Anglo-Islamic Relations in the Early Modern Period: William Davenant and John Locke ........................................................................................ 106 Nabil Matar City within a City: The Pakistani Ghetto in Maps for Lost Lovers by Nadeem Aslam ................................................................................... 122 A. Nejat Töngür Nontrivial Simplicity of the Absurd: One-sentence Utterances and Unordinary Politics in Harold Pinter’s Mountain Language ............ 136 Önder Çakirtaú Literature and Politics Nested: James Joyce’s “Two Gallants” as Allegorical Representations of England and Ireland .......................... 141 Y÷it Sümbül Part II: Cultural Studies and Film Resisting the Culture Industry: The Creativity of Negation in the Films of Lars Von Trier ..................................................................................... 152 Dilara Bilgisel Social Networks and the Public Sphere: The May Gezi Park Protests .... 170 Fikret Güven Dark Tourism in Turkey: Sites, Participants’ Determination, and Management ..................................................................................... 179 Irina Kantarbaeva-Bill Part III: Translation Self-Censorship in the Turkish Translation of Alice Walker’s The Color Purple ..................................................................................... 192 Büúra Ul Translation Studies as an Interdisciplinary Field: Translation Studies and Linguistics after the Paradigm Shift.................................................. 199 Duygu Seymen, Tutku Öncü and Oluú Büyüka÷ao÷lu

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Linguistic Turn and Translation Studies: Le Petit Prince and The Diary of a Young Girl ........................................................................................ 207 Tu÷çe Elif Taúdan Globalised Translators/Translathers: Feminist Translation Studies in the Context of Globalisation ................................................................ 217 Meriem Ramdani A Tentative Research Model of Transdisciplinarity ................................ 222 Mine Yazc Part IV: English Language and Teaching The Impact of Globalisation and Multilingualism on English-Language Teaching and Teacher Development ....................................................... 234 Hakan Dilman Analysis of the Lexico-Grammatical Errors in Student Essays: A Corpus Study ....................................................................................... 241 øsmail Çakr and Buse Do÷ar Kayadelen English Teachers’ Perceptions of Factors Affecting Teacher Motivation ............................................................................................... 263 Seniye Vural

INTRODUCTION CARMEN DUTU

The present book is the outcome of the International Conference on Interdisciplinarity, Multidisciplinarity, and Transdisciplinarity in the Humanities organised at Erciyes University in May 2014, in collaboration with Melikúah University (Kayseri), Çankaya University (Ankara), and Dimitrie Cantemir University (Bucharest). In effect, the conference was designed as a continuation of earlier events held at Çankaya University (Studies on Translation 2013) and Dimitrie Cantemir University (Eurofringes. Intercultural Networking; Challenging Stereotypes 2013). In 2014, our three universities decided to join forces and organise a comprehensive scholarly platform for the debate of a recent topic in language and literary studies, namely the question of the relationship between Transdisciplinarity, Interdisciplinarity, and Multidisciplinarity in humanities. Since the late twentieth century, the field of humanities has been increasingly concerned with its ontological status under the influence of multi- and inter-disciplinary research, especially triggered by the reception of philosophy and critical theory. The domination of single subjects in academic programmes and institutions is being called into question. Not only does scholarship conducted from the standpoint of a single subject tend to offer a limited point of view on culture, but it also makes certain forms of expertise the exclusive preserve of a given disciplinary field. At the same time, the identity of academic subjects has increasingly become subject to question. For example, “literary studies” are going through an identity crisis that raises the question of their position and legitimacy within the field of social sciences and humanities. Considering the rise of cultural studies, literary studies is currently opening itself up to the epistemological renewal that other fields can offer. It is increasingly borrowing theoretical tools from other subjects in order to analyse the historical, socio-political, and institutional conditions of the production of literary texts to identify the general discursive circumstances in which they emerge, and to study the relationship between literature and other media. Similarly, while subjects such as sociology, history, and political science have always been closely related—if not literally spinoffs from one another, as in the case of sociology vis-à-vis anthropology—

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what becomes of their specificities when they borrow from geography to address space-related issues, from psychology to understand social actors’ individual motivations, or from literary studies to make sense of individual or collective narratives? Subjects are highly disputed truths, so that interdisciplinary dialogue can be both a necessity and a source of tensions and conflicts, as is often seen in collaborative work on common projects. But this dialogue also fosters the development of conceptual frameworks and methods that may turn differences and divergences into a more fruitful reflection on the production and evolution of knowledge. While multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity have long been integral to the methodologies of both the social sciences and humanities, transdisciplinarity emerged in the 1990s as a way of crossing disciplinary boundaries and is today understood as a form of systematic exchanges among the subjects. Due attention should be given to the causes of this transition and its possible impact on academic institutions. Such a relation has long existed in humanities, but has today become more problematic because of its complexity. Therefore, our volume aims to account for experiments in research that overstep disciplinary boundaries by analysing the new fields and methodologies emerging in the contemporary globalised academic environment, which puts a strong premium on synergism and linkages. Moreover, it aims to assess current theoretical reflections on inter-, multiand transdisciplinarity as well as research grounded in it, and to measure their impact on the evolution of scholarship and curriculum in the fields of literature, language, and humanities. Transdisciplinarity will thus be approached both as an epistemological issue and a research method. The diversity of thoughts and visions may provide us with different views and enlighten us for a better future. History provides us with a panoramic view of human past, psychology with the inner world of people, sociology with the human population, and economy with money and industry. Each of these subjects aims to create a better future for humanity. Yet, each of them has its own threats and problems. We need all the windows to have a comprehensive view of human nature. I hope we will open as many windows as possible in this meeting to view the beauty in each direction from the house of people. Please allow me to express my thanks and gratitude to the Rector of Erciyes University, Prof. Dr. Fahrettin Keleútimur, for his unfailing support with the various stages of this conference. I would also like to express my thanks to all my colleagues who made this volume possible: Do÷an Bulut, Banu Akçeúme, Hasan Baktir, Seniye Vural, Tolga Kayadelen, Yi÷it Sümbül, and Neúe ùenel.

PART I: LITERATURE AND CRITICISM

IF ANARCHISM IS NOT ENOUGH, THEN WHAT IS? GENERATIVE INDETERMINACY IN LAURA RIDING JACKSON ARSEV AYùEN ARSLANOöLU YILDIRAN ARTVIN ÇORUH UNIVERSITY

Abstract: The first half of the twentieth century witnessed the modernist invitation to challenge the givens of the conventional theoretical perspective on language, specifically on poetic language. The intense interest of the modernist authors of the period in language is indeed indicative of deeper epistemological concerns. These figures, among whom Gertrude Stein, Louis Zukofsky, and Laura Riding Jackson can be mentioned, consider art as a mode of knowing with specific emphasis on authorial subjectivity. Of these authors, the theoretical project of Laura Riding Jackson will be discussed here by analysing one of her early works, Anarchism Is Not Enough, a manifesto against systematized thinking on poetry and poetics. Anarchism Is Not Enough is Jackson’s most radical work in her early period in terms of its questioning the contextualisation of modernist criticism. In this work, the author places the orientation towards the unknown in poetic language in the foreground through emphasis on the unbecoming process rather than stable definitions. Arguing that such a deconstruction does not destroy poetry but brings new insights into modernist criticism, she turns language upside down and incites the reader to question the linguistic body of the text as well as the self-conscious subjectivity of the author. Thus, human and linguistic identity rather than aesthetic certainties are at work in her understanding of poetic language. This lack of certainty leads to the generative indeterminacy that Jackson posits in “designed waste,” in her own terms. In this context, this paper aims at exploring the “designed waste” realm with Georges Bataille’s notion of “expenditure” in general economy. Key Words: poetic language, Laura Riding Jackson, designed waste, Georges Bataille, general economy

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Anarchism is Not Enough is the most radical work in Laura Riding Jackson’s early period in terms of its questioning and contextualising of modernist criticism. In this work, she places the orientation towards the unknown in poetic language in the foreground through emphasis on the unbecoming process rather than on stable definitions. She mentions that “we draw the circumference, like spiders, out of ourselves,” and “it is all criticism of criticism” (“The Corpus,” 31). Contrary to the general view, she argues that this situation does not cause an impasse and destroy poetry; instead, it brings new insights to modernist criticism. She turns language upside down and invites the reader to question the linguistic body of the text as well as the self-conscious subjectivity of the author. In this view on poetic language and criticism, human and linguistic, rather than aesthetic, identities are at work. This lack of certainty leads to the generative indeterminacy posited in “designed waste” by Laura Riding Jackson. Another significant point to be mentioned here is that her renunciation of poetry is closely related to her literary views. Therefore, before exploring the “designed waste” realm through Georges Bataille’s notion of “expenditure” in general economy, brief information will be given about her life. Laura (Riding) Jackson, who was dropped from many anthologies because of the “practical decanonisation” concern, was indeed a prominent avant-garde poet of the 1920s and 1930s, and a member of Vanderbilt University's Fugitives Group with Robert Penn Warren, John Crowe Ransom, and Allen Tate. In this period, she lived and collaborated with novelist Robert Graves and they operated a small publishing press where they published such writers as Gertrude Stein. However, Laura Riding Jackson renounced poetry in about 1940, and married the critic and poetry editor Schuyler B. Jackson. Together, they worked on a study of language project until her death. Like many of her colleagues, her interest focused on challenging the givens of the conventional theoretical perspective on language, specifically poetic language. At first glance, it may seem difficult to understand why such a prolific author renounced poetry at an early age. However, at a deeper analysis, it is seen that her decision was taken as a result of her views on the essential character of poetics, as Tom Fisher points out in his article “Reading Renunciation: Laura Riding and the End of Poetry”: [A]s she will repeatedly state in her post-poetry writing, her renunciation was mandated by what she took as the essential and immutable character of the poetic itself. Reading Riding in this way becomes an exercise in thinking about poetry as such, exploring, however tentatively and cautiously, an essence of poetry as what Riding will call “a crisis point” which its renunciation clarifies and fulfills. (3)

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If Anarchism is Not Enough, Then What is?

In this sense, it may be claimed that her renunciation is a consequence of the way she reads and understands modernism. In other words, it is the necessary consequence of the essential character of modernist poetry. Of course, the traces of these concerns can be followed in her early works. In this paper, her essay “Jocasta” (in Anarchism is Not Enough) will be considered; it will also be suggested what such a manifesto against systematised thinking on poetry and poetics may tell about the nature of poetry. Laura Riding Jackson does not see poetry as an effect of experience; instead, she claims that a poem is, “the result of an ability to create a vacuum in experience” (“What is a Poem?” 17). This argument ends in the conclusion that a poem, which is a vacuum, is indeed nothing, and that it can only lead to destruction since it is impossible to reproduce it: “A vacuum is unalterably and untransferably a vacuum—the only thing that can happen to it is destruction. If it were possible to reproduce it in an audience the result would be the destruction of the audience” (Ibid.). Then, one can raise the question of how poetry is related with the productive design if it is nothing. The common understanding that literature is an act of production is challenged by the author. In Laura Riding Jackson, the only productive design is the designed waste. The activity considered as productive here can only lead to the destruction of the designer since it is all made and it has already become what it is. Here, the author talks about how an energy that makes sense as a numerical increase in the sum of things may return to itself as unused. In fact, this is the point where one can relate “designed waste” to Georges Bataille’s understanding of general economy, “in which the ‘expenditure’ (the ‘consumption’) of wealth, rather than production, was the primary object” (The Accursed Share, Vol 1, 9). Consumption is what both authors focus on since there is a close connection among consumption, excessive energy that returns to itself unused, and destruction. In addition, Laura Riding Jackson establishes a relation between these and anarchism: Energy that attempts to make in the sense of making a numerical increase in the sum of made things is spitefully returned to itself unused. It is a would-be-happy-ness ending in an unanticipated and disordered unhappiness. Energy that is aware of the impossibility of positive construction devotes itself to an anticipated unhappiness, which, because it has design, foreknowledge, is the nearest approach to happiness. Undesigned unhappiness and designed happiness both mean anarchism. (“What is a Poem?” 18–19)

Bataille argues that what may be said of art, of literature, of poetry, is in a close relation with the movement of excessive energy. He mentions that

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energy is always in excess on earth; thus, the question must be posed in terms of extravagance when the relation between production and consumption is analysed (The Accursed Share, Vol 1, 23). In order to elaborate on this point, Bataille gives an overview of general economy throughout time. The difference between the former times and the present is striking—while value is given to unproductive glory in the past, the criterion for value is production today; hence, “precedence is given to energy acquisition over energy expenditure” (Ibid., 29). In this understanding, glory can only be justified in the sphere of utility. Then comes the question— where does excess result from? In fact, no real excess occurs before the growth of an organism, an individual, or a group reaches its limits. During energy acquisition, some is spent; however, there is a part of the remaining energy at the same time. Throughout production, some part of this surplus energy is used, but this results in the production of a larger surplus. As the process continues, it becomes difficult for the system to grow since it is no longer capable of using surplus. Based on this argument, Bataille expresses, “what general economy defines first is the explosive character of this world, carried to the extreme degree of explosive tension in the present time,” and adds that: The exposition of a general economy implies intervention in public affairs, certainly; but first of all and more profoundly, what it aims at is consciousness, what it looks to from the outset is the self-consciousness that man would finally achieve in the lucid vision of its linked historical forms. (Ibid., 41)

The surplus energy that is in question here opens the path towards the realm of utility. A man who is obliged to work in everyday life consumes the product without which production will not be possible and, in this sense, he belongs to the realm of utility. However, there is another realm—that of sovereignty. Differing from the man of utility, the sovereign man “consumes rather the surplus of production,” and “truly enjoys the products of this world—beyond his needs” (Ibid., 198). In Bataille’s terms, life beyond utility is the domain of sovereignty. If the sovereign enjoys the world beyond his needs, it can be said that he experiences the present with nothing else in mind but the present. When the character of art is considered, it is indeed possible to place it in the realm of sovereignty as well. Bataille establishes the connection by raising the question: “What is the meaning of art, architecture, music, painting or poetry if not the anticipation of a suspended, wonder-struck moment, a miraculous moment?” (Ibid., 200). While questioning the meaning of art and placing it in the realm of sovereignty, one faces the matter of knowledge and con-

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sciousness. Knowledge can only be gained at the end of an effort that is calculated beforehand. In this sense, it is a kind of operation that is useful to some end. However, what is meant by knowledge should not be confused with the last moment or the end of operation since it actually covers the whole process. Considering the nature of “sovereign,” Bataille claims that: “Knowledge is never sovereign: to be sovereign it would have to occur in a moment. But the moment remains outside, short of or beyond, all knowledge” (Ibid., 202). As the moment remains outside knowledge, we can conclude that the consciousness of the moment can only be perceived in unknowing which dissolves into nothing in the end. At this point, Laura Riding Jackson’s idea that a poem is a vacuum in the experience and Georges Bataille’s notion that unknowing dissolves into nothing intersect in terms of the way consciousness is understood. In both views, consciousness grasps a vacuum, therefore nothing, at every point of which it is active; that is, consciousness is indeed the consciousness of itself. Depending on this fact, it may well be said that poetry is in the realm of sovereignty, not because it takes place outside a system, but because it is in the realm of unknowing, which is beyond the realm of utility. While talking about the realm of utility, one should first raise the question of “what is useful?” In general, individual effort is considered useful if it is reducible to production and conservation, which are considered as fundamental necessities. However, human activity cannot be reduced to production and conservation since there is consumption as well. Yet, it is not enough to add the category of this schema because it is also of different parts as productive and non-productive. When the place of art is examined, it is observed that it is reduced and its role has become subsidiary since it cannot be evaluated in terms of utility. Bataille sees art in the category of unproductive expenditures since the activities here—luxury, mourning, war, cults, the construction of sumptuary monuments, games, spectacles, arts—have no ends beyond themselves. Going beyond the realm of utility, art takes its place in sovereignty and does not submit itself to the useful: “Works, all works, had as their final and inaccessible end that miraculous element that illuminates being, transfigures it and grants it, beyond the poverty of the thing, that royal authenticity which never lets itself be reduced to the measure of humiliating labour” (The Accursed Share, Vol 2, 226–7). The artist gets the knowledge of the unity of the sovereign moments on subjective experience and, by becoming conscious of these moments, he finds himself in a domain where he has no hold. Bataille claims that “the artist is nothing in the world of things” (Ibid., 257). On the other side, Laura Riding Jackson expresses the same idea by proposing that, “the only position relevant to the individual is the unreal”

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(“Jocasta,” 69). Although the “unreal” seems like a position at first glance, the author immediately urges the reader that the “unreal” is where the artist grasps and becomes his self by expressing his subjectivity. Similarly, Georges Bataille sees the “unreal” as a position of sovereign art, and argues that “sovereign art signifies, in the most exact way, access to sovereign subjectivity independently of rank” (The Accursed Share, Vol 2, 423). In his view, knowledge of sovereign moments is given on the basis of subjective experience; therefore, “[w]hoever speaks on behalf of a sovereign art places himself outside a real domain on which he has no hold, against which he is without any rights” (Ibid., 233). Furthering their arguments, both authors draw attention to the close relation between reality and becoming. In Jackson’s view, the individual is an “unbecoming,” and the categories the “becoming” and the “become” are derivations. In this respect, “unbecoming” can be thought of as a movement away from reality and, in a sense, from the become. After elaborating on this view, Jackson argues that the become and the becoming are opposed to unbecoming: “The become and the becoming are both oppositions to the unbecoming; the become from which the becoming is derived is a static order organized against the unbecoming, the become is the matter of disintegration” (“Jocasta,” 74). The person who grasps the fact that unbecoming is a movement not towards but away from reality recognises the reality of the unreal as well as of the unbecoming. Such recognition changes one’s view about the notion of thinking. As a process, thinking fluctuates between integration and disintegration so it is capable of negating itself at every point. As a subject, the individual takes place in the centre of this process and becomes a believer in the unreal once he grasps the nature of thinking: Man, as he becomes more man, becomes less nature. He becomes unreal. He loses homogeneity as a species. He lives unto himself not as a species but as an individual. He is lost as far as nature is concerned, but as he is separated from nature, this does not matter. He is in himself, he is unreal, he is secure. (Ibid., 64)

Laura Riding Jackson claims that the “unreal” is the only position relevant to the individual because, “it is not a position but the individual himself” (Ibid., 69). She thinks that the occasion of self is a stage in an evolutionary form, the end of which is chaos. The definition of the individual by the author is similar to that of the sovereign artist by Georges Bataille. Both construct and deconstruct their selves through becoming conscious of each single moment on a subjective basis. Like Jackson, Bataille’s sovereign artist reaches a final point where he completely negates himself: “I am NOTHING: this parody of affirmation is the last word of sovereign sub-

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jectivity, freed from the dominion it wanted—or had—to give itself over things” (The Accursed Share, Vol 2, 422). In addition, Bataille mentions that not only the sovereign artist but also any person who places himself inside the domain of sovereign art is nothing, since this realm is outside the domain of the real. Thus, it may well be claimed that both unreal self’s and the sovereign artist’s final destination is the unbecome; therefore, nothingness. Indeed, this is the realm of art for Laura Riding Jackson and Georges Bataille. The nothingness, which seems to be the ultimate end of the individual search, serves as a domain where art, specifically poetry, can exist. Since it is only unknowing that is sovereign, this is actually where the sovereign artist continues to produce his works. However, this is not enough for Laura Riding Jackson, as there is still a system to be attacked: “I think this system should indeed be attacked in so far as it is a system and in so far as is necessary for a preservation of integrity. I do not think it should be replaced. I want the time-world removed and in its place to see—nothing” (“Jocasta,” 62–3). As a conclusion, it is seen that one can obtain authenticity as both an individual and an artist in “nothingness.” However, this should not be a simple rejection of the system. As the system is formed by the collective mind, one should separate oneself through the consciousness of each single moment and reach his unreal self. In fact, the space created by such an effort is more than nothingness: it is a designed waste where poetry exists by means of loss. For this reason, it becomes impossible to define poetry as a product of discursive thought. It is outside the system and the discourse; yet, this is not enough. This realm should be generative so that anarchism can be enough. However, under current circumstances, anarchism is not enough.

Works Cited Bataille, Georges. The Accursed Share: An Essay on General Economy, Vol 1. Tr. Robert Hurley. New York: Zone Books, 1991. —. The Accursed Share: An Essay on General Economy, Vols 2–3. Tr. Robert Hurley. New York: Zone Books, 1993. —. “The Notion of Expenditure.” In Visions of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927-1939, edited by Allan Stoekl. Tr. Allan Stoekl, Carl R. Lovitt, and Donald M. Leslie Jr, 116–29. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press, 1985. Fisher, Tom. “Reading Renunciation: Laura Riding and the End of Poetry.” Journal of Modern Literature 3 (3) (2010): 1–19. Jackson, Laura. “The Corpus.” In Anarchism is Not Enough, 27–31.

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Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. —. “Jocasta.” In Anarchism Is Not Enough, 41–132. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. —. “This Philosophy.” In Anarchism is Not Enough, 15. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. —. “What is a Poem?” In Anarchism is Not Enough, 16–19. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. Samuels, Lisa. “Creating Criticism: An Introduction to Anarchism Is Not Enough.” In Anarchism Is Not Enough, xi–lxxviii. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001.

GREEN LITERATURE: CROSS- FERTILIZATION BETWEEN LITERATURE AND ECOLOGY IN LATIFE TEKIN’S BERJIN KRISTIN: TALES FROM THE GARBAGE HILLS BANU AKÇEùME ERCIYES UNIVERSITY

Abstract: Literature has been greening since the 1970s, and the last two decades have opened up the age of ecology and ecocriticism, both of which celebrate interdisciplinary, multicultural, multinational, and multiethnic approaches. The present paper aims to focus on the Turkish novelist Latife Tekin and her novel Berji Kristin: Tales from the Garbage Hills to find out how her imagination has been influenced by global ecological crises. This is a story about the rise of slums on a garbage disposal area surrounded by factories. Tekin, with her feminist ecological consciousness, touches on the problems of the destructive and detrimental effects of industrialisation, capitalism, urbanisation, the uprooting of villagers, the extinction of rural life, homelessness, toxic waste disposal, recycling, environmental injustice, and the lack of eco-ethics in the health of both nature and humans. Constructing nature as a speaking subject, Tekin gives voice to the physical environment, which interacts with people in a very symbolic language. She intends to bring about ecological enlightenment by showing that “everything is connected to everything else” in the ecosystem, and this interconnectedness and interdependence of human culture, civilization, and nature are foregrounded in her fiction through the multiplicity of discourses—fairy tale, apocalypse, magic realism and folklore—that she brings together in a very fruitful interaction. Key words: literature, ecology, eco criticism, interdisciplinarity

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Latife Tekin is one of the most important contemporary novelists in Turkish literature. She has always been a political activist and feminist intellectual, bringing up current social and political issues in her works. She devotedly addresses the socio-economic, environmental, and political problems that disadvantaged and underprivileged communities are faced with. Her acclaimed novel Berji Kristin: Tales from the Garbage Hills, written in 1984, raises the issues concerning environmental degradation, environmental injustice, environmental racism, selective victimisation, urban segregation, public health, urban planning, housing, and the struggle for land rights in Turkey. In the novel, Turkey is seen as on the verge of evolving into a rapidly developing country, undergoing the processes of urbanisation and industrialisation that create serious ecological problems. Tekin transforms the first-hand experiences and accounts of the squatters who were packed into makeshift slums on the outskirts of Istanbul in the 1960s into fictional tales of the impoverished communities who are unwanted and undesirable, and thus dumped along with the trash of the city. In this sense, Berji Kristin: Tales from the Garbage Hills can be seen as a parable of a modern society where not only socio-politically but also economically and environmentally disadvantaged and marginalised communities who are ineffectual in fighting against environmental injustices are looking for ways of existence and survival among the piles of city trash on the dumping area, which is later invaded by polluting factories. Tekin, by recounting the rapid transformation of this informally founded slum town into an officially recognised neighbourhood and a consumer society, makes visible different forms of exploitation and victimisation of economically depressed and ecologically abused subaltern communities of the society who are denied a voice and subdued to carry the burden of industrial capitalism. Berji Kristin: Tales from the Garbage Hills depicts the rapid and massive establishment and flourishing of the ghetto towns and factories in a very complex but colourful and multi-layered narrative interlaced with symbolic evocations and poetic language. It is, in fact, a magic-realist fairy tale, in which the fantastic and the ordinary are successfully blended. Tekin derives the literary inspiration from local storytelling traditions, and hence the story is tinted with the local colours of oral literature traditions, customs, folk tales, superstitions, chanting, rumours, and songs, which at the same time inspire hope and relief, empowering the residents to withstand their miseries and predicaments. In the novel, the politics of place is of great significance. Tekin unmasks how the spatial organisation of the urban reflects and reveals the ethnic, racial, and class ideologies. Ecological and political discourses are

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effectively embedded in the literary discourse of the novel to give support to the environmental movements and to raise awareness about environmental injustices, racism, and garbage imperialism. Tekin, in this respect, can be regarded as the Rachel Carson of Turkey. Carson, a leading Eco critic, was a scientist and published Silent Spring in 1962, in which she dealt with industrial waste and the extreme use of chemical pesticides, especially DDT, in agriculture in the USA. Carson challenged the patriarchal notions of progress and development, and was criticised for being extremely sentimental by her male scientist colleagues. However, Silent Spring, in spite of harsh critiques, became one of the most influential books of the twentieth century. Carson provided the main source of inspiration and incentive for the upcoming environmental movements, including environmental justice and ecofeminist movements. Like Carson, Tekin aims to raise the public awareness of the manipulation of industry to control nature, which gives rise to detrimental results. Tekin is more concerned with the environmental injustices the least-advantaged members of the society who are driven into the ecological sacrifice zone are exposed to, since polluting industries make profits at the expense of these people and the environments they live in. Takin’s novel can be categorised as eco-fiction in the sense that it demonstrates how environmental injustice operates spatially. Like people, some spaces, lands, and locations are made other and marginalised depending on the identities of the people inhabiting them. As Martin Melosi puts it, intentionally or unintentionally, polluting industries and wastedisposal facilities are exclusively located in neighbourhoods where lowincome families or minorities predominantly live (xi). Ironically enough, the slum neighbourhood in the novel happens to be known as Flower Hill, although it is founded in such an environmentally disenfranchised space and populated by social, racial, and ethnic minorities. Environmental injustice can be described as the unequal distribution of environmental problems (“distributional justice” as put by Daniel Faber, 12) and the disproportionate impacts of environmental depredation on people of low income, colour, or ethnicity who are not a part of the sociopolitical and economic structures that produce these environmental adversaries. This is what Daniel Faber (Ibid.) describes as, “productive justice.” Since local governments or companies build environmentally detrimental infrastructure in minority and low socio-economic communities, these people are inequitably victimised and made to carry the burden of environmental hazards inflicted by the exploitative economy, although they are not beneficiaries of the wealth produced by the industry. Environmental injustice originally emerges as a natural consequence of imperialism and

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colonial expansion. The main impetus of the colonising countries for their colonial enterprise was to transfer raw materials for their industries from indigenous lands they conquered to their own countries. For this purpose, they ignored the environmental destruction they engendered and sacrificed nature for their economic benefits and material gains. They even ruthlessly plundered the riches of nature, including soil nutrients and nitrates, to restore the agricultural productivity of the soil in their own lands. As a counter-reaction, environmental justice appeared as a political movement in the 1980s. This modern environmental justice movement is based on seven separate social movements, as suggested by Daniel Faber (6): the civil rights movements, which address environmental racism; the occupational health and safety movement, which struggles for the labour rights of non-union immigrants and undocumented workers; the indigenous lands movements in which indigenous communities maintain and protect their traditional lands; the environmental health movement, which developed out of the mainstream environmental movement; the community-based movements for social and economic justice, which raise the issues of lead poisoning, abandoned toxic waste dumps, the lack of parks and green spaces, poor air quality, and human rights; the peace and solidarity movements; and the immigrant rights movement. Environmental (in)justice takes care of issues like the dumping of industrial toxic wastes, disputes over water rights and quality, hazardous work sites, substandard housing, and deteriorating infrastructure. Environmental justice describes the environment as, “where we live, work, play, and worship.” The definition of environmental (in)justice is broadened to include ethnicity, class, race, and gender, which play significant roles in environmental marginalisation and segregation and in determining the dumping and toxic waste areas. It draws attention to people who are at high health risks both at home and in their workplaces because of disproportionate exposure to high pollution and hazardous chemicals due to their social class, ethnicity, or race. Martin Melosi explains the goal of environmental justice as, “urban-focused, and essentially political, directed at the government, private industry and what they believed to be a white middle-class-dominated environmental movement more interested in nature preservation than human health and well-being” (xi). In Tales from the Garbage Hills, everything starts with the building of eight shanty houses on the slope where the trash of the city is disposed of. After simit [pretzel] sellers disseminate the news that eight slum houses have been built overnight, janitors, simit-sellers, pedlars, and rural migrants flood into this hill with pickaxes to build shanty houses to settle down. The sprouting of the slum turns the garbage place from an undesir-

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able location to a neighbourhood with an increasing land value, attracting various investors. Not all people in Tekin’s novel are equally polluted by what Daniel Faber calls the “polluter-industrial complex” (8). The development of the slum houses next to the city trash dumps is not a coincidence. There are several reasons why Garbage Hills become a place of attraction for thousands of people. The formation and expansion of this informal garbage hill settlement can be mainly attributed to the rapid and mass migration from rural to urban, high unemployment, poverty, inefficient and poor urban planning, lack of affordable public housing, social, racial, and ethnic segregation and exclusion, and the informal economy. The dwellers of this neighbourhood are the poor villagers who immigrate to Istanbul to find jobs, the poorest segments of working, low-income classes, ethnic minorities like gypsies, redheads (Shiites), and other underclass or underrepresented people. Migration and dislocation/displacement, bringing separation from or loss of their own lands and communities, make these people more vulnerable to environmental degradation. Now, they have to work and live on industrially polluted lands over which they have no say or control. They all end up in socially, physically, and environmentally degraded urban environments as they are the first available places, and no other residential accommodation can be legally found for them. Since they fail to get affordable or suitable housing, and since they are not in a position to own private property, this disempowered population is forced to erect ghettos in the garbage-disposal and industrially polluted areas. What is worse, they have to tolerate or ignore environmental inequalities they are exposed to because these very inequalities have provided them with jobs. The existence of these people depends entirely on the garbage. They become garbage scavengers who separate edible or any usable garbage from the trash, and they make their living by selling the plastics, glasses, iron, paper, etc. they collect from the Garbage Hills to the warehouses nearby. Recycling of the garbage is the only option available to them for survival. However, there exists an on-going power struggle even for the ownership of garbage. The Garbage Agha, the representative of a capitalist economic system, claims ownership of the garbage. Since he does not want to share the garbage with other scavengers, his men burn down some of the slums, which is recorded as the “Great Garbage Fire” in the history of Flower Hill. After this, the men are left jobless, but children and women now start to collect, sell, and recycle garbage to earn a living. The quality of the housing in the slums is so poor that the squatters keep watch to protect their shanties not only from officials and rival scavengers but also from nature. These shanty houses have substandard struc-

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tures, with makeshift roofs and walls. People have to live in whatever shelter they can create with the materials they can find from the garbage hills, such as paper, plastics, rusty cans, tins, baskets, broken plates, cartons, glasses, irons, etc. Most of these dwellings have only one room occupied by large families, with men, women, and children packed inside without the comfort of furniture. Since the squatters have not established a harmonious relation with nature and the environment, and since they try to survive in spite of nature rather than coexist with it, nature appears as a hostile force. The residents have to fight against life-threatening environmental conditions since these shanty houses do not provide any protection from natural elements like heavy rains, thunder, howling winter storms, and piercing winds. Since the shanties are not durable enough, the squatters have to rope down the roofs and nail supports to the walls to prevent them from being uprooted and swept away. In spite of all the precautions they take, during the winter their houses collapse or burn down since their chimneys can easily catch fire. With the first snow of the year their fragile roofs are torn away, and babies in cradles are swept hundreds of yards away by the strong wind. Even birds make fun of the flying roofs and babies, with their comic imitations of birds in flight. Moreover, these slums have no public infrastructure facilities like water piping, clean drinking water, electricity, basic health care, sewers, or paved roads. The shanty town is demolished 37 times by the local authorities, but the squatters never give up and on the very night of the demolition they always rebuild their slum houses with what is left over. However, each time the houses get smaller, more shapeless, and more unlike houses. After each demolition, the hill gets bleaker. Because of the on-going war between the squatters and the demolishers, this place is initially called “War Hill.” After the neighbourhood is officially recognised, the local authorities rename the place “Flower Hill.” After this name change more people flood into the place, believing it must be beautiful. Kurdish Kemal, one of the residents, finds a way to make profit out of this growth. He puts into practice his plan for the slum expansion. He spreads the rumour that the forest lying below Flower Hill has been changed into heathland and is thus open to public construction and development. One evening, he encourages factory workers to enter into the wood to knock down the trees and clear the land, after which trucks start to come, carrying construction materials. Kurdish Kemal sells the parcelled land so that more slums can be built. He collects all the jobless young men and equips them with guns, knuckledusters, and money to prevent any demolition by the authorities. After gaining legal status, Flower Hill becomes rapidly industrialised.

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The number of factories grows to such an extent that dwellers do not have to collect, select, or recycle the garbage to earn their living any more, since these factories provide new job opportunities. However, this contributes to the deteriorating quality of life in the neighbourhood. Unregistered and illegal factories also soon appear one after another, and their numbers increase every day, producing substandard and fake goods including detergent, fruit powder in all colours, fruit juice, chocolate, bleaches, and soaps. The residents now wash their clothes with these fake detergents, drink fake fruit juices, and eat fake chocolate. Tekin highlights the close association between industrialisation, economic development, and continuous environmental degradation. Due to the quick growth of production and consumption, intensive industrialisation creates a great amount of pollution and waste, bringing about a detrimental ecological impact that is not taken seriously because only a marginalised population is suffering from it. Latife Tekin attacks capitalisation for its environmental injustice. In this neighbourhood, economic development triumphs over environmental and public health because of widespread poverty. When polluting and environmentally hazardous industries and production processes are carried to this hill, these people are doubly victimised by what Rachel Carson calls “malignant side effects” of industrial capitalism. The labourers who are exposed to industrial toxins inside the factory are at the same time the community residents who are exposed to this pollution outside the factories, since their neighbourhood is adjacent to the factories whose production processes are sustainable neither for the ecosystem nor for the community. The factory workers who are employed to do the unhealthiest tasks are placed at risk in a workplace that has no protective health and safety programs because the local industries and multinational corporations are reluctant to spend money on pollution prevention and control, environmentally sound disposal methods, and environmental restoration. Tekin draws attention to the absence of efficient and important governmental controls and regulation. Thus, these factories spread like mushrooms with every right to degrade all living forms, releasing massive quantities of pollution and toxic waste into the land, air, and water without taking the trouble to worry about its harmful effects on the public health of people—who have nowhere else to go—and non-human entities. The snow-like powder emitted into the air and the blue waste water pumped into the land by the factories add to the magical realism the narrative is built upon, the magical description creating a contrast to its seriousness. The industrial poisoning of the environment reaches crisis proportions in a very short time. Air pollution blankets the garbage hill. The heavy metals released, along with pollution, penetrate deep into the skin, organs, and

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bloodstreams of the community residents. The environmental threats the residents in the Flower Hill are faced with are not coincidental. Environmental degradation cannot be thought of independently of human rights violations including “the right to health,” “the right to property,” “the right to equality,” and “the right to participate” (Picolotti and Taillantin, xiv) in the community-based environmental decision-making processes. On the contrary, there is a symbiotic relation between these two. Industrial complexes and waste disposal areas are not randomly selected or located, as already discussed. In the novel, the minority and low socio-economic communities are selectively victimised and intentionally targeted not only by corporate and industrial polluters but also by local governments, as is seen in the patterns of human settlement and land use in Istanbul. This can be explained in terms of environmental racism. These communities lack socio-economic and political power and have a lower capacity to organise themselves into effective groups to raise political opposition, and are therefore less likely to mobilise the public for action to resist against the violation of human rights. They are therefore deprived of the right to live and work in a safe environment. With no awareness and impetus to fight for clean water, air, food, and soil, they allow for their own victimisation. Although they can see the hazards of toxic chemicals in nature and their immediate environment because of the toxic waste dump, they cannot display any act of resistance since the factories provide jobs for them. Whenever they organise themselves to struggle against the poisoning companies and factories, they are sacrificed for the capitalist system that demands more benefits and more profits in the name of economic progress. People plus organisation cannot speak louder than the money and influence of the corporations and factories. Environmental justice goes hand in hand with economic and social justice because of the close “connection between poverty, racism, and ecological problems” in urban neighbourhoods and poor rural communities of colour (Faber, 6). In the novel, the labourers form coalitions and unions and start to talk about the working class and the exploitation and abuses they are exposed to. Factory workers are told that they have such great power that they can change the world. Their strikes arouse hopes that permeate into the whole neighbourhood for the time being. The residents who have wishes write them on small pieces of cloth, and bring them to the striking factories so that they will come true. They mainly wish for jobs, roads, public transportation, and schools. However, these striking and resisting workers cannot endure the economic pressure since their resistance and struggle put their jobs in jeopardy. They are threatened with workforce reductions or downsizing. They cannot be expected to demand environ-

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mental justice when they are faced with “job blackmail” (Ibid., 21) in the form of job insecurity, the increased laying off of permanent workers to employ temporary workers at lower pay, and the speeding up of the production process. They are not even invited to sit at the table for negotiation talks. The workers who have mobilised themselves into labour movements, demonstrations, and strikes are declared to be potential threats and enemies who should certainly be driven away from the neighbourhood. Thugs appear soon after, practicing physical violence over those who ask for redress, insurance, and union. Workers’ strikes, along with the unions, labour movements, and various struggles to demand labour rights, create fragmentation in the community, and conflicts arise between the workers who go on strike and those who work no matter how bad the working conditions are. The unions have been of little help, and both union and nonunion workers under economic pressure have to accept to work longer hours with low wages in miserable health and safety conditions. After the factory workers, the residents are also mobilised to fight against industrial pollution, toxic dumping, and the other environmental dangers facing them. However, the resistance of a local organisation through acts of civil disobedience does not bring any results. The link between ecological degradation and adverse public health effects is another issue Tekin brings to our attention. Day by day, the appearance of the slums improves; the ghetto dwellers start to enjoy a relative abundance after the establishment of the factories around which the land fills with hazardous chemicals. However, they suffer from various health problems including cancers, miscarriages, infertility, birth defects, developmental problems, skin disorders, and immune system problems. There is also a rapid spread of epidemic diseases because of a lack of sanitation and safe water supplies and because of poor nutrition. Unusual diseases and wounds that people have never seen before become widespread. Babies no longer grow up, men with their bent necks look like scarecrows. When these perilous and fatal consequences are considered, the practices and decisions carried out in this neighbourhood, both economic and environmental, can be taken as genocidal acts. It is ironic that the medicine factory, which is supposed to offer cures for diseases and illnesses, produces hazardous and poisonous chemicals that people initially mistake for snow because of its colour. It is accompanied by an unbearable smell, harming the fauna and flora within three days. All the trees and flowers dry up and chickens die. People cannot keep their heads straight up any more. Children grow purple and fall into a sleep from which they never wake. The residents, to get rid of the factory and its adverse effects, attack it for days. However, an agreement is nego-

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tiated between the residents and the owners of the factories due to displays of generosity and good intentions. The bosses apologise to the residents for the inconveniences and troubles they cause by sending yoghurt, towels, soap, sugar, and milk to the squatters as gifts and send a doctor to examine them, which change all the swearing and curses into prayers for the factory owners. These efforts are welcomed by the workers, and they become extremely grateful to their bosses. After earning the prayers of the residents, the owner of the medicine factory releases blue hot water, which turns the neighbourhood into a carnival. The residents celebrate the hot water, completely unaware of the fact that it is harmful. They even establish a fountain to use the water to wash their clothes, kitchen utensils, rugs, and even their children. They feel privileged because, although it is winter, they can enjoy the luxury of having a bath with hot water in the snow. However, their happiness lasts for only three days. They start to observe some changes taking place in their bodies—their skin comes off, their faces get purple, blue marks appear on the faces of children, and their hair grows white. The only precaution these people can take to protect themselves against the harmful chemicals is to keep their windows and doors closed and eat yoghurt so as not to get poisoned. Similarly, one of the legendary figures of this place, Bay Izsak, who constructs a refrigerator factory in the same manner that slum houses are built, can be given as an example of how workers are systematically victimised and deceived with small bribes for which they feel extremely grateful. First, he dresses like a worker and goes to the factory along with the other workers, declaring all to be his brothers. He is attentive to their problems, and he even gives them pocket-money for their children. However, he undergoes a radical transformation after he gets familiar with the rules of the capitalist economy. He hires a manager who has been educated abroad, which becomes a turning point in the relationship not only between workers and bosses but also among the workers themselves. There is no more premium payment. A new system of wages is introduced and workers are now paid according to the amount they produce. This means workers should work more and faster. The workers are also pressured to resign from the labour unions. Izsak’s factory is expanded underground to include a graveyard, which leads to rumours that he will bring the dead to life and replace them with the living, who will die of the refrigerant gas soon, especially after he embellishes the Hills with skulls and bones for children to play with. The small rooms built underground are illuminated to distinguish them from the graves. After that, he is associated with the symbol of evil, trouble, and misfortune. In order to regain the trust of the workers, for a year he distributes milk to those who are poisoned by the

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gas and builds a mosque next to his factory, which he later uses as storage for his goods. His efforts please the workers and, thanks to them, he starts the production of new goods such as washing machines, radios, and ovens. The industrial poisoning of the environment reaches crisis proportions in a short time. The disposed waste of the factories changes the colour of the soil to scarlet. The clouds also become colourful, and colourful clouds bring colourful rains. As a result, natural species and habitats in this neighbourhood disappear. The hills become completely barren. Birds fly away never to come back again, and chickens no longer accept food from the hands of women. Even the sound of the wind is silenced and replaced by the howling of the factories. Like industrialisation, capitalism also intrudes into every corner of the neighbourhood. Capitalism and ecology have always been opposed to each other in their interactions. Capitalism, which aims at unlimited economic growth at any price, is seen as one of the leading causes of environmental degradation. Ecological problems are never seriously dealt with in capitalism since nature and natural resources are seen as inexhaustible, replaceable, renewable, or dispensable. After the boom in factories and workshops in Flower Hill, a bank branch is opened, bringing in the tide of the competitive capitalist economy. This gradual penetration of capitalism entices the residents to enter into fierce competition to obtain more goods, which increases household consumption to a great extent. Whenever one family buys a new item, the other neighbours get the same thing the next day. In a short time, all the houses are decorated with identical items. This competition among the residents leads to competition among the salesmen, who flood into Flower Hill to sell more goods to them. However, more consumption means more factories, and more factories means greater use of materials and energy and the dumping of more waste into the environment, which worsens the ecological degradation. The ethnic minorities in this slum community suffer not only from human rights violations and environmental destruction, but also from the culturally established prejudices and biases. Gypsies are lured to the hills by the flow of the colourful smoke emitting from the factory chimneys. They build new slums with empty cartons, covering the floors with magazines and hardcover books and the roofs with the feathers of seagulls. The insides of the houses are embellished with glittering papers and broken dolls that they find among the piles of garbage. However, gypsies and redheads become the target of teasing and physical attacks. Many rumours and stories are made up to offer justifications why these “homeless,” “religionless,” and “filthy” people have always been undesirable. They are not wanted in Flower Hill for the fear that they will turn this place into an un-

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liveable place. These people, held responsible for the environmental degradation, are unjustly announced to be the bringers of destruction and the main cause of pollution. Gypsies especially are described as barbaric and troublesome people. They are even blamed for contaminating the drinking water in Istanbul. The interface between the oppression of women and the destruction of nature also deserves attention in the story. There are undeniable linkages between, “how one treats women, people of colour [and minorities], and the underclass on the one hand, and how one treats the non-human natural environment on the other” (Warren, xi). Androcentrism and anthropocentrism are considered to be the main causes of ecological crises in the Western world by many ecofeminists. It is mostly males who manipulate and pollute the environment, but women and children are influenced disproportionately by environmental degradation since they are more susceptible and thus more victimised because the chemical wastes are especially harmful for pregnant women and children. Moreover, women are accepted as being closer to nature because of their biology. In a patriarchal culture where women are made subordinate and submissive, the domination of nature is also justified. Mother Nature is penetrated, conquered, taken under control, disturbed, and altered. This close association between women and nature is also demonstrated in the story through the female bodies that reflect the body of Mother Earth. Like Mother Earth, the female bodies get polluted and, what is worse, the future of children is contaminated through the breast milk the mothers’ bodies produce. In the novel, Sennur is the embodiment of this victimisation. She suffers a lot since her breasts are blocked and she cannot breastfeed her baby. When her breasts are squeezed, blood flows instead of milk and wounds appear all over them. In addition, in the demonstrations and strikes, women workers are placed in the front row as a protective shield around the male workers, and thus it is always females who are severely and violently beaten up in Flower Hill. Culture and nature have been constructed as binary oppositions in the Western mindset that is based on hierarchically established dualities. The interdependency of culture on nature has been denied, and culture has been associated with man, reason, rationality, and the mind, whereas nature is closely identified with women, wilderness, irrationality, and frenzy. Tekin does not contrast culture with nature in Tales from the Garbage Hills. On the contrary, she foregrounds the mutual interaction between these two. Tekin puts the emphasis on the interconnectedness and interdependence of natural, social, and cultural life with Eco-critical sensitivity. The ecological deterioration is parallel to the corruption in social and cultural life. In

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time, the slums become permanent but woefully overcrowded. Families start to decline and then fall apart like the slums they build. Widespread immorality corrupts family ties, which puts women at a disadvantage, making them subject to all kinds of male abuse. In Flower Hill, the factories fire the male workers to replace them with female workers since they are cheap labour. The competition for jobs causes young girls to break up with their fiancés, and married women have abortions since they are employed on the condition that they are single or childless. This aggravates the tension and conflicts between men and women. Flower Hill attracts the filth of the society as well and rapidly becomes a paradise of coffee houses, gambling, prostitution, brothels, casino hotels, and nightclubs. Although the community depends on their local traditions, spirituality, and superstitious beliefs to resist the destructiveness of industrial capitalism in a modern urban life, the factories lead to the rise of a new culture and new practices. The slum dwellers regularly carry out the ritual of throwing stones at the wind to drive it away from their neighbourhood, since it refuses to abandon the Hills and continuously carries away the roofs and babies in their cradles. When the wind gets enraged, they name their babies after it in order to calm it down, or compose songs for it and invent new games such as walking against it. The deformation of the bodies caused by the strong wind is called the wind disease. The attachment of the wind to the Hills is interpreted as the wind’s deep love for the hills, and it is assumed that the wind takes revenge on people for invading its lover. The merits of the girls are no longer measured by their skills in tending and milking the animals but by their skills in recycling the garbage. The lungs of these girls are poisoned by the dust, and mothers seek for them as wives for their sons whose blood is poisoned with lead in the battery factories. After three years of work in the factory, their sons have become impotent and thus should marry these labourer girls. This is established as a tradition. As cultures influence the environment, the environment also influences culture and people. Their traditions, customs, and songs are transformed to a great extent. The noise of the factories, the howling of the wind, the sounds of the seagulls, and the smell of the garbage get so entangled that they cannot be distinguished from one another anymore, inspiring songs and poems among the community residents. Their songs do not feature cranes or gazelles any longer but factories, factory waste, and garbage. Lovers are now inspired by garbage rather than by nature. A poetry teacher living in this neighbourhood composes several poems inspired by the smell of the garbage, the glitter of the garbage, and the steam coming out of the garbage. He later realises that there is only one poem that can be

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written about these hills, which has already been written by the squatters, a one-line poem composed among the screams, shouts and stones: “To wean from Garbage” (86). Further, when a stone with an inscription is uncovered behind the mosque, it is believed to belong to the grave of a saint, to whom the whole community then prays for water. This newly emerging culture produces epic and heroic figures who gain legendary status. Gullu Baba, for instance, is believed to be a holy person with supernatural powers. Since he is assumed to be given the knowledge of the secrets of the universe by God to read the fate of Flower Hill, he is asked to offer prophetic insights into the future of factories, wind, garbage, and unemployment. However, his prophecies are far from the realities. He claims that the garbage disposal area would be covered with soil and a new shanty town would be founded with flowers in 40 different colours everywhere. Green plants would grow even inside the houses, and people all over the world would flood into Flower Hill to see this beauty. However, what actually lies in the fate of Flower Hill are factories, garbage, the wind, filth, disease, and wounds. To sum up, this novel makes a strong case for human rights and environmental justice by bringing to public attention the sufferings of both spatially and socially segregated and powerless communities. Environmental degradation influences different groups of people in disproportionate ways. New commercial and industrial facilities and sites spring up on the hill, which functions as a toxic and hazardous waste landfill and hosts only garbage and garbage people since there is no regulation or law that prohibits this. By making use of the potential of literature for environmental enlightenment, Tekin urgently calls for green chemistry and ecologically sustainable production modes and lives. Without strict measures and punitive regulations by state and government agencies, environmental abuses and inequalities can never be brought to an end.

Works Cited Faber, Daniel. Capitalizing on Environmental Injustice: The PolluterIndustrial Complex. USA: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Melosi, Martin V. “Preface.” In Echoes from the Poisoned Well: Global Memories of Environmental Injustice, edited by Sylvia Hood Washington, Heather Goodall, and Paul C. Rosier. USA: Lexington Books. Picolotti, Romina, and Jorge Daniel Taillant. “Introduction.” In Linking Human Rights and the Environment, edited by Romina Picolotti and Jorge Daniel Taillant. USA: The University of Arizona Press. Tekin, Latife. Berci Kristin Cop Masallari. Istanbul: Everest.

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Warren, Karen. Ecofeminism: Women, Culture, Nature. USA: Indiana University Press.

“THE SEVEN CHAMBERS OF LIGHT” BLURRED: THE BLIND OWL AS AN ANTITRANSCENDENTALIST MANIFESTO IN THE POST-1905 CONSTITUTIONAL REVOLUTION IN IRAN BEHZAD GHADERI SOHI ERCIYES UNIVERSITY

Abstract: The Eye has been described as Haft Khane-ye Nur [The Seven Chambers of Light] in classic Persian poetry. The Eye of the Soul usually ruled over the eye of the head, leaving the external reality—variously described as Zendan-i Sekandar [Iskandar’s Prison House], Ahl-i Ab o Gel [the Residents of (sluggish) water and Mud]—to unite with a transcendental truth. This Eye, also described as Cheshm-i Mast [The Drunk Eye], and Cheragh-e Cheshm [the Eye-Lamp], is the private, subjective eye of the Salek, the wayfarer, one who, even if involved in physical journeys, resides in the Mind and the Soul. This article argues that, at the dawn of the Constitutional Revolution of 1905–11 in Iran, writers and artists felt an urgent need for a shift in sense perception and, consequently, the eye of the head’s observations gained pride of place and tried to undermine those aesthetic modes that had prevailed in the dominant, mystical literature of Iran for centuries. Blindness is, therefore, seen as a deliberate act of occultation needed for a microscopic eye that must X-ray appearances. To illustrate this, Sadeq Hedâyat’s The Blind Owl (1937)—a novella universally acclaimed as a watershed in Persian literature, stylistically and thematically—is discussed as the manifesto of this need for “seeing” the here and the now. Key words: The Eye, literature, perception, blindness, Iran, Constitutional Revolution Although cultures have assumed magical powers for all sense organs, in quite a few of them the eye has instinctively been privileged over other senses. Its association with vision and insight (theoria that directs the contemplator to Platonic Forms), its panoramic motions, its transparen-

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cy, and its iridescence, that is, its rainbow-like quality—a feature borrowed from Iris, the Greek goddess of the rainbow and messenger of all gods, whose name is also given to a sensitive part of the eye—have given the eye a prominent rank among the senses. However, inter-cultural studies carried out by anthropologists suggest that there is no fixed hierarchy among the five senses in cultures and ethnicities. Formerly, a racially biased classification viewed the European as “eye-man,” and the Asian as “ear-man” (Classen, 405; Howes, 3– 28), giving the white, Western individual the supreme role of vision and theory, thereby prioritising the eye (the European gaze?) over “other” modes of perception. More recent studies, however, undermine such a hierarchy, arguing that cultures have their own regulatory systems governing sense perception or aesthetics. “Given perception is conditioned by culture,” Classen observes, “it follows that the ways in which people perceive the world may vary as cultures vary” (401). It is also conceivable to say that the senses rarely have an invariably equal importance or treatment within the same culture, mainly because when that culture develops or experiences volitional or forced changes in different historical periods, its sensory perception changes, rearranging the order of hierarchy among the senses. Thus, when one of the senses takes centre-stage at a certain juncture of time in a culture, it indicates an epistemological shift consequent on some historical and material developments. The new conditions not only tip the balance in favour of a new hierarchical order among the senses, but also value one against other senses leading to new aesthetic principles. This is because sense perception—aesthetics—in each period of a given culture points to, “the ways that join the natural and the social in the qualitative experience of the many modalities of environment” (Berleant, 15). This fact makes aesthetics or sense perception the felt, not just inherited, experiences in concrete social conditions. In Europe, for instance, Hearing and Touch have been the eye’s two rival senses that have, at some points in history, claimed pride of place. The ear, with its aural capacities such as perceiving rhythm and harmony, musicality, and spatial consciousness, had priority over the eye in the early stages of Christianity. Later, when Renaissance humanism flourished in Europe, the hand, as the supreme representative of sense of touch, was privileged over other senses. On a macro-scale, such changes are traceable in the “melting pot” of Iranian culture. Given that sense perception or aesthetics is conditioned by social, ethical, and political criteria, one may speculate that, as the consequence of the collapse of the Persian empire in 637 CE and the

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instalment of new Islamic codes of conduct and norms of “beauty,” changes must have occurred in the order and role of the senses in this arena of multiplex and. more often than not, conflicting epistemologies. One way of studying this change in sensorial (aesthetic) perception due to this ideological change in Iran would be to draw a line between the pre-Islamic valuation of sensorial experiences and that of the Islamic era. Such a comparison is, however, beyond the scope of this article. Here, the major focus will be on the last hundred years of this very period of Islamic dominance when the Constitutional Revolution of 1905–11 in Iran brought about a drastic shift in aesthetic principles putting a new, often fuzzy, eye in opposition to the transcendental eye of the mystic. This “contemporary” period of one hundred years may be called the period of the “strained eye” within Iranian culture. Although mostly dominated by Islamic tenets, it is an era in which the eye is brought to task for its emphasis on extra-terrestrial modes of “seeing.” It is a period when the eye gets to know not to set itself over other senses but to enter the republic of senses where competition is replaced by cooperation. This “strained eye” learns to argue for the adequacy of former modes of seeing based, mostly, on attitudes inspired by Iranian Islamic philosophy and mysticism. This paper argues that ever since the Constitutional Revolution of 1905–11, the eye has been brought to rebel against any spontaneous memory-mirroring of images hooked up from the well of collective unconscious, undermining the dominance of established, transcendental modes of perception and, by so doing, challenging, reversing, or recasting the order of senses prevalent in classic Persian literary tradition.1 To illustrate this, Sadeq Hedâyat’s novel Buf-e Kur [The Blind Owl] (1937) will be seen as the culmination of this challenge in the realm of prose fiction. I argue here that Hedâyat challenges the classic notion of the eye as Haft Khane-ye Nur [The Seven Chambers of Light] by forcing or straining it to delve into the material world, not only to report but also to reflect on and about this earthly life. The novella will be read as Hedâyat’s effort to commend to Iranian artists a periscopic, forensic eye that functions as a lens in a fractured camera obscura, meaning to release massive suppressed energies for opening varied windows to thematic and stylistic innovations in modern Persian literature. Prior to knowing why Hedâyat embarks on sabotaging the prevailing aesthetics by occultation and the creation of chiaroscuros,2 it would be beneficial to briefly review the role of the eye in the cauldron of preIslamic, mainly Zoroastrian, and Islamic theories of perception before the Constitutional Revolution of 1905–11 in Iran, and the sensorial shifts

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based on new social, political, and stylistic needs after this social event. In Zoroastrianism the eye was not essentially transcendentalist. This religion, “was firmly rooted in the soil: it was the religion of a people wholly dependent on cattle” (Zaehner, 76).3 For Zoroastrians, “holiness does not mean so much purity as it so often does for us: it is rather Savah, prosperity, usefulness, and plenty … Thus the whole material world is holy …” (Ibid., 77), and, therefore, humankind as, “the meeting-place between … the mental and the physically alive” (Ibid.) was supposed to deploy all the senses. The eye, therefore, was not supposed to reach the sphere of God or Truth via transcending the material world. Fire was “the visible form … of God” (Ibid.), the waters were considered holy because they were “the wives of the Wise Lord” (Ibid.), and, according to Gathas (1.30.5), the sky was “Ahura Mazda [‘s] … garment” (quoted in Rose, 46). Zoroastrianism’s implementation of the seasonal calendar is also indicative of the faith’s this-worldliness. However, in Islamic epistemology, the eye of the “man of light” tends to be transcendental and, therefore, is privileged over other senses. The word Basir—denoting “all-seeing,” which is an attribute of God— has a frequency of 53, the highest among all senses, in the Holy Quran, implying that God is, first and foremost, an entity of theoria, which is associated with vision, illumination, and unmediated contemplation. God’s second most important attribute is Sami’, denoting the all-hearing attribute of God, which recurs 47 times in the Quran. The most supreme attribute of God, however, is Nur [light] or Nur al-Anvar [the light of all lights] according to SuhrawardƯ (1155–91 CE), the Persian philosopher. To illustrate what role Islam assigned to the eye of the true believer in relation to the terrestrial and supra-terrestrial worlds, and how it was reflected in Classic Persian literature, we may cast a brief glance at three major Islamic philosophers who, although coming from different quarters, basically agree on the role they assign to the eye. Persian Islamic Philosophy was dominated by Farabi (c. 872–c. 950 CE) and his NeoPlatonism, Ibn-i Sina (c. 980–1037 CE) and his neo-Aristotelianism, and later by SuhrawardƯ who, although much inclined towards using Zoroastrian terminology in his system, based his topography of vision in an extra-terrestrial world of the senses “visible” only to the illuminati. To these philosophers, the major task of the individual, at a personal level, is to seek union or return to the First Light and, at a social level, to help others prepare for this union. Farabi, in his MabƗdƯ ƗrƗҴ ahl almadƯnat al-fƗ‫ڲ‬ilah [Principles of the Opinion of the People of the Virtuous City], where he intended to “synthesize the theses of Plato, rather than Aristotle, with the teachings of Islam” (Nasr and Aminrazavi, 135),

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says this individual’s, “soul is united as it were with the Active Intellect … He is the man who knows every action by which felicity can be reached” (Ibid., 175). Farabi further mentions that this man of the Excellent City is a, “sovereign over whom no other human being has any sovereignty whatsoever; he is the Imam …” (Ibid., 176). Farabi sets this Excellent City against the “Ignorant City,” the “Wicked City,” and all “the individuals who make up the common people in the various cities” (Ibid., 177). A little later, Ibn-i Sina sets intellectual perception against sense perception and argues that supreme happiness is for the one who rends apart the veil of sense perception; that is, the man of light who is capable of intellection. Ibn-i Sina, it is well known, has an Aristotelian approach to knowledge; however, as a rationalist, the following rhetorical question validates suprasensorial perception: “Hence, of what kind is the state (‫ۊ‬Ɨl) of happiness in which intellect is found when it receives the First Truth (‫ۊ‬aqq-i awwal), that from which all beauty and order and splendour proceed, and how can such happiness be compared to the pleasures of the senses?” (Ibid., 258). Further on in Persian mystical-Islamic philosophy, SuhrawardƯ, although a reviver of some pre-Islamic (Mazdean) tenets, goes even further and introduces the notion of Man of Light; that is, one who is in search of the light that is not found on geographical maps. If, according to Ptolemy’s system adopted by Persians, this inhabited world was known to have “seven climates” or what Persians called “haft Keshwar” (seven countries), SuhrawardƯ’s illuminated man was a seeker of the “eighth climate,” which is an as yet undiscovered “Orient.” This is a “suprasensory, mystical Orient” (Corbin, 1); paradoxically, it is “the place of the Origin and of the Return, object of the eternal Quest” (Ibid.). It is an “Orient” located “at the extreme north” of whose presence only “the mode of being of the Sufi” is aware. This Orient, Corbin rightly observes, is not in the common east of the seven climates of this world: The Orient sought by the mystic, the Orient that cannot be located on our maps, is in the direction of the north, beyond the north. Only an ascensional progress can lead toward this cosmic north chosen as a point of orientation. A primary consequence already foreseen is, to be exact, a dislocation of the contrasts regulating the classifications of exoteric geography and anthropology, which depend on outer appearances. (1–2)

Hence, Mowlavi’s (1207–73 CE) intentional distortion of conventional topography in search of that “eighth climate”: “We are from Above and Above we go/ We are from the sea and seaward we go/ We are not from

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here nor from there/ We are from No-place and No-place we go” (Divan, no. 1674; my translation). For Hafez (1325/26–1389/90 CE)—though his this-worldliness is diametrically different from Mowlavi’s ein [eye] that must tune itself to ayan [the hidden visible only to the mystic]— sometimes this world of sense is Zendan-i Sekandar [the prison-house of Iskandar], Manzel-i Viran [ruined House], and the “eighth climate” is Mulk-i Suleiman [Solomon’s Land]: “Happy is the day I leave this ruined house/ To find peace of soul and search for the beloved/ … My heart is grieving of all the terror of this prison house of Iskanadr/ I would rather pack and fly to Solomon’s Land” (my translation). Mysticism has been a double-edged sword in Iran ever since its appearance. On the one hand, it has served as the language of protest against the hegemonic powers that ruled over Iran; it has challenged the hypocrisy of believers in mainstream religion that have claimed to have the truth; and it has helped people cast doubt on universals preached by Zahids (religious hypocrites).4 On the other hand, mysticism also acquired a non-involvement, defeatist attitude in time. Iran’s growing historical catastrophes since the seventeenth century as well as its people’s disappointment with unqualified, corrupt rulers, especially those of the nineteenth century who sold Iran out to the demands of Russia and Britain, spread a fatalist attitude towards life among the public. As a cure, Iranian masses derived asceticism and resignation from the formerly militant mysticism, attitudes that were quite palatable to the corrupt Quajar rulers in the nineteenth century, most of whom promoted this in verse as many of them also had their own Divans. In Iran Dar Astane-ye Enghelab-I Mashrotiyat (Iran at the Threshold of the Constitutional Revolution), Mo’meni contends that the public fed itself on an asceticism derived from the early mysticism of revolt that now turned a blind eye to human sufferings. Instead of social participation and action, people found passive peace and social resignation through whispering Mowlavi’s poems, divination, or fortune telling from Hafez’s Divan. Through this version of mysticism, people were encouraged unconsciously to rehearse withdrawal from this so-called mundane world. To Mo’meni, the message the public rehearsed through mysticism was a bizarre one: “if you have no shirt get rid of your body” (26–8, my translation). This patronising, passive version of “seeing,” however, could not last any longer. In the late nineteenth century there emerged a period called Asre Bidari [the Period of Awakening] when, in the face of all former military defeats, territorial losses, and economic dependency and/or bankruptcy, people and intellectuals sought social, political, religious,

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and literary reforms. At the dawn of the Constitutional Revolution, social forces gathered in three different parties: the Democrat Party with its leftist reformist measures, the traditional Islamic-Right that was loyal to the monarchy, and the clerical presence. The clerical group saw “change” as synonymous “with secularization and the loss of ‘authentic’ Iranian–Islamic identity” (Matin-Asghari, 40). There was also the secular right that, “combined monarchism with modern nationalism, being more favourable to foreign models, especially authoritarian ones implemented by national ‘saviours’ such as Reza Shah” (Ibid., 40). Together with this political alignment, there emerged a literary movement perhaps more fiercely divisive than the political one. Literary intellectuals came to realise that the ancien régime would not be really undermined—let alone overthrown—without constructing a thoroughfare out of the former mainstream Persian literary aesthetics. This new move tried to reach the public and help them make literature a platform for adversary debates on social issues and the forms the new Iranian identity could take. Whatever the political consequences of the Constitutional Revolution in Iran,5 it led to a serious Enghelab-i Adabi [Literary Revolution]. Fazeli (2) divides political/anthropological developments in Iran in the twentieth century into three phases: (1) the rise of nationalism, modernisation/Westernisation spanning from the 1905 Constitutional Revolution to 1941 when Iran witnessed the fall of the Qajar dynasty, and the instalment of the Pahlavi dynasty and Reza Shah’s eventual abdication from power in 1941; (2) the emergence of, “Nativism and Anti-modernization movements” spanning from the 1950s to 1979; and (3) “the … decades after the [1979] Revolution, characterized by Islamization and a continuation of anti-Westernism.” In the first phase of the Revolution, Fazeli further argues that, “a group of prominent literati … approached culture from the viewpoint of ordinary people, not that of the ruler and court which had been predominant for centuries” (2). They were determined to purge Iranian culture of “superstitions and obstacles,” to use “Persian colloquial language in their writings” that would promote “democratic revolution in Persian literature … shifting literary themes from courtly and aristocratic issues to those of ‘ordinary and everyday life’,” and to promote a “nationalistfolklorist” movement in the 1910s–20s with a tendency to seek a “genuine” Iranian culture free from the long-standing influence of Arabs and Turks in the course of history.6 Sadeq Hedâyat (1903–51), who was born on the eve of the Constitutional Revolution, thrived in an aristocratic family with interests in art,

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liberal humanity, and writing. His early life coincided with Iranian romantic Nationalism when cultural awakening manifested itself in the writing of historical novels, and the writing and translating of prose and/or verse dramas, based on “critical” realism. Politically, he saw the establishment of the Majlis [Parliament], the fall of the Qajar dynasty, the defeat or deviation of the Constitutional Revolution, the installing of the Pahlavi dynasty, the defeat of parliamentary politics, the rise of Reza Shah (1878–1944), his eventual dictatorship and abdication, and the rise and fall of Iranian nationalism and national unity/identity between WWI and WWII. Early in his artistic career, Hedâyat tried his hand at romantic nationalism by writing plays, the most prominent of which is Parvin DokhtariSasan [Parvin the Sasanian Girl], which happens during the Arab conquest of Persia and tells of a girl’s leap to death rather than being taken for ransom by an Arab warrior. He also embarked on scholarship in Iranian folklore and pre-Islamic texts, a few of which he translated into contemporary Persian. While trying his hand at the historical novel, prose drama, and prose fiction, Hedâyat was mainly keen to experiment with the possibilities of contriving new forms for exploring, representing, and interpreting complex contemporary social phenomena. Hedâyat knew that new forms of expression necessitated new aesthetics, a felt need for new approaches to sensorial perception, an allinclusive approach to the mundane world of senses, and a reawakening of all the senses with the intention of including the wasteful, the ugly, and the grotesque side of the earthly world in “the Garden of Roses” of Persian literature. His novella, Buf-e Kur [The Blind Owl], published in 1936 in Bombay in limited numbers and stamped “not for sale or publication in Iran,” stands prominent in all his fictional writings in that he tries to mould a new order for sense perception. Hedâyat was familiar with Poe, Rilke, Kafka, and Sartre to name but a few, and many Iranian critics have read this novel in the light of these “influences,” leading to the idea that this novella is nothing but a compilation of purple patches from Western writers, as if Hedâyat were an importer of “form” from the West and not a designer of great ingenuity whose mind and art were a synthesis of different formal/stylistic debates from both the West and in his own culture, past and present.7 The Blind Owl is a bipartite narrative of a single man who appears in two different times and spaces and with two different faces. In the first part, he lives in a single room with a closet in the outskirts of a ruined, haunted city. In this episode, he is a painter addicted to painting one and the same scene on the cover of pen-holders—an old man under a cypress

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tree by a stream biting the index finger of his left hand, and a woman standing on the other side of the stream offering him a lotus flower— which he sends to his uncle in India to sell. One day, precisely on the 13th day of Nowruz, the door to his room opens and a man, presumably his uncle, comes in. To greet him with something, he remembers a casket of wine left for him in the past, which he has kept in the niche in the closet. He climbs on a stool to get the casket of wine but a crack in the wall attracts his attention. Out of curiosity, he looks through the opening and is amazed to see an old man hunching under a cypress tree by a stream biting the index finger of his left hand, and an ethereal woman standing on the other side of the stream offering him a flower. He gets back to the room with the wine only to realise that his uncle is not there. Charmed by the beauty of the woman, he starts a search around his den/cottage to find traces of her. One evening, however, as he returns from his routine search, he sees the woman sitting on the step next to his room. She enters the room and he follows her; she lies down on his bed and when he gets that same inherited wine to refresh her he discovers that she is dead. Any attempt to revive the woman fails; the only alternative for him is to draw the girl’s figure. Besides, he realises that it is her eyes he wants to paint. In his amazement, the woman seems to come back to life, opening her eyes for a moment and then dropping dead again. He is now satisfied, as the impression of the eyes remains in his mind. In fear of the authorities, he then cuts the woman’s corpse into pieces and puts them in a suitcase. Then he drags the suitcase out to bury her somewhere, but an old man with his cart appears, saying he is at his service to bury the corpse. While the old man digs the grave, he unearths an ancient pot that he wraps in a rag. Before burying the woman, the narrator wants to see the woman’s face gain. As he removes the black cloth, he sees it in the middle of a decaying body swarming with worms. Even now, the eyes in the lifeless face open again and cast a scornful gaze at him in a flash. On their way back, the old man says he has no use for the unearthed pot and gives it to the narrator. Getting back to his room, he looks at the pot and, to his amazement, discovers that the drawing on it is an exact replica of his own drawing of the woman from the night before. It is noteworthy that when he wants to put the wine back in the niche in the closet, he discovers that there is no trace of the crack through which he saw the man under the cypress tree. In part two he lives in his room, but this time it is in the middle of a crowded city. He has travelled in time but there are bloodstains on his clothes, and for fear of persecution he decides to commit suicide. However, he changes his mind and decides to give up painting and start writ-

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ing about his agonies. He is now a young man married to a woman who is unfaithful to him, and their marriage is never consummated. Here, he also lives in a room with a closet; however, this room has two windows—one opening to the street, the other to the courtyard. Through the window to the street he sees a butcher’s shop, and across it is a rag-andbone man who sells odds and ends, all of them useless things except for a pot that is covered in a rag and a knife. Also, the narrator hears him reciting verses from the Quran. All these people have sexual dealings with his wife, and this shame doubles his alienation from the outside world. Later, he finds the rag-and-bone man’s knife in his own room. One night, infatuated with lust, he disguises himself as the old man, takes the knife, and goes to his wife’s room to have sex with her, but in a moment of frenzy stabs her to death. He runs back to his own room and, in bewilderment, opens his fist and discovers his wife’s eyeball in his hand. The story ends with the narrator’s discovery that he has now become the old rag-and-bone man. One last event is that, while in his room, he sees the old man running away with the ancient clay pot under his arm. André Bréton (1896–1966), the French surrealist poet, calls The Blind Owl, “[a] masterpiece if there ever was one!” (quoted in Beard, 79) and Hillmann, a renowned Persian literature scholar, observes that, “[c]ritical writing in English on The Blind Owl’s author Sસdeq Hedસyat …] exceeds that on the subject of any other twentieth-century Iranian author” (309). Yet, the novella’s dexterously kneaded web of settings of past and present, of allusions to ancient and modern objects and events, and of personas that flow into one another cultivates the text so richly that one may expect new ideas sprouting in all areas, ranging from Persian folklore, the ancient historical events of Persia, and the modernisation of Iran to ideas about art, style as history making, and sensorial perception. A key point in this novella is the narrator’s meticulous obsession with a web of time fluctuating between ancient and modern Iran. In the first part, he “offhandedly” mentions that his hallucinatory quest for the ethereal woman started on the “thirteenth day of Farvardin” (18) called sizdah-be-dar [the thirteenth day out]. This day is pivotal to the argument here. Nowruz starts on March 21, but some days before the New Year, Iranians start khanetakani [house-cleaning] and welcome spring by preparing sabzeh [greenery, which they grow in plates or on the body of clay pots]. The New Year festive mood lasts for 12 days, during which time, apart from visiting families and friends and wishing them well, people used to, and in some parts of the country still do, perform several

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rituals with different implications. For instance, people used to have a ceremony called mir-i Nowruzi [King for Nowruz], where somebody play-acted a temporary king who performed all sorts of buffooneries and issued very bizarre and foolish laws for a laugh, while the clown-king was supposed to take a serious air. On the thirteenth day of Nowruz— Sizdah-be-dar [the thirteenth day out] or the “carnival” day—people go to the countryside, carrying with them their sabzehs, now turned yellow, to offer them to streams (or, among the rural people, to plant them in the earth). Out in nature, they dance, sing, and perform practical jokes. Also on this day, people fabricate lies called Dorough-e Sizdah [the lie of the thirteenth day].8 Traditionally, this day is supposed to prepare Iranians for a “fresh start” in the year ahead. The Blind Owl is Hedâyat’s “fresh start,” a transformation that happens at the locus where personal and social epistemologies meet and run parallel with or cross each other. To understand this “fresh start” better in terms of perception or aesthetics, a few words on his short story “Tarikkhane” [“The Darkroom”],9 from the collection Sag-e velgard (1942)—to me a sequel or, to use a Derridean term, a “supplement” to The Blind Owl in terms of Hedâyat’s preoccupation with camera obscura and occultation—may be inspiring. In this short story, the narrator, who is on his way to a destination, is forced to spend the evening in a small town (Khansar) because the driver of the car deems it better to start the journey the next morning. The narrator has to stay somewhere overnight, and one of the passengers of the same car, whose journey terminates in this city, invites him to stay at his place. This hospitable, strange man tells the narrator he has made a special new “room” for himself; therefore, his former room is useless and the narrator may stay there. When they get to his house, the narrator discovers that this man’s “new room” is actually a “darkroom/camera obscura” with no windows. It is elliptical and its only light is a dim red glow coming from a lamp on the desk. The man tells the narrator that this room isolates him from the hustle and bustle of the external world. He has chosen to withdraw from the world, “not like the Sufis, who are expecting 'the light of truth to dawn'” (“The Dark House”, par. 20), but as a person who expects hell and darkness. The narrator then sleeps in the other room and wakes up the next day to start his journey. He knocks on the man’s door to thank him for his hospitality and, as there is no reply, enters to discover the host, “lying in the foetal position and his hands covered his face. I approached him and shook him by the shoulder. He had become petrified in this position” (par. 28; my emphasis). The narrator is terrified, wondering if his host, now dead, felt lucky or

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miserable leading this kind of life. The return to the “darkroom” motif six years after The Blind Owl may be read as Hedâyat’s “silent” gesture for disambiguating one of the aspects of The Blind Owl—that the withdrawal to this chamber is an effort on the part of a person, “not like the Sufis, who are expecting 'the light of truth to dawn’,” but as one faced with personal and historical crises. The strange man in “The Darkroom” also comments on photography and authenticity or correspondence between the object and the image: I wanted to find a hole in the ground and, like a hibernating animal, get lost in my own self. In this way I could discover myself. There is much in human beings that is gentle and hidden—suppressed by the weight of daily concerns and the bustle of life. But given a chance the same aspects can surface and, like a picture that takes shape in the photographer's pan, appear to us in the dark. (My emphasis)

This is humankind’s pre-fall condition, a self-sufficient being fixated in the embryonic stage that tries to avoid the Lacanian “symbolic order.” The narrator in “The Darkroom” wonders, “whether I was dealing with a man obsessed with cleanliness or with an homme extraordinaire” (par. 27). The strange man’s preference for the “darkroom” is an attempt to stay away from the “contamination” of the material world; it is a deliberate blockading of personal and social epistemology. The elliptical, womb-like room in “The Darkroom,” where the strange man freezes to death, is not exposed to the oxygen of blunt reality. A self-sufficient, hedgehog life, doomed to recycling the same air, prevails in the “The Darkroom.” Therefore, Hedâyat sets this man’s “darkroom” in sharp contrast with the narrator’s rooms in The Blind Owl that are fractured “darkrooms.” The short story is an imitation of the optical device, the camera obscura, whose function is the accurate representation of an object of the external world. However, this man’s version sounds odd and terrifying to the narrator, in part due to the strange man’s prenatal obsession with a callous self. He seeks a likeness of himself like that of, “a picture that takes shape in the photographer's pan,” (para. 20) an exact replica of a foetal state. “The Darkroom,” therefore, establishes a dialectical relation with The Blind Owl. If the strange man’s “darkroom” seeks uncontaminated verisimilitude, we may read it as Hedâyat’s retrospective comment on the reader’s impasse if they expect The Blind Owl to be an exact and accurate replica of reality. It reminds the reader that The Blind Owl’s version

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of the camera obscura is fractured; the “negative” is exposed to light before it reaches “the photographer’s pan”: it is “reality” blurred and distorted. Contrary to the established definition of the camera obscura as an optical device for accurate verisimilitude, Kofman deconstructs this function of this device by arguing that the very name—camera obscura—is “carried simultaneously by the notion of camera/chamber and that of ‘obscure’” (13). It is a chamber whose images are obscured and “contaminated” (Ibid.) by implications coming from both ideology and the unconscious. There is no “faithful” representation in this version of the camera obscura: The camera obscura functions, not as a specific technical object whose effect is to present, in inverted form, real relationships, but, rather, as an apparatus for occultation, which plunges consciousness into darkness, evil and error, which makes it become dizzy and lose its balance. It is an apparatus which renders real relationships elusive and secret. (14)

Hedâyat’s “The Darkroom” sets the example of an intact, “uncontaminated” camera obscura, in that the “darkroom” has no windows to the external world to remind us that the narrator’s “darkroom” in The Blind Owl is the fractured skull, a camera obscura but, this time, with a crack in it to let history—then and now—invade and conquer the consciousness of the narrator and make this “darkroom” the site of personal and social epistemic crises. As mentioned above, it is on sizdah-be-dar, this Persian “carnival,” day, that the narrator of The Blind Owl stays indoors, indicating his seeming aversion to joining this feast of “becoming.” The narrator’s behaviour on this special day stands against Hedâyat’s strong personal belief in the revival of ancient Persian folkloric rituals, unless we read between the lines of the text and observe the ploys Hedâyat and his narrator use. Before mentioning the fact that people have gone to the countryside, the narrator states that sizdah-be-dar has been a turning point in his career, because he “gave up painting designs on pen-case covers in order to devote [his] entire time to writing” (18). We may, therefore, take the narrator’s staying indoors as a “covert” action of a mir-I Nowruzi [the king for the New Year], a coup-d’état against the mainstream king of “habits.” Up to the “event,” which started on the thirteenth day of Nowruz, his art sits side by side with the addictive repetition of the “same”: My daily occupation was painting designs on pen-case covers; my entire

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Further on, he lets us know a “strange and incredible thing” about his paintings: “for some reason, from the beginning, all my painted scenes shared the same theme and structure” (18). This stage of his art indicates an automated, marketable “taste”: “My hand drew this scene involuntarily. Even more incredible was that there was demand for these paintings. I routinely sent some to India in care of my uncle. He sold them and sent the money to me” (18). The shift from painting to writing falls on the thirteenth day of the New Year when he decides to stay indoors. After this day, his comments on popular “taste” get increasingly aggressive and declarative: I must narrate a story. Oh, there are so many stories about childhood days, loves, and acts of copulation, weddings and deaths and not a grain of truth in any of them. I am tired of telling stories and of fanciful phraseology. (33, my emphasis) … But … the rabbles’ … books, writings or thoughts [were not] useful for me. What use did I have for their nonsense and their lies? Wasn't I myself the result of many succeeding generations, and weren't their hereditary sufferings inherent in me? (50)

The narrator, then, focuses on writing as an act of occultation: I am in need—I am in need more than ever before to convey my thoughts to my imaginary creature, to my shadow: that same ominous shadow that is bending on the wall in front of the tallow burner and which seems to be reading, actually carefully swallowing, whatever I write. This shadow definitely has a better sense of perception than I. (33)

The Blind Owl as text and its narrator as a modern “subject” establish a carnivalesque relationship with classic Persian literature to declare the inadequacy of the former subject matters and, at the same time, to comment on the modern Iranian “subject”’s epistemic crisis. The Garden of classic Persian literature is replaced by a ruined city; its nightingale is replaced by the owl, the mystic’s “beloved”/mistress is replaced by the “marketable” flesh in the butcher’s shop and that of the whore, its serious, didactic mode is replaced by the comic/tragic mode, and its existential peace epitomised in the “man of light” is replaced by an absurdist “angst,” the negation of (existential) meaning of the “modern” subject

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(as the narrator poses variously as a philosopher, a clown, and a pimp). In this novella, Hedâyat does not simply parody former classic texts or their ways of “seeing”; he undermines the naïve sense of realism that had become popular among Iranian intellectuals after the Constitutional Revolution of 1905–11. Here, Hedâyat denounces realism as a mirror of reality; his version of reality is the outcome of a strained eye. Hedâyat employs the grotesque or the caricature with a view to creating contradictory states between an inner reality, which he thinks has been distorted, and the external reality, which he perceives as disorder. Kayser identifies two functions for a grotesque representation: it “deconstructs symmetry” and, therefore, it negates the world as a “self-contained” (Kayser, 21) entity. Butter argues that, “[c]ultural formations exist on the basis of exclusions and it is the re-entry of these suppressed and marginalized elements into the cultural centre that renders them grotesque, for they violate the established and deeply ingrained cultural classification schemes, thereby defamiliarizing the world as we know it” (339). The eye of the narrator in The Blind Owl does not succumb to the demands of established modes of perception; it is the glittering eye of a mind in a liminal state, neither here nor there. The eye of the narrator deforms the popular mode: I passed through many streets without any predetermined destination and, distraughtly walked by the rabble who, with greedy faces, were in pursuit of money and lust. In fact, I did not need to see them to know them; one was enough to represent the rest. They were all like one big mouth leading to a wad of guts, terminating in a sexual organ. (44)

This eye deforms the “symbolic order” and, by so doing, horrifies the beholder with the recognition of the so-far “obvious” as grotesque and bizarre. The grotesque, however, seeks reform as its horrifying strategy and transfers the mind to the possibility of redefining the existing reality. Thus, the “blindness” of the owl in this novella is simply a metaphorical one. Commenting on his intention to write, the narrator says: “I want to press my entire life in my hands, as if it were a bunch of grapes; and I want to pour its essence, no, its wine, drop by drop, like water containing the holy dust of Mecca, down the dry throat of my shadow” (33 ). Drawing an analogy between this desire on behalf of the narrator to “pour” his “essence … down the dry throat of my shadow” and the owl as the bird of prey may sound remote; however, the narrator informed us earlier that his shadow reflected on the wall is more real than him (also a parody of the unsubstantial images/beings described in Plato’s “Cave” in The Republic or in Farabi’s utopia) and looks more like an owl reading what he

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writes. An owl, scientific observations tell us, does not “stomach” objects of the external world through its eyes. The owl’s ears, each working independently, giving the nocturnal bird of prey an independent, threedimensional sonic picture of the targeted moving object, are so crucial for bringing the whole being of the bird—the eyes, the talons, the body, and its feathers—into such a co-ordinated, concentrated attack on the victim that we may consider each of its directed “sorties” a unique, unrepeatable work of art. In other words, the bird crushes all its essence into a unique intense moment of creativity, “stomaching” the reality out there. Hedâyat assumes the character of an owl; however, he is only blind to “appropriate” norms of seeing and reading cultural images. The owl without its ears and its talons is blind; with them, the bird/artist is the epitome of achieved structure. What’s more, the narrator’s shadow reflected on the wall bends on the narrator “reading” (stomaching) whatever he writes. This also suggests a new role that Hedâyat proposes to the reader—“reading” also requires crushing one’s whole existence, like grapes, into moments of bliss available only to a “writerly reader,” to borrow from Barthes; moments that explode the reader’s habitat. The Blind Owl was a watershed in Iran at a time when complex socio-cultural phenomena demanded new aesthetic principles, new stylistics, new language, and new sensibilities. It opened the reader’s eyes to the terrors of the grotesque; it opened a window to strained, cinematic seeing, and introduced some principles of fantastic realism to modern Iranian literature. The significant contribution Hedâyat made to modern Persian literature is dethroning the didactic, man-of-light role of the writer and presenting instead the writer as a “distracted” being whose motto, to borrow from Barthes again, is: “mad I cannot be, sane I do not deign to be, neurotic I am” (6). Hedâyat’s life and work represent an instance of crisis of identity torn among diverse dynamic forces on the stage of contemporary Iran. What is worrying is the persistence of this crisis. Dariush Mehrjui brought out almost the same theme in his film Hamoun (1990), which is a surrealist movie portraying the identity crisis of intellectuals after the 1979 Revolution. What is promising from Hedâyat to Mehrjui is both artists’ testifying to style as making history; what is disappointing, however, is the only very slight, peripheral presence of balanced debates about these works as discourses on power, ideology, and identity— elements that have deformed and reshaped “modern” Iranian identity in the last hundred years. Such balanced debates would have paved the way to finding solutions to converge all social energies that, one way or another, have contributed to social change.

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Notes 1

Two words of caution: (a) There were rival epistemologies inspired by Mazdean, pre-Islamic insights epitomised by such scholars as Zakaria Razi (854–925 CE) who had a different opinion or were antagonistic to the mainstream Philosophy; (b) We must be cautiously aware of other modes of “seeing,” also a part of classical Persian poetry, namely, Habsiyyat (prison poems), the best example of which is Mas'ud-i Sa'd-i SalmƗn (1046–1121 CE), who spent many years in prison, whose “darkroom” perceptions of grim reality are unique. 2 In 1933, Hedâyat published a collection of short stories called Sayeh Rushan [Chiaroscuro] where he experiments with evoking gothic and fantastic spaces together with marionette-like characters. 3 “Earthliness” was one reason that Nietzsche re-enacted Zoroaster in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. 4 For a detailed account of dissident mysticism see Mangol Bayat, Mysticism and Dissent: Socioreligious Thought in Quajar Iran (New York: Syracuse University Press, 1982), where she traces the line of dissident mysticism in the nineteenth century leading to the Constitutional Revolution of 1905–11. 5 At the turn of the nineteenth century, Iran was a backyard for Russia and England in which to play their games and keep the country as the “weakest link” in the chain of countries seen as areas of interest in the imperialist/colonialist discourses. Some have seen the Constitutional Revolution of 1905–11 as a failed national attempt at democracy whose major beneficiaries were Britain and Russia. However, in spite of the rivalry between the two imperial forces and their accelerating attempts to create their own areas of influence in Iran from the sixteenth century onwards, the socio-political impact of this movement and the social, political, and literary energies it helped to create in Iran cannot be underestimated. Foran, for instance, in Fragile Resistance: Social Transformation in Iran from 1500 to the Revolution (Oxford, Westview Press, 1993), sees this social phenomenon as of high significance when studied within economic and social dependency and Iran’s efforts for redefining its role within the new economic patterns that emerged in the world. 6 A similar nationalist approach to language was also gaining momentum in Turkey. Murat Belge, in his article, “Genç Kalemler and Turkish Nationalism” in Turkey’s Engagement with Modernity: Conflict and Change in the Twentieth Century, ed., Celia Kerslake, Kerem Öktem et al. (England: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), analyses the one-year issues of Genç Kalemler [Young Pens] published between 1911–12, where they “campaign for a purer Turkish language, rid of the Arabic and Persian cumbrances of the composite Ottoman language” (27). 7 Marta Simidchieva, in her article, “Sadeq Hedayat and the Classics: The Case of The Blind Owl” in Homa Katouzian (ed.), Sadeq Hedayat: His Work and his Wondrous World (London & New York: Routledge, 2008), 20–44, studies The Blind Owl “within Persian tradition” (22). She compares this novella’s imagery with one of the poems by Manuchehri Damghani, “the eleventh-century poet whose poems celebrat[e] Nawruz and Mehregan” (28). In this long poem, Manuchehri celebrates the New Year, addressing a Persian garden and asking about this new “birth” in it.

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Simidchieva speculates on the possibility of Hedayat’s drawing on Manucheri’s poem, rich with references to pre-Islamic allusions to Iranian myths, places, and rituals. Although Simidchieva also addresses the Nowruz issue in her article, my line of argument—also focusing on Nowruz—takes a different course and serves other purposes. 8 Sizdah-be-dar usually falls on April 1 or 2, and coincides with Fools’ Day. Since this Iranian tradition is known to be the most ancient tradition in the world, some have speculated that Fools’ Day must be a derivation from this Iranian ritual. 9 Iraj Bashiri’s translation of the title “Tarikkhane” is “The Dark House.” While I quote from his translation available on the internet, in my own discussion I refer to the text as “The Darkroom,” mainly because Hedâyat’s story relates this “room” to the “darkroom” of photographers where “negatives” were processed.

Works Cited Barthes, Roland. The Pleasures of the Text. Trans. Richard Miller. New York: Hill and Wang, 1975. Beard, Michael. “Influence as debt: The Blind Owl in the literary marketplace.” In Sadeq Hedâyat: His Work and his Wondrous World, edited by Homa Katouzian, 59–72. London & New York: Routledge, 2008. Belge, Murat. “Genç Kalemler and Turkish Nationalism.” In Turkey’s Engagement with Modernity: Conflict and Change in the Twentieth Century, edited by Celia Kerslake, Kerem Öktem, and Philip Robins, 27–38. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Berleant, Arnold. Sensibility and Sense: The Aesthetic Transformation of the Human World.UK: Imprint Academic, 2010. Butter, Stella. “The Grotesque as a Comic Strategy of Subversion: Mapping the Crisis of Masculinity in Patrick McGrath’s The Grotesque.” Orbis Litterarum 62 (4) (2007): 336–52. Corbin, Henry. The Man of Light in Iranian Sufism. Trans. Nancy Pearson: USA: Omega Publications, 1971. Classen, Constance. “Foundations for an Anthropology of the Senses.” International Social Science Journal 153 (1997): 401–12. Fazeli, Morteza. Politics of Culture in Iran: Anthropology, Politics and Society in the Twentieth Century. London: Routledge, 2006. Hedâyat, Sadeq. The Blind Owl. Trans. Iraj Bashiri. 3rd. n. d. Ed. May 26, 2014. www.angelfire.com/rnb/bashiri /BlindOwl/blindowl2013.pdf. —. “The Dark House.” Trans. Iraj Bashiri. n. d., n. pge. May 26, 2014. http://www.angelfire.com/rnb/bashiri/Stories/darkhouse.html> Hillmann, Michael. “The Title of Hedâyat’s Buf-e Kur [(The) Blind Owl)].” In The Necklace of the Pleiades: 24 Essays on Persian Litera-

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ture, Culture and Religion, edited by F.D. Lewis and S. Sharma, 309– 25. Leiden: Leiden University Press, 2010. Howes, David. Sensual Relations: Engaging the Senses in Culture and Social Theory. Ann Arbor, MI, USA: University of Michigan Press, 2010. Kayser, Wolfgang. The Grotesque in Art and Literature. Trans. Ulrich Weisstein. New York: Columbia University Press, 1957. Kofman, Sarah. Camera Obscura of Ideology (1973). Translated Will Straw. New York: Cornell University Press, 1998. Matin-Asghari, Afshin. “From Social Democracy to Social Democracy: the Twentieth-century Odyssey of the Iranian Left”. In Reformers and Revolutionaries in Modern Iran: New Perspectives on the Iranian Left, edited by Stephanie Cronin, 37–65. London: Routledge, 2004. Momeni, Baqer. Iran dar Astane-ye Enghelab-I Mashrotiyat (Iran at the Threshold of the Constitutional Revolution). Tehran: Amirkabir Publishing House, 1345/1966. Nasr, Seyyed Hossein and Mehdi Aminrazavi (eds.). From Zoroaster to ҵUmar KhayyƗm. Vol. 1 of An Anthology of Philosophy in Persia (3 vols.). London and New York: I. B. Tauris & Co Ltd., 2008. Rose, Jenny. Zoroastrianism: An Introduction. London: I.B. Tauris, 2011. Simidchieva, Marta. “Sadeq Hedâyat and the Classics: the Case of The Blind Owl”. In Sadeq Hedâyat: His Work and his Wondrous World, edited by Homa Katouzian, 20–44. London & New York: Routledge, 2008. Zaehner, Robert Charles. The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism. New York: G. P. Putnam, 1961.

CHERCHEZ LA FEMME: STEREOTYPES IN CONFLICT IN ROMANIAN MID-NINETEENTH-CENTURY SENTIMENTAL NOVELS CARMEN DUTU DIMITRIE CANTEMIR UNIVERSITY, ROMANIA

Abstract: The present paper aims to examine how several midnineteenth-century Romanian novels reflect the heteronormative vision of the time, and attempts to reveal how the rhetoric of the feminine is bound to the idea of violence. Feminine identity construction in these novels either falls under the Foucauldian bodily discipline (the Marianic imagology involving frailty, prudishness and virtue—all traits expressing an ideology of social dependence and bodily determination), or it becomes a phenomenon of acculturation. As long as each text—in the Barthesian sense—is a reflection of the normative system, those who will not accept it will be bound to feel rejected. Focus will be precisely on this phenomenon of acculturation, which speaks about a new, emancipating, somewhat subversive modern feminine identity construction in the context of the midnineteenth-century Romanian society, influenced by imported French modernity, and triggering an even more violent attitude. Key words: body, gender identity, sentimental novels, violence, identity construction, normative system, acculturation. From the late twentieth century the field of humanities has been increasingly concerned with its ontological status under the influence of multiand interdisciplinary research, especially triggered by the reception of philosophy and critical theory; however, this has rarely gone across the boundaries of specific humanities disciplines, especially in the case of English literary studies, which still ignore the innovative potential of transdisciplinarity. However, the increasingly explicit discourse on transdisciplinarity recently developed in science, technology, and education studies is currently calling into question the relationship between humanities and transdisciplinarity. At this point it is perhaps necessary to bring

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forth the distinction made by Basarab Nicolescu (president and founder of the International Center for Transdisciplinary Research and Studies) between the frequently overlapping concepts of disciplinarity, interdisciplinarity, multidisciplinarity, and transdisciplinarity: As in the case of disciplinarity, transdisciplinary research is not antagonistic but complementary to multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity research. Transdisciplinarity is nevertheless radically distinct from multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity because of its goal, the understanding of the present world, which cannot be accomplished in the framework of disciplinary research. The goal of multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity always remains within the framework of disciplinary research. If transdisciplinarity is often confused with interdisciplinarity and multidisciplinarity (and by the same token, we note that interdisciplinarity is often confused with multidisciplinarity) this is explained in large part by the fact that all three overflow disciplinary boundaries. This confusion is very harmful to the extent that it functions to hide the different goals of these three new approaches. 1

In other words, transdisciplinarity can be regarded as an integrated assessment of research transgressing disciplinary approach, attempting to focus on a different structuring paradigm than the traditional approach to scholarly practice. From this perspective, disciplines will be regarded as knots of a network, constantly questioning contingent limitations and artificial exclusions. By examining mid-nineteenth-century Romanian sentimental novels, the present paper aims to be a case study of one of the transdisciplinary problematics in humanities—gender study. Lately, we have witnessed a repositioning of gender studies within the field of sciences. The increasing institutionalisation of the field in academia calls into question the very capacity of its critical potential. Social, technological, and epistemological shifts occurring in the contemporary dynamics raise crucial questions with regard to the very canon of gender studies. For example, to what extent can we still apply interdisciplinarity and the binary gender divide when investigating the subsystems of contemporary society (new types of social divisions, inequality, feminization of life-styles, biopower)? Moreover, the institutionalisation of gender studies implicitly repositions the field from margin to centre, and thus the very foundation of the field is subject to challenge. As a political discourse, the feminist and gender studies agenda has always been a critique of the established canon; therefore, the question being raised is to what extent can the question of dissidence still be involved in the underlying discourse of the feminist scholars? Transdisciplinarity seems again to be the solution, as it

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proposes a cross-disciplinary methodology, and in that regards boundaries as social artefacts. Last but not least, the contesting of the establishment and patriarchy based on the epistemological “us”—the women—versus “them”—the men—has been under scrutiny over the past decades; in other words, epistemological essentialism has been abandoned in favour of an approach more sensitive to the idea of differences and inequalities between women. Furthermore, the essentialist feminist binary oppositions have been brought into question. Any critique of the hegemonic power must be constantly revisited and reformulated. In this respect, transdisciplinarity is a method of investigation that provokes transparency of conditions. In view of the above, in the present paper my aim is to examine how mid-nineteenth-century Romanian novels reflect the heteronormative vision of the time. The novels are perfect examples of the coercive system represented by tradition, revealing how the rhetoric of the feminine is bound to the idea of violence. I will explore the fact that feminine identity construction in these novels falls under either the Foucauldian bodily discipline (the Marianic imagology involving frailty, prudishness, and virtue—all traits expressing an ideology of social dependence and bodily determination), or becomes a phenomenon of acculturation. As long as each text—in the Barthesian sense—is a reflection of the normative system, those who will not accept it will be bound to feel rejected. However, at odds with mainstream feminist theory, my focus will be precisely on a paradoxical consequence of the phenomenon of acculturation, as it also speaks about a new, emancipating, somewhat subversive modern feminine identity construction in the context of mid-nineteenth-century Romanian society, influenced by imported French modernity. The investigated texts become, in this respect, exploratory spaces that reveal possible personas of gender identity. In his Discipline and Punish. The Birth of Prison (1977), Michel Foucault sheds light on a detailed history of the changes occurring in the modern world. An entire set of operations called “discipline” by Foucault is applied by the system with the purpose of producing “normal” individuals and deviant ones. “Thus, discipline produces docile, submissive, bodies” (138), and the stereotypes regarding the body are the same as the ones regarding the persona—and its gender, we may add. The Romanian society in the mid-nineteenth-century period can fall under this cultural analysis up to a point—at first glance, the Romanian sentimental novels called into scrutiny offer a perfect example of the coercive system represented by Foucault (the patriarchal society proposed a rhetoric of binary opposition between masculine and the feminine, between the public and the private). However, although an acculturation phenomenon at the

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onset, modernity triggers the blurring of corporeal identity: bodies are not simple recipients of influences and cultural determination; on the contrary, non-conformity, both masculine and feminine, leads to redefining a new way of life and, mutatis-mutandis, of the gender roles in society at large. Starting from the above premises, it can be said that the novels portray a neutral corporeality (gestures, clothing), which should not stand out in any way. Weakness and frailty are the characteristics of feminine stereotyping in the age in question, and discourses of all types attempt to reinforce this stereotype through different means, from school books and proper conduct guidebooks to literature. Identifying the woman with a flower might be considered flattering, but the other attributes of this comparison lead us to ideas of frailty, weakness, and inconsistency of character, intrinsically attached to the idea of femininity. For the period in discussion, the woman is the alterity: “the game of alterity leads to deforming, even reinventing the other.”2 They are encouraged to comply with the norms of feminine beauty: woman-like-a-flower, thin waist, pale complexion, hieratic figure, retained gestures, all creating the imagology of weakness, negating a strong and healthy corporeality. Girls are educated in the spirit of ingenuity and naive behaviour; the age of the body is also revealing—the elderly woman has to face a loss from a social point of view, whereas the man can even gain an increasing force with time, as in his case experience and maturity are valued, while women are reduced to their bodies. What is more, the woman who is attempting to seduce a younger man is condemned without appeal by the social customs, whereas the reversed situation becomes normative, proving the man’s vitality. We do not have to look far for an example of the these stereotypes: “The woman in my lexicon means a sweet, beautiful flower, made of harmony and rainbow-like colours, moody, mean at times, but mostly good, a human being made for love.”3 In other words, weakness, frailty, and sensitivity are the ingredients for intrinsic charm, without which femininity would be absent. The exaltation of the angelic model—expressed in literature through the motif of chastity—leads to a ritualised fading and decorporalisation of the feminine.4 We are exposed to the idea of a rational, closed, neat, limited body, which clearly marks the distinction between genders. This is a distinction that needs to be very well defined, otherwise it is rather threatening. The feminine body is meant to be subject to the gaze, subjected to time degradation, and vitality is regarded with scepticism, being associated with the ideas of virility and masculinity, and therefore dangerous to the feminine body: The young women, whether unmarried or freshly wedded, are subject to a permanent control from the guardians of public and private morality, to

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Cherchez la Femme: Stereotypes in Conflict the extent that simple gestures and innocent attitudes, such as the passion for walking, would trigger public critique.5

Another constant stereotype in the feminine imagery imported from French culture are the attributes of beauty and youth. In Bolintineanu’s works—as with all mid-nineteenth-century sentimental novel writers—beauty is the prevalent value. A romantic poet, the male protagonist of a novel, Manoil—a faintly Romanian version of Goethe’s Werther—is quite popular with the young mademoiselles. In his epistles to a friend, Manoil gives an account of his romantic perceptions involving a certain local beauty, Zoe: Never have I seen her so beautiful: her eyes burning like black diamonds, shadowed by the thick, silky eyelashes. Her rosy lips, slightly opened, revealed a string of little marble-like teeth. Her black shiny hair was tied back under a black veil.6

In Elena by the same author, the female protagonist’s image is also stereotypical. “A wonderful girl, from all perspectives. Youth, beauty, wits, good education, kindness, she had it all to the highest degree.”7 In the same manner, Paulina from Un boem roman [A Romanian bohemian] by Pantazi Ghica (1860)8 is young, beautiful, “modest as an angel,” wise and faithful, “a woman who is desired by many.” In Bujoreanu’s Mysteries of Bucharest (a novel adapted from the Mysteries of Paris by Eugene Sue), Maria has the same corporeal traits that make her an ideal woman: her waist—rather slim, … she was 17, had thick hair, a clean white forehead, black eyebrows, two big eyes, which expressed ever so much tenderness, sweetness and liveliness; … her mouth … small and cherry-like.9

Regarding the age of these beauties, they are seldom beyond 20 in order to fit the canon. By the age of 40, a woman would already be considered old. In Hotii úi Hagiul [The Thieves and the Mayor] by Al. Pelimon, the narrator describes a servant in the following terms: “an old woman around fifty something ….”10 These age criteria are explained by Ioana Pârvulescu in Alfabetul doamnelor [The Ladies Alphabet]: “the 19th century prefers child-like young ladies, and the female protagonists of love stories are Lolitas. Between the ages of 14 and 20 years old the young woman needs to get married; between 20 and 40 she becomes a wife and a mother, and turning 40 she is a venerable grandmother, in striking comparison with the male situation who in his 30s is still an eligible bachelor,”11 and barely starting his life. On the other hand, in marked contrast with the submissiveness of the

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beautiful, fragile, flower-like Lolitas, the novels in discussion reveal a contrastive feminine typology, whereby a new, emancipated corporeality occurs, even if it partially overlaps the traditional cliché: In Bucharest our women can convert, draw, sing, dance and play at least the piano or the guitar; besides, the virtues of the heart, they add up the charm of their wits; you can find them glowing in salons.12

Not randomly for a free spirit as Manoil, 25-year-old Smarandita (the wife of the estate owner) is the personification of perfection, not only because her physical and moral traits meet the criteria: “a kind of beauty that does not stand out … she resembles a flower which bows melancholically in the morning of her life! … a soul full of kindness,” but also because the woman has: a superior intelligence, a great deal of knowledge, especially for a woman of our time and our country! … I am not a great connoisseur of women, but Smarandita seems to me the woman I’ve been dreaming of.

This feminine emancipation is a reality also described by the documents of the age, including travelogues of foreign travellers on Romanian territory. Consequently, under the impulse of imagological transfer we may witness the perspective of a forma mentis with regard to women definitely in a metamorphosis process. The feminine elite was elegant in society to a higher degree. In effect, one should bear in mind that women were the first to adopt the Western fashion (coming from Vienna and Paris) together with the new standards of beauty and coquetry: wigs, gloves, feathers, haircuts, umbrellas, even pets. Consequently, another recurrent feminine typology in the novels is the fashionable woman. As early as 1853, Al. Pelimon describes in his The Thieves and the Mayor a society in which fashion has become paramount: “Everyone enters the ball room wearing glazed gloves, and the ladies with silk shoes from Paris … How could the Mayor not comply with this?”13 Being trendy, in all respects, increases the chances of getting married, which was every woman’s ultimate goal—as was having multiple affairs after getting married, for that matter. Mrs Gogman from Bujoreanu’s Mysteries is, “a fashionable woman, always courted, never short of lovers, whom she changed like gloves.”14 The criterion of being fashionable is linked to the same corporeal identity (physical beauty, youth, conformity with the fashion norms), and the woman is objectified as a masculine trophy who needs to be displayed for public gaze. Gogor Terez from Don Juanii de Bucuresti [The Don Juans of Bucharest] by Radu Ionescu is mad-

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ly in love with “an angel for whom everyone would fall onto their knees, as she is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”15 As can be inferred from the examples above, in this genuine obsession for the feminine beauty and looks there is a worrying subliminal message—the woman needs to be the object of desire in order to feel worthy.16 She becomes subject to gaze through this game of mirroring the self reflected in others, thus redefining not only the masculine-feminine relationship, but also the relationship that women develop with themselves. La gura sobei [By the Stove] is the novel that better illustrates the way women learned to manipulate the rhetoric of seduction. One of the protagonists is the prototype of the coquette who reveals that secret weapon of seduction—making men think that for the right man she would abandon flirting with others. This discourse reveals the fact that the feminine character is entirely aware of the power of seduction she is displaying, this being a socially accepted game meant to project women to the forefront of society. However, the protagonist reveals the reason why she is behaving in this way: “Why does anyone become a coquette? The desire to be liked by others?”17 Misterele căsătoriei [The Mysteries of Marriage] reveals even more clearly how intricate the women’s relationship with their own corporeality has become in the period of transition from tradition to modernity. In a conversation with her lover justifying her adultery, another feminine character explains: “My body for the man who flatters my vanities; my heart for the lover who brings me the poetry of senses.”18 Being fashionable brings about a new behavioural pattern. The attractive woman has a certain je ne sais quoi that can be seen in the following fragment from By the Stove: “I will show you my mistress, Alexander, you’ll see how interesting she is! She is as beautiful as an angel and has the wits of the devil … With such kind of women you should not mess up.”19 In other words, women like these, who use their bodies as seduction weapons, do not comply with the idea of weakness, obedience, frailty. Thus, we may witness a sudden confrontation of two stereotypes of femininity at work: woman-as-a-flower versus the fashionable woman. The patriarchal discourse from the examined novels proceeds to solve the conflict of the overlapping of the two conflicting stereotypes. It associates the power of seduction with irrationality, with the infernal, the woman’s attempt to emancipate being bound to the idea of violence. In the following fragment, the woman confirms her seducing force without the compromising touch: As tall as Elena, but blond, fair cheeks, quick to blush,, but not of shame, … her eyes promising all the voluptuousness of material love, were somewhat cruel in their gaze … she had a devilish je ne sais quoi which, if one was

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careless, was irresistible. Her look often had the magnetic power of the snake attracting the innocent bird.20

Obviously, the new typology of the fashionable—better yet, emancipated—woman causes profound and irreversible masculine anxieties, as once Pandora’s Box has opened, the man is doomed to an uncertain future and sexuality. Therefore, the desire to be liked by the feminine protagonists in the mid-nineteenth-century sentimental novels is the effect of the new, modern paradigm of modernity, which brings forth the authority of the image, the gaze, subjecting the woman—and man, for that matter—to a position of constant visibility and self-scrutiny. Moreover, this situatedness of constant surveillance brings about an internalisation of the new voyeuristic culture brought about by imported modernity. The massive presence of the sentimental novel in the Romanian translations has indicated a certain predisposition of the public towards this literary genre, in view of the fact that a translation will always represent an act of mediation between two cultures, a filtration of cultural elements from the source culture in the process of absorbing these in the target culture. From this perspective, the translator and even the reader themselves become meta-readers in the target culture because their reading becomes an act of mediation.

Notes 1

Basarab Nicolescu, Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity (New York: State University of New York Press, 2002), translated from French by Karen-Claire Voss, 12. 2 L. Boia, op. cit, 21. 3 Mihail Kogălniceanu, “Iluzii pierdute, un întâi amor,” in Opere I, ed. cit., 52. 4 Vezi: Le Breton, David, op. cit., cu privire la problema corporalităĠii. 5 Al. Ciupală, op. cit. 24. 6 D. Bolintineanu, “Manoil”, in Opere V, ed. cit., 69. 7 Idem, “Elena,” în: Opere V, ed. cit., 117. 8 Pantazi Ghica, Un boem român, Bucureúti, Tipografia Jurnalului NaĠional, 1860. 9 Ibid., 124. 10 Al. Pelimon, HoĠii úi Hagiul. Roman istoric (Bucureúti, Tip. Sfintei Mitropolii, 1853), reprodus fragmentar în: Pionierii romanului românesc, ed.cit. 63. 11 Cf. Al. Pelimon, HoĠii úi Hagiul, and ed. cit. 63. 12 —, La gura sobei, Ed .cit. 02. 13 Al. Pelimon, HoĠii úi Hagiul. Roman istoric, ed. cit. 61. 14 I. M. Bujoreanu, Mistere din Bucureúti, ed. cit. 108. 15 Radu Ionescu, “Don Juanii de Bucureúti,” in Scrieri alese, ed. îngrijită, prefaĠa, note úi bibliografie de D. BălăeĠ (Bucureúti: Editura Minerva, 1974), 342. 16 Vezi Cranny- Francis, Anne, op. cit.

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Ibid., 174. C. D. Aricescu, op.cit., 264. 19 Ibid., 170. 20 —, Catastihul amorului. La gura sobei, ed. cit., 176. 18

THE CULTURAL ADAPTATION PROCESS IN TIMOTHY MO’S SOUR SWEET DERYA BøDELCø

Abstract: This paper focuses on Timothy Mo’s novel Sour Sweet, a testimonial narrative on the experiences that Hong Kong Chinese immigrants face in multicultural London as they struggle to overcome culture shock and adapt to life in their new country. The paper makes reference to Winkelman’s four stages of culture adaptation: the honeymoon phase, the crisis or culture-shock phase, the adjustment phase, and the acceptance and adaptation phase. The focus is on three main characters: Chen, Mui, and Lily, and on the challenges each character encounters in the new cultural environment, the way they cope with changes, and their different reactions towards the adopted British culture. The characters struggle with the need for an equilibrium between two conflicting cultures in the attempt to negotiate differences in a multicultural society. Key words: multiculturalism, immigrants, culture shock, culture adaptation, adjustment.

Sour Sweet by Timothy Mo portrays the life of Chinese immigrants in Britain and their cross-cultural adaptation process to an English culture that is completely different from their own. The Chen family emigrates from Hong Kong to make a home for themselves in 1960s’ London. Mo presents Chinese characters that experience alienation and isolation in multicultural Britain. They are stuck between two opposing cultures, and this situation prevents them from being part of either, particularly of the host culture. As a result, they experience identity problems. Each Chinese immigrant character responds differently to the host culture as they pass through Michael Winkelman’s four stages of the cross-cultural adaptation process in multicultural English society. The first phase of the cross-cultural adaptation process is the honeymoon or tourist phase that, “is characterized by interest, excitement … positive expectations and idealizations about the new culture” (Winkelman. 122). Chinese characters emigrate from Hong Kong due to failing

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economic situations to England, “the land of promise” (Mo, 5). They idealise this new land and expect to have a better life. The second phase that they are subjected to is cultural shock. According to Winkelman, this phase is a natural immigrant experience. “Cultural (or culture) shock is a multifaceted experience resulting from numerous stressors occurring in contact with a different culture. Cultural shock occurs for immigrant groups … undergoing massive technological and social change” (Winkelman, 121). Chen, Lily, and Miu experience the possible outlets of crisis phase explained by Winkelman. Winkelman enumerates the variations, typical features, and symptoms of the crisis phase: The crises phase may emerge immediately upon arrival or be delayed … It may start with a full-blown crisis or as a series of escalating problems, negative experiences, and reactions. Cultural shock may start immediately for some individuals … Although individual reactions vary, there are typical features of cultural crises. Things start to go wrong, minor issues become major problems, and cultural differences become irritating … One experiences increasing disappointments, frustrations, impatience and tension. Life does not make any sense and one may feel helpless, confused, disliked by others, or treated like a child. A sense of lack of control of one’s life may lead to depression, isolation, anger, or hostility. (123)

The Chen family experiences a delayed cultural shock. “The Chens had been living in the UK for four years, which was long enough to have lost their place in the society from which they had emigrated but not long enough to feel comfortable in the new” (5). They are between two cultures—they are foreigners in London, and at the same time have lost their place in Hong Kong. “It has been seen as a loss of one’s culture, a marker of moving from one culture to another, and as a re-socialisation in another culture” (Furnham, 87). Although it is in their fourth year in London, Chen feels himself an interloper. But in the UK, land of promise, Chen was still an interloper. He regarded himself as such … That English people had competed for the flat which he now occupied made Chen feel more rather than less of a foreigner; it made him feel like a gatecrasher who had stayed too long and had been identified. He had no tangible reason to feel like this. No one had yet assaulted, insulted, so much as looked twice at him. But Chen knew, felt in his bones, could sense it between his shoulder-blades as he walked past emptying public houses on his day off. (5)

Chen, father of the family, works as a waiter in a Chinese restaurant for long hours in the Soho area until the family open their own take-out restaurant. They live in a good flat that even English people want, but Chen

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does not feel himself comfortable in English society or a part of it. He feels inferior when the English people stare at him while he is walking on the street or waiting for the bus, reminding him, as it does, that he is a foreigner: “There was a reassuring anonymity about his foreign-ness. Chen understood: a lot of westerners looked the same to him too” (13). Both English and Chinese remain as foreigners to each other. So, Chen feels no need to know the English people. We see that Chen presents symptoms of culture shock, as he feels uneasy, tensioned, isolated, and disliked by the host culture, and his only contact with the English is through his job as a waiter. In the novel, Lily is the central character and the strongest physically and emotionally. She is the daughter of a famous Buddhist temple boxer, wife of Chen, and mother of Man Kee. As a consequence of the Commonwealth Immigration Act of 1962, Chen had visited his native village to find a Chinese wife to take back to Britain. After their marriage, Lily relocates to London with Chen, and she experiences the crisis phase in her new environment. Lily presents some symptoms of culture shock, the first being isolation and reliance on her Chinese culture. During her experience of culture shock, she isolates herself from the outside world within the home. She is a traditional and dutiful Chinese female who stays at home, takes care of the household, and brings up her son. After the birth of their baby, Lily’s elder sister Mui emigrates from Hong Kong to London to live with Lily and Chen. Mui becomes subject to violent cultural shock upon her arrival in London. During her first week, she does not want to leave the flat and spends her time sitting in the kitchen. She turns her back to the window and the courtyard below to keep herself away from the English and their culture. She feels herself safe within the flat. She isolates herself from the host culture: “Only with difficulty would Lily persuade her to come to the sitting-room, when she deposited Mui on the sibilant black sofa and tried to draw her out. It wasn’t easy to find out what was wrong with Mui. Mui herself didn’t seem to know. She had worked for a foreigner before, perhaps it was the concentration of them here she found so disturbing” (13). When Lily draws her to look outside through the window, everything seems frightening and threatening to Mui in her new environment. “From this point of vantage Mui clutched the curtains and peered around the edge in a fair approximation of the evasive behaviour of one threatened by a maniac sniper on the rooftops” (13). Eventually, Mui discovers the television in the sitting room. During her culture shock phase, she does nothing but watch television all the time here. “The possible outlets for the immigrant experiencing the frustrations of

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the crises phase are being critical of the new culture, postponing the plans of learning the language of the new society and a constant tendency to return ‘home’” (Winkelman, 123). The Chens do not intend to improve their English beyond what is needed by a waiter; they can speak a few words that are commonly used while taking and delivering orders. Furnham writes about the language barrier in the context of students, and that inability to speak the host language inevitably isolates the student, making them excessively dependent on compatriots (90). In this respect, Chen relies on his compatriots, though Mui can function as a cultural bridge between the Chens and English people due to her grasp of English and her familiarity with them. The Chinese characters try to create a life for themselves in an alien culture. They reject whatever belongs to the host culture, keeping a distance from the English. Because of the cultural difference, they feel resentment towards the host culture and they criticise the English, their lifestyles, and values through an examination of their English customers. Chen remarks on the, “strange and widespread habit of not paying bills, a practice so prevalent as to arouse suspicions it was a national sport” (34). However, Lily is the one who becomes much more critical to the host culture than Chen or Mui. She talks about their immoral behaviour and shows her feeling of rejection. She is frightened of their rowdy behaviours and calls them “pink skins” or “foreign devils” (143), but she is not hostile to them, merely critical of their behaviour, which is inexplicable to a Chinese person. “She and the customers ignored each other; they could not even look one another in the eye. Each regarded the other as a non-person. There was no hostility involved, how could there be when the transaction was totally impersonal. They might have been machines” (142). She compares the Chinese people and the English people, and believes that Chinese people are superior to the foreign devils. She finds reason to criticise them: “what possible sense of decency and family honour could those reckless girls have!”(143) Through TV, Mui moves into the host culture’s world and gets information about it. At first, she reflects her criticism of the host culture through the TV. Her first impressions are unfavourable, and she disapproves of the English. She places them in stereotypical categories through the characters she watches in soap operas: “She gave the characters names of her own devising; Boy, Hair-net, Drinker, Cripple, Crafty, Bad Girl. The composite picture she was able to glean of the British population was an alarming one” (14). On the other hand, Chinese people are “small people only” (88) to the English. In this context, Stanescu remarks: “[I]t reflects our tendency to regard members of an alien culture as an indiscrimi-

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nate and amorphous mass. It is undeniably the way in which the colonizers see the colonized and vice-versa … that is their only emotional bond.” Another possible outlet of culture shock is their dream to return to their homeland when they have saved enough money. Chen keeps a distance from the host society and its culture, rejecting the norms and lifestyles in England. “Prejudices instilled since childhood died hard in Chen” (33). He feels himself homeless and experiences displacement. “Chen felt at home yet not at home. He had been more comfortable rootless” (141). Chen hopes that one day he will go back his homeland, Hong Kong. When the family go to the beach, Chen lifts his son, Man Kee, to the eyepiece of a telescope and says: “Do you see the ship, Son? It is a special little ship for people like us, Son. It is very little and very old but that is only what strangers see. We know better, don’t we, Son, because it is the ship that will take us all back home when we are finished here. It will take you to your homeland, Son, which you have never seen” (162). Chen is obsessed with going home; he imagines that he will return to his home, according to Avtar Brah a mythic place of desire in the diasporic imagination (192). Chen thinks that he will remain in London temporarily to make money to start a better life in Hong Kong. Chinese immigrants try to preserve their cultural heritage. They do not want to lose their identities, and they want to feel as if they are in their own country, so they form a ghetto and live together in a space closed to the English. The Chens and Mui live among the Chinese community in England but remain ethnocentric. They believe that they can survive in this alien land if they cling to Chinese traditions and maintain cultural authenticity, refusing to either interact with English people closely or accept change around themselves. “Alternatively, the individual may be strong enough to stay until the financial goal is fulfilled, but at the same time he/she develops maintenance and reparative behaviours designed to help re-establish one’s familiar habitual cultural patterns of behaviour to provide insulation from the foreign culture” (Winkelman, 122). The characters maintain their habitual cultural Chinese behaviour. Mui isolates herself from the outside world by confining herself to the kitchen and household. Mui has been brought up as a traditional Chinese girl so she deals with the domestic work within the house. When she is ill, Mui refuses to go to the English doctor and prefers to get Chinese medicine. Lily, for her part, clings to the Chinese traditional female role. She tries to be a good wife, mother, sister and daughter-inlaw. Sending the remittances to Chen’s family regularly becomes her duty. She worships the elderly and she honours the grandpa by welcoming him at the airport and taking care of him respectfully. Her idealisation of her

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husband, as representing patriarchal authority, is reflected in the frequently capitalised “Husband.” Lily’s daily routine represents the lives of Chinese women living in an alien culture. As an immigrant in London, Chen clings to his own familiar habitual cultural patterns of behaviour. He prefers Chinese customers, food, cinema, and community. He reads outdated Hong Kong newspapers. This prevents Chen and the other Chinese people developing a positive view and communication with the host society. They are, “limiting their social life to their own ethno-cultural milieu and entailing a perpetuation of unilateral encapsulation” (Stanescu). He is interested in carpentry and gardening as, “an expression of his peasant roots” (in Stanescu). These create an imaginative connection to his homeland and roots. It must be noted here that these leisure activities imply a resistance to the effects of the host culture. During the Chinese Lunar New Year, Chen rejects any change in traditional Chinese food. He says, “[s]tick to what has been tried and don’t adapt new ways just for the sake of them” (129). He tries to maintain his Chinese way of life. “Obstinate, even obsessive preservation of cultural purity becomes not only an expression of the contempt for the new culture and of a sense of superiority, but also a main manifestation of the individual’s claim to control of one’s life, a self-asserting strategy and a smoke screen emanated by one’s defence mechanisms” (Stanescu). Actually, Chen does not really keep his traditional Chinese cultural identity alive. Though he believes that remitting money to his family is an obligation for a son, he is not really a respectful and dutiful Chinese son. He loses his authority in his own immediate family, his power shifting to his wife and Mui. Lily, “was using Chen. There was a subtle change. Her services had not changed nor deteriorated. But their point had altered. Unknown to Chen whole new outlooks were developing behind his back, potentially disruptive of family harmony and his hitherto unchallenged position as a leader of that unit” (45). No longer a traditional Chinese husband, his wife saves money to start their own business, drives their car, and teaches his son fighting. He accepts Mui’s illegitimate baby into his home. He is not able to maintain his traditional Chinese cultural identity. His change is not a positive change for adaptation and a new identity, so he is removed from the story by Mo. The third phase of the cross-cultural adaptation process is the adjustment phase. After experiencing culture shock, the characters develop adjustment strategies, as Winkelman explains: “There may be an adjustment without adaptation, such as flight or isolation … living in an ethnic enclave and learning about the new culture is an atypical lifetime reaction of many first-generation immigrants” (122). However, Chen is not able to

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move out of the crisis phase to the adjustment phase of the cross-cultural adaptation process. He remains homeless and rootless in alien soil. “He has not yet succeeded in reconstructing a new meaning of home” (Stanescu), and a new identity. He does not want to accept the change around him, refusing to accept that his son’s life will be different from first-generation immigrants. He wants to deliver traditional values such as gardening to him, but he cannot help him in his transplantation into new soil since he himself keeps a distance from English society. Mui and Lily, on the other hand, begin to adjust themselves to the English culture to make their lives in England meaningful. They want to be a part of it: If one desires to function effectively, however, then it is necessary to adjust and adapt. One develops problem-solving skills for dealing with the culture and begins to accept the culture’s ways with a positive attitude. The culture begins to make sense and negative reactions and responses to the culture are reduced as one recognizes that problems are due to the inability to understand, accept, and adapt. An appreciation of the other culture begins to emerge and learning about it becomes a fun challenge (Winkelman, 122).

Mui rejects the host culture, like the Chens, but her rejection is not as strong as theirs. She experiences her culture shock in a traumatic way for a short time, but becomes much more interested in British culture, overcoming her passivity and aiming to interact with the outside world. She is willing to move into the host society, and she begins to overcome her alienation and discover the world outside of the flat. Television helps her in this process, and she thinks that real life is similar to soap operas. She creates an idealised imagination of English culture in her mind, believing, for instance, that the English police force is, “the finest in the world” (159), while Lily bribes the police. Lily reminds her that, “life is not a TV programme” (159), and, in real life, English policemen can be bribed. Mui is not able to cultivate her Chinese heritage along with English culture. Her TV addiction influences her new personality in her new home in such a negative way that she idealises English culture. Unlike Lily, she cannot create a balance between her understanding of her Chinese heritage and the new values of British culture. Mui accepts British culture without question. For example, she tries to convince Lily not to teach Man Kee Chinese self-defence—“No Good will come of this” (241)—and she prefers the British school system. She has an illegitimate child whose father is non-Chinese, and she leaves her baby in the care of Mrs Law. She wants to run a fish and chip restaurant, not a Chinese restaurant. Britain is now her home, she asserts: “I am taking out citizenship now. Naturalisation. This is

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my home now” (284). She interacts with English people and assimilates English culture, but is unable to develop a multicultural identity. The fourth phase is the adaptation, resolution, and acculturation, and, “is achieved as one develops stable adaptations in being successful at resolving problems and managing the new culture” (Winkelman, 122). An immigrant’s adjustment involves a positive attitude. “Reaching this stage requires a constructive response to cultural shock with effective means of adaptation” (Ibid.). Lily is the only one among the three to come out of the crisis phase smoothly due to her strong personality. Her attitude towards the English people and their culture is changed and she develops a positive attitude towards them: “to acknowledge the benefits of living in a different culture and have a positive attitude about the culture and learning experiences rather than complain or make comparisons with life at home” (Winkelman, 124). Thus, she begins to call the English, “foreign devil friends” (256). An immigrant must learn how to reconcile her cultural heritage and host culture to become a part of the host society. “She thought she had found a balance of things for the first time, yin cancelling yang; discovered it not by going to the centre at once—which was a prude's way and untypical of her—but by veering to the extremes and then finding the still point of equilibrium” (286). Lily’s knowledge of the yin and yang philosophy of the Chinese culture and her flexibility helps her to move into the adaptation phase. This philosophy includes balance and flexibility between opposite powers, as is reflected in the title Sour Sweet. For example, she prepares English food for grandpa’s guests. In addition, since Chinese New Year is not celebrated as a public holiday in England and Man Kee goes to school during Lunar New Year, Mui suggests a little celebration of their own. Lily approves and adapts Chinese food to the host culture. “If one desire to function effectively … it is necessary to adjust and adapt. One develops problem-solving skills for dealing with the culture and begins to accept the ways of culture in a positive way” (Winkelman, 122). In the end, Lily completes a cross-cultural adaptation process, and transplants herself into alien soil. This will affect Man Kee’s future in England. She will help him by passing her knowledge of flexibility and adaptation on to him. He will not be inflexible like his father, but will have a place, root, and home in England.

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Works Cited Brah, Avtar. Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities. London: Routledge, 1997. Furnham, Adrian. “Culture Shock: Literature Review, Personal Statement and Relevance for the South Pacific.” Journal of Pacific Rim Psychology 4 (2) (2013): 87–94. Mo, Timothy. Sour Sweet. Peddleless, 1999. Oberg, Kalervo. “Cultural Shock: Adjustment to New Cultural Environments.” Practical Anthropology 7 (2013): 177–82. Stanescu, Angela. “Sour Sweet Conquests of Exile-Displacement and Cultural Identity in Timothy Mo’s Sour Sweet.” http://www.uab.ro/reviste_recunoscute/philologica/philologica_2003_t om3/40.doc. Winkelman, Michael. “Cultural Shock and Adaptation.” Journal of Counseling & Development 73 (November/December) (1994).

ORIENTAL ELEMENTS IN LORD BYRON’S DON JUAN CANTO V: THE HAREM EPISODE EDA KEVSER ùAHøN ERCIYES UNIVERSITY

Abstract: In Don Juan, Byron tells the story of a journey to the exotic East, and describes his surroundings and makes comments through the eyes of an Occidental character, Don Juan. Being the “other” of the Orient, Juan explores the Ottoman lifestyle as the expression of the entire Eastern and Islamic societies. This paper aims to examine how Canto V of Byron’s Don Juan embodies the image of mysteries in the East and how Byron describes the Oriental women from a Eurocentric point of view. The main character, Juan, young and very attractive, is disguised as a woman to enter into the harem and meet with the Sultan’s wife Gülbeyaz, who is tempted by Juan’s physical charm and deceives her husband. Byron interprets the palace and harem as the centre of the lust and other carnal desires of the Sultan and the upper class. Through devaluating their positions, he comes to a more generalised conclusion that previous Orientalists also made—no matter who holds the power, East can only serve West. Key words: Don Juan, Romantic Orientalism, Ottoman, Byron, harem, women

From 1809 onwards Lord Byron spent most of his time travelling through Europe and Asia for inspiration, experiences, sources, and material for his poetry. His oriental poetry with a Byronic hero as the protagonist brought him success and fame. The Giaour (1813), The Bride of Abydos (1813), The Corsair (1813), Lara (1814), and The Siege of Corinth (1816) are some of his works set in the Orient, yet Don Juan is commonly evaluated as his most famous work with an Eastern flavour. Byron as an Orientalist describes the East as a region full of mysteries and luxuries with certain tyrants and interesting characters. In the Orient, he sees that women are not free, but when they are given the chance to break the chains of the social norms they do, and take risks to feed their

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desires. The general Orientalist theme is very similar to that of much of his contemporaries and predecessors. Byron evaluates the Orient from the perspective of “the other” and fantasises the harem as an Occidental “self.” English interest in the Middle East was at a peak when Byron’s Orientthemed works were written. As the Ottoman Empire was the superpower of the time, many Europeans, like Byron himself, portrayed an image of the Orient through the Ottoman example, and created certain stereotypes from the traditions and lifestyles of Turkish people. This approach was criticised by many Muslims. “Byron’s approach to Islam is mainly from the angle of Ottoman society as if there were no other kinds in Islam and he was wrong in describing the female soul, tyrannical Islamic leaders and the harem concept” (Cochran, 11). Even though Marandi does not find Byron’s Orientalism useful or appropriate, Cochran expresses the opposite: “Byron’s Orientalism is often praised, and used as a contrast with that of other ‘romantic’ writers, because it was based on experience” (Ibid., 3). As Byron travelled to Eastern countries to explore and seek inspiration, he himself came across Oriental characters and observed them closely. Besides that, Byron read books like Aristo’s Orlando Furioso, which employs many Muslim protagonists, and Tasso’s remarks on the Orient. Further, through the work of Sir William Jones, Byron became familiar with poets like Sa’di and Hafiz, and George Sale’s Preliminary Discourse connected him to the Quran (Nicholson, 1). He was impressed and employed Oriental elements to make his writing more multi-dimensional and detailed. Meyer asserts: In once again definitively rewriting the imperial sentence of Romantic Orientalism, Byron reverses the direction of that narrative to recoup his ideological losses, thus inadvertently revealing the hegemonic motives that were encoded in the earlier text and re-encoding them as differential figures in a more developed ideological matrix. Yet as "traces of the gaze of the colonized upon the colonizer," these elements allow the reader to track the imperial narrative through its diverse permutations in the ideology of dominance and reveal the concealed motives that underwrite its inscription in literary texts (685).

His narrative and Orientalism contribute to the development of the idea of “other,” as he elaborately examines the idea and develops it to make it more interesting for the European audience. Edward Said remarks on Orientalism that it is, “a kind of Western projection onto and will to govern over the Orient,” in which “the Oriental is contained and represented by dominating frameworks” (95). Rather than taking the Orient as it is, the Occident imposes and reshapes the contradicting values of the East by any means possible. If the West cannot in-

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vade or oppress the East then it changes its image in the eyes of Westerners through depicting it the way they want to see it, and by portraying the East without grounding it in the truth. In Byron’s Don Juan, it is obvious that Byron has had some previous knowledge of the East, but as he describes the harem of the Sultan by penetrating into it, his own interpretation is different from the reality. Byron’s choosing of a Turkish state to convey his ideas of the East has a historical background. European Orientalists mostly considered the Ottomans as the representatives of the East, with their supremacy over other nations and undeniably powerful position in the region. Taking the reality as the basis of his fiction, Byron’s approach towards Turks is not surprising. In Canto V, the protagonist is brought to a slave market in Constantinople and sold to Baba, the eunuch of the Imperial Harem. As he walks into the palace, he feels that he has been on a journey through the art of the East and its ornaments: There seem'd to be besprent a deal of gilding And various hues, as is the Turkish wont, — A gaudy taste; for they are little skill'd in The arts of which these lands were once the font. (217)

Focusing on the outer decoration, he makes generalisations on Turkish concepts of art, thus undervaluing the palace and its surroundings, which are the places of the highest forms of power and authority. As he walks though the palace, he passes a hall full of people: Along this hall, and up and down, some, squatted Upon their hams, were occupied at chess; Others in monosyllable talk chatted, And some seem'd much in love with their own dress. And divers smoked superb pipes decorated With amber mouths of greater price or less; And several strutted, others slept, and some Prepared for supper with a glass of rum. (219)

Here again, Juan’s image of the Orient is reflected through this hall. People play and rest without a care in the world, and they seem to be contented with their positions. This is an image of the Orient common to many of Byron’s contemporaries. Juan is asked to change his clothes and disguise himself as a woman. At first he reacts against this order, but later accepts as Baba mentions the privileges he is going to get. Juan’s feminisation is a condition, as Meyer remarks:

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of his infiltration of the feminine space of the harem, and provides Byron with a motive for penetrating the veil of the Oriental phantasm, thus allowing him to get inside the alien culture in order to colonize it from within, just as British administrators in India and Napoleonic officials in Egypt would develop a vast apparatus of Orientalist lore to enable them to penetrate the alien Eastern world and render it subject to the European will. (688)

As Juan is inside a place forbidden even to Oriental males, he unveils the secrets and mysteries of the East that attract the Occident. Penetrating the harem can be interpreted as a representation of the West having superiority over the East, as women are regarded as possessions. Juan’s entrance is the switching of power between the Sultan (the Orient) and Juan himself (the Occidental). As Cochran points out: The Orient, is an object, an Other, which you, the subject, wish to “possess” and “penetrate.” This crude sexual formula may be applied to any narrative in which an occidental male possesses and penetrates an oriental female, and enables the narrative to be used as a metaphor for Western imperialist expansion into and forcible domination of eastern countries. (Cochran, 2)

When Juan is asked to undergo circumcision, he immediately opposes the idea by saying: “Strike me dead, but they as soon shall circumcise my head!” (223). His reaction is his subconscious fear of losing power and dominance and becoming more similar to the inferior East by submitting to their traditions. The colonialist Occidental can only be submissive to the practices of the East when it is sure it will benefit from them. The Palace is seen to be a place of joy and comfort, as Baba says: “Why‘t is a palace; where the truly wise, / Anticipate the Prophet’s paradise” (226). Even though the Ottoman Palace is not an epitome of the whole Islamic world and culture, the Prophet is described as if he too was a man of carnal desires and joys. Again, the Occident makes the Orient enigmatic through its own fantasies. When Juan meets Gülbeyaz, the fourth wife of the Sultan, he is ordered by Baba to kiss her foot, but Juan rejects this, saying he would kiss none but the Pope’s foot. Eventually, Juan kisses the hand of Gülbeyaz, and she proceeds to flirt with him. This idea of Oriental women being attracted to Occidental men is a very common motif, where inferiority is coupled with the weakness and emotional sensitivity of women. Cochran remarks: “Byron’s oriental women appear more libidinous than his occidental ones, they could almost claim divine sanction for it. Donna Julia (part Moorish), Haidee (half Moorish), and Gülbeyaz (entirely Turkish) wouldn’t have

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merely their genes to blame” (15). Byron’s attitude is, “fixated on the topos of the Oriental harem and on the figure of the veiled Eastern girl who stands as a synecdoche for the colonial other” (Meyer, 659). Juan’s interaction with Gülbeyaz is another example of Byron’s female and harem concept; he rejects Gülbeyaz without thinking of her position or womanhood, rather disdaining her for what she wants and practices: This was an awkward test, as Juan found, But he was steel'd by sorrow, wrath, and pride: With gentle force her white arms he unwound, And seated her all drooping by his side, Then rising haughtily he glanced around, And looking coldly in her face, he cried, "The prison'd eagle will not pair, nor I Serve a Sultana's sensual phantasy.” (237)

Describing himself as the eagle, Juan again emphasises his superiority and power compared to Gülbeyaz’s weakness and inferiority, no matter that she is no less than the wife of the most powerful man in the world. When the West is willing then the East has to obey—if the West is not willing, then the same applies. As Juan leaves the court, he makes his last remarks on Turkish (Oriental) culture by referring to the strict rules that forbid woman from practicing what they want: The Turks do well to shut— at least, sometimes— The women up, because, in sad reality, Their chastity in these unhappy climes Is not a thing of that astringent quality Which in the North prevents precocious crimes, And makes our snow less pure than our morality; The sun, which yearly melts the polar ice, Has quite the contrary effect on vice. (245)

Playing with the word “chastity” after showing the immorality of Gülbeyaz’s approaches to him, Juan concludes that oriental women are not as virtuous as Occidental women, and Turks do well to lock them up if they do not want their names to be stained. Again stressing the superiority of the West, the East is considered to be less civilized. Byron, through his image of the Orient, shapes a harem from his own point of view and makes the conclusion that the Western fantasies and mysteries about the veiled women in the East are true, and that the cages that these women are locked in are, in fact, a necessity.

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Byron, like his predecessors and contemporaries, involves himself in an Oriental approach to the East by including a harem episode in his Canto V of Don Juan. Don Juan sneaks into the Harem, rejects the Sultan’s wife, and thus proves his superiority to the Eastern, Oriental society. As possession of the woman is the reflection of power for the Occidental males, his rejection of the Sultan’s wife also has the same structure and importance, taking into account the position of Gülbeyaz as the Sultan’s fourth and most beautiful wife. Byron’s East, like that of many other Europeans, is mysterious and veiled. With Don Juan, however, he has the chance to solve the mysteries and unveil the hidden practices in the Ottoman Harem, only to present the same old misconceptions of other travellers to the Orient.

Works Cited Byron, Lord. Don Juan. Trans. Hail Kossel. østanbul: YKY, 1992. Kiwi, Abdu Raheem. Orientalism in Lord Byron’s “Turkish Tales.” Lamenter: Millen Press, 1995. Meyer, Eric. “I Know Thee not, I Loathe Thy Race: Romantic Orientalism in the Eye of the other.” ELH 58 (3) (Autumn, 1991): 657–99. Nicholson, Andrew (ed.). Lord Byron: The Complete Miscellaneous Prose. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991. Peter, Cochran (ed.). Byron and Orientalism. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2006. Sharafuddin, Mohamed. Islam and Romantic Orientalism: Literary Encounters with the Orient. New York: I.B. Tauris, 1994. Said, Edward. Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books, 1979. Watkins, Daniel P. Social Relations in Byron’s Eastern Tales. London: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1987. Wolfson, Susan J. “Their She Condition: Cross-Dressing and the Politics of Gender in Don Juan.” ELH 54 (1987): 585

A PORTRAIT OF A MORE HABITABLE ENGLAND IN HANIF KUREISHI’S BORDERLINE ùERMøN SEZER SINOP UNIVERSITY

Abstract: Hanif Kureishi, the son of an Indian father and an English mother, is, in his own words, British “born and bred.” His writing challenges the colonial legacy that attempts to stereotype the Asian migrant subject and proves that Kureishi is more than a postcolonial writer, because he depicts the position of the human subject in a postcolonial world rather than focusing only on the migrant subject. His biologically and culturally in-between status allows Kureishi to view a wide spectrum. This paper argues that Kureishi’s play Borderline challenges the myth of fixed national and, accordingly, individual identities. Identity, he affirms, is a performative act that surpasses the boundaries of various parameters such as race, gender, class, family relations, and sexuality. His stance prevents essentialising both the non-white and the white; in contrast, a wide range of different Asian characters are presented as a challenge to comic, passive, stereotypical Asian characters. The paper considers how Kureishi is situated in the fringe drama of the 1970s and the 1980s, and how his understanding of race, class, and ethnic relations functions in the tense atmosphere of Thatcherite Britain. Although Kureishi avoids direct didactic messages, his plays present the possibility of making England more habitable for both the white and the Asian by creating characters with a critical distance, which will enable the audience to develop an understanding of the others’ motives, thus leading to a social reconciliation at the end. Borderline portrays how different elements such as media, financial strength, and education play a role in shaping the perception of race, ethnicity, and culture in multicultural England. Key words: identity, nationality, hybridity, performativity, multiculturalism Kureishi’s writing fits into the conventions of fringe theatre of the 1970s and 1980s well because of its political aspects. He not only criticises the left, but also the right. When James Callaghan became the Prime Minister in 1975, the Labour Party’s engagement with power surpassed addressing

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the serious problems through which the country went. This disillusionment resulted in a rise in right-wing votes and Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister in 1979. Thatcher’s racist stance was known before she became the Prime Minister. In 1978, in the television program World in Action she expressed, “sympathy for those who feel ‘swamped’ by the flow of immigrants … And, you know, the British character has done so much for democracy, for law, and done so much throughout the world, that if there is a fear that it might be swamped, people are going to react and be rather hostile to those coming in” (in Barker 15). As Ranasinha puts it, Kureishi’s early plays are, “set in the late seventies in the context of high levels of inflation and unemployment that led to the hardening of the National Front movement which peaked in electoral terms in this era” (21). Ranasinha also points out how national identity and national belonging became troubling issues, especially with Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government. Kureishi, in “Rainbow Sign” (25–6), explains the miserable situation of Pakistanis in mid-1960s’ England: In the mid-1960s, Pakistanis were a risible subject in England, derided on television and exploited by politicians. They had the worst jobs, they were uncomfortable in England, some of them had difficulties with the language. They were despised and out of place. From the start I tried to deny my Pakistani self. I was ashamed. It was a curse and I wanted to be rid of it. I wanted to be like everyone else. I read with understanding a story in a newspaper about a black boy who, when he noticed that burnt skin turned white, jumped into a bath of boiling water.

Kureishi was surprised to have been discriminated against since he used to listen to Pink Floyd, the Beatles and the John Peel show like other English children. That’s why he did not think he was mixed race and a misfit. In his own words, “[he] could join the elements of [himself] together.” He surely knew that: “It was the others, they wanted misfits; they wanted you to embody within yourself their ambivalence” (28). Despite being exposed to racial discrimination, Kureishi does not generate hatred towards the coloniser, but attempts to portray the intercultural relationships in England more objectively. In fact, he is criticised for following the cultural agenda of the 1970s to create only positive black images (Thomas, 4). However, as Thomas comments: [H]e has also been praised by notable writers and commentators, including Stuart Hall, Salman Rushdie and Gayatri Spivak, for his complex representations of minority experience and for enabling solidarities between different groups. He has been hailed as the “herald of hybridity,” celebrating the “in between,” the commingling of cultures and peoples. (Ibid.)

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Thomas’s claim situates Hanif Kureishi in the context of postcolonial drama. Instead of merely presenting stereotypes, he shows the futility of stereotyping characters. Homi Bhabha (2) highlights Kureishi’s stance: The move away from the singularities of “class” or “gender,” as primary conceptual and organizational categories, has resulted in an awareness of the subject positions—of race, gender, generation, institutional location, geopolitical locale, sexual orientation—that inhabit any claim to identity in the modern world. What is theoretically innovative, and politically crucial, is the need to think beyond narratives of originary and initial subjectivities and to focus on those moments or processes that are produced in the articulation of cultural differences. These “in-between” spaces provide the terrain for elaborating strategies of selfhood—singular or communal— that initiate new signs of identity, and innovative sites of collaboration, and contestation, in the act of defining the idea of society. (2)

The emphasis on cultural differences enables Kureishi to present different ways of being and thus different ways of belonging to a place and space. Borderline displays a number of Asian characters, each of whom has a unique identity that shows a resistance to present the immigrants as stereotypes. It was first performed at the Royal Court on November 2, 1981. The play focuses on how an immigrant family—Amjad, Banoo, and their daughter Amina—adapts to life in Britain in different ways. These characters display different ways of making England more habitable by creating their own spaces with different strategies. This variety counters the tendency to stereotype the Asian image. The dissimilarity of their perceptions of life in England, and their desire to be or not be part of the host culture, become more examples of the impossibility of fixing the understanding of nationality. Amjad’s, Banoo’s, and Amina’s ways of becoming part of Englishness will be discussed with reference to their relationships with Haroon, Yasmin, Anwar, and Susan. The characterisation of Ravi and Haroon’s father will also be mentioned to portray how different class statuses affect one’s experiences in the host country. The Asian characters are from different class, gender, and educational backgrounds. This variety counters the tendency to stereotype the Asian image. The first-generation immigrants Amjad and Banoo have conflicting ideas about their life in England. Amjad tries to set his roots in England, but does not want his traditions and habits to change. While his wife Banoo has a strong urge to go back to their homeland, Amjad aims to create his own peaceful psychic space in his home. He is so proud of having bought the house they are living in, and to prove that they belong in England he frequently emphasises the difficulty and importance of buying a house. He believes that their problems emanate from the fact that the

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working class is jealous of their success and living standards. Amjad exclaims: “We’ve painted the outside. No one else in the street has done that. They can only pour beer into their fat guts and shave their heads like sandpaper” (Kureishi, Outskirts and Other Plays, 106). Banoo takes the house as a prison from which she cannot leave through fear of a racist attack. Even at home, Banoo is nervous since she fears being attacked by, “bricks and stones through the window” (103). Banoo knows that, “[their] lives are a misery.” In contrast, Amjad believes they have everything in England, though he is unwilling to adopt British habits. Banoo is cleverer than Amjad in understanding the new dynamics in the society. She knows that their material gains do not make them happy in London. She realistically observes racism directed at her family, while Amjad has a strong tendency to ignore their predicament. Amjad cannot understand the transformation their daughter Amina goes through; he sees her as a “good girl” with an “innocent face” (104). Ironically, he acts like a father who cares for his daughter, asking how her day has been, and the reason for her lateness, whether she has been called a “Paki” or not; but Amina gives only mechanical answers to these routine questions, and there is no genuine interaction between them. Unlike her husband, Banoo realises that Amina is becoming distanced from her family, day by day. She wants her daughter to spend time with them and share her experiences. Banoo emphasises that she is aware of her problems, but she does not understand her daughter and expresses her sorrow to Susan, a white journalist working on the lives of South Asians in Britain: We never realized how English she would become. We can’t even write English. She understands life here more than us. We have not helped her here. I feel it, Amjad, when she looks at us, like a little girl. She needs help. Advice. But we are useless. Our ways are no good for her. (126)

Banoo, unlike her husband, has a deeper insight about the changing dynamics of their lives, and in contrast to him does not believe that they can have a happy life in England. Banoo is not content with what she has in England, but she still creates her own psychic space, or has a unique way of making use of the place she is living in. She imprisons herself in her home in order to not face those looking at her with hatred. She prefers shopping when it rains, since “there’s less people on the road” (104). This is the only time Banoo feels free in the streets. The streets are empty and she can freely enjoy walking around. This is the destiny Amina wants to escape. She does not want to be invisible, a “quiet ghost.” Amina is trying to overcome her own ghostly situation. She uses sex to

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actualise her existence in the patriarchal society. She does not hesitate to make love with Haroon, a young Asian student, in her parents’ bedroom. She even encourages Haroon to make love with her behind the wall of their house, within hearing distance of her father. Echoing Judith Butler, Bhabha finds the practice of sexuality a challenge to patriarchal and colonial legacies. Bhabha’s comments apply to Amina’s experience in Borderline since the play takes place in the 1970s, when sexual activity served as emancipation from patriarchal obsession. Yasmin, an educated woman who now works for the South Asian Youth Movement and who was once forced into an arranged marriage, is presented as a woman in the process of emancipation from the suppressions of both patriarchal and postcolonial society. Moore-Gilbert argues that Kureishi’s representation of increasingly self-assertive and politically engaged young British-Asian women like Amina and Yasmin challenges the common perception in mainstream society that such women passively accept their apparent status as the most oppressed members of an oppressed constituency (45). Both Amina and Yasmin find ways to cope with the oppression they experience. Yasmin’s and Amina’s fathers are similar tyrants who want to force their daughters into arranged marriages. Yasmin, after a long resistance, agrees to marry the man her father wants when he goes on hunger strike. However, she has the strength to divorce her husband and create her own space free of traditions and customs. Amina barely escapes an arranged marriage because of her father’s death. Since her mother moves to Pakistan, she also escapes the suppressions of family and tradition. She is ready to explore life in England with activist friends like Yasmin and Haroon. She has always been determined to stay in England: “I belong here. There is work to be done. To make England more habitable” (Kureishi, Outskirts and Other Plays, 158). After her father’s death and her mother’s return to Pakistan, she starts wearing English clothes, signalling her better integration into the host land. The young woman’s valuable struggle shows their urge to make England home. Anwar accompanies Yasmin in activism against the National Front. It should be noted that, “Kureishi’s representations in Borderline are generated most specifically in the context of the Southall uprisings in 1979 when Asians opposed a provocative National Front pre-election rally, and in July 1981 when there were confrontations with both the National Front and the police” (Ranasinha, 25). Anwar and Yasmin are the ones who fight the National Front. They are counter figures nullifying the passive coloniser image. They know how they are being damaged and are ready to act against it. Yasmin expresses her anxieties:

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I think the Tories are working towards giving us only guest-worker status here. With no proper rights. That’ll bring us into line with some EEC countries. At the same time they’re pumping money into the race relations industry. It’s probably the only growth area in the country, like hospitals in a war. (Kureishi, Outskirts and Other Plays, 115)

The Tories want to draw the limits of nationality; in a Bhabhain sense they do not want their pedagogical nationality to be invaded by the performative, but Anwar, Yasmin, and others prove the impossibility of keeping the pedagogical pure. They are determined to inhabit England as a home. In this struggle, Anwar and Yasmin pursue militant protests instead of political ones. Since Kureishi does not favour hatred, he creates an alternative character, Haroon. Haroon thinks: “We’ve got to engage in the political process. Not just put out fires when they start them. Yasmin and Anwar—they’re brave. But they’re separatist. I say we’ve got to get educated … And get inside things. The worm in the body” (118). Instead of a sudden reaction, Haroon believes there should be a method to subvert the present inequalities. His stance becomes a hope for making England more habitable for them. In fact, Haroon wants to erase the racial differences. He wants to lead a normal life just like the other British people. In a conversation with Amina, Haroon explains his father’s ideas: “What I want to see in England is a day when you won’t find a single Pakistani on the shop-floor. You never see Jews in overalls. We’ve got to develop our businesses, our power” (138). Haroon’s is a desire to situate himself in the dominant discourse by erasing the racial boundaries. He presents another way of inhabiting England as home. That’s why he thinks that he can be free as long as he stays away from the Asian Youth Movement. Yasmin believes that this freedom “stems from an internalization of ‘race and contempt’ as if ‘it was some kind of personal problem you can work through on your own’ which is ultimately self-destructive” (Ranasinha, 30–1). Yasmin sees a future in their almost violent movement; Haroon sees it in having a college education. Kureishi displays conflicting figures, but his critical distance is always maintained. The characterisation of Haroon’s father is also a challenge to a fixed understanding of Britishness. His way of inhabiting England is to live according to Thatcherite ideals. He adopts Thatcherite principles of selfinitiation and makes use of the privileges of the free-market economy without feeling any sympathy towards his workers. He owns a restaurant where the employees work for low wages and under harsh conditions and he exploits Ravi, a newly arrived illegal immigrant, who does not have many alternatives to survive in England. Haroon’s father is an example of

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how Kureishi shies away from creating only positive images. Ravi’s characterisation also challenges how the English and England are presented in colonial discourse. He is created as a farcical character, but his comic identity interrogates the colonial legacy in many ways. In a sense, Ravi’s comic situation mocks colonial rule. The first view of London is not charming but frustrating for Ravi: “The houses are small here. The people look—small” (Kureishi, Outskirts and Other Plays, 101). When Susan asks whether he expected more size, Ravi answers: “They ruled in my country for so long, I thought they’d be bigger” (102). Thus, Kureishi erases the assumed magnificent image of England in the migrant’s mind. Just as he enters London, Ravi sees a dole queue. This foreshadows his predicament since, as an illegal immigrant, he will have difficulties in finding a job and earning enough to live with dignity. He is not accepted by his friend Anil, who is already dependent upon the welfare system. Ravi is shocked to find out that Anil has reported his illegal status to the police just to get rid of him. Ravi’s fragility and hopelessness weaken the hopes for a more habitable England, but Yasmin’s and Anwar’s support somehow signal that he can make a living in England. Behind all these characters there is Susan, a white journalist, who researches Asian immigrants. Susan’s character is also equivocal and resists strict definitions. While some Asian characters like Amjad and Banoo find her friendly, Anwar and Yasmin question her status. The beginning of the 1980s is marked by multiculturalist liberal politics that seem naive at first sight but which are actually based on appropriation of the minority cultures. Anwar and Yasmin feel that Susan is appropriating their identities through their voice. It should be noted that Susan is not created as a contrasting image to the Asian women. As Thomas puts it, Susan’s characterisation prevents, “a simplistic contrast between a progressive white Britain and its ‘backward’ minorities” (14). Like Amina and Yasmin, who are forced into arranged marriages, Susan is expected to find a more suitable job and husband to get on with her life. Thus, the overgeneralisations of free, white women and the oppressed, non-white women are negated. Like all the characters, Susan’s identity is fluid and cannot be situated under a fixed label. Her presence is crucial to the play as her research enables various South Asians to present their conflicting views and experiences of living in England. In conclusion, Borderline demonstrates that performativity can always enter into the pedagogical understandings of nationality. Despite the harsh politics of Thatcher, immigrants find a place to inhabit in England and transform the understanding of English national identity. In such a context, Borderline reveals the absurdity of the attempts to present a strict under-

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standing of national identity. Instead, the play suggests that cultural differences and their free interplay of negotiation should be accepted. Only in this way can England be more habitable for all races.

References Banham, Martin. The Cambridge Guide to Theatre. Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press. 1998. Barker, M. The New Racism: Conservatives and the Ideology of the Tribe. London: Junction Books, 1981. Bhabha, Homi K. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge, 2006. Kureishi, Hanif. Outskirts and Other Plays. London: Faber and Faber, 1992. —. “Rainbow Sign.” Dreaming and Scheming. London: Faber and Faber, 2002. Moore-Gilbert, Bart. Hanif Kureishi. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2001. Ranasinha, Ruvani. Hanif Kureishi. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

ORIENTALISING THE MINORITY: REPRESENTATION OF THE OTTOMAN CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY IN EIGHTEENTHCENTURY ENGLISH LITERARY TEXTS HASAN BAKTIR ERCIYES UNIVERSITY

Abstract: This paper discusses the common misperception and misrepresentation of certain eighteenth-century European writers about Christians living as the subjects of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire used the term “community” to identify non-Muslim populations. On the other hand, to identify the Christians living in the Ottoman Empire as a “minority” was a common tendency of European writers and travellers. The Ottoman attitude and perception were mostly based on the integration of the non-Muslim population into the political and social order, whilst the European attitude was mostly based on discrimination. Thus, it can be argued that certain eighteenth-century European writers and travellers had a misconception of Ottoman society. The Ottoman model in fact influenced European states later in the twentieth century to create diverse communities working and living together. Key words: Ottoman Empire, minority, Millet-system, orientalism, Constantinople

Citizen and alien are contemporary terms that distinguish a native from the other. The morphology of the present distinction goes back to early modern Europe when, for instance, each monarch identified himself as King of France, of England, or of Spain. In the Middle East, on the other hand, diversity and difference existed in races and religions that coexisted. Therefore, ethnic or national identities were not practical. Thus, a Turkishspeaking Greek in Anatolia was a member of the Orthodox Church and would identify himself as a re’aya of the Ottoman state and a member of the Greek Orthodox Church [Phanar] at Constantinople. There is a difference and sometimes confusion between Ottoman and European identifications of identity. The Ottoman used to identify Anatolia as a Roman terri-

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tory and called it Diyar-Rum, which also meant Greek community and Orthodox Church. The Western discourse, “haunted by the memories of more ancient past,” named the Greek as Greek or Hellenic (Lewis, 12). The European, on the other hand, called Anatolia Turkey. Lewis (13) remarks: The official language of the Ottoman Empire was usually described as Turkish, but the people did not call themselves Turk nor did they call their country Turkey. The words Turk and Turkey had been used in Europe at least since the twelfth century, but they were not used by Turks in Turkey. Instead these designated the country they ruled in religious terms, as the land of Islam; in dynastic terms, as the Ottoman realms: or when a more precise territorial definition was needed, by the name inherited by their predecessors in the empire—the land of Rum. Turkey was not officially adopted as the name of the country until after the establishment of the republic in 1923. Even in Europe the word “Turk” had a primarily religious connotation. It included Ottoman and sometimes even other Muslims of many different ethnic and religious groups … a European convert to Islam was said to have “turned Turk” even if the conversion took place in Iran and Morocco.

This confusion and incomplete classification were common tendencies in both European and Middle Eastern scholarship. The Western scholar classified Muslims as “Mohammedans,” “Saracens,” “Moors,” and “Turks.” The Ottomans designated Christians as “unbelievers,” “Franks,” and “Romans” [Rum], which are terms with religious rather than ethnic meanings. Ottoman society was organised in accordance with religious regulations; thus, identity meant membership and loyalty to a religious community. It was obviously confusing, and still is, for Western writers and travellers trying to understand and interpret the Ottoman culture in which neither ethnicity nor citizenship but membership in religious community determines one’s identity (Ibid., 14–15). Thus, they misrepresented the conditions of non-Muslims. For example, contradictions are apparent in Elizabeth Craven’s letters. She travelled through the coasts and came across different communities from different religions. Once, she admits that, contrary to the common notion, the coast of Varna is inhabited by Turks, Greeks, and Armenians, beyond the control of the port, who cultivate vine and corn (Craven, 375). However, she seems not a little anxious on behalf of the Greek community: And now, Sir, we will turn to the Greek, which are as numerous as the Turks here … They retire with great fortunes, which they lay out in houses and gardens in the neighborhood of Constantinople, where they are pretty

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She witnesses the still-existing ancient customs: “The lyre of the ancient is often to be seen in the hands of the Greeks; but I suppose in ancient days, as in these, whatever harmony possessed their souls, it affected only their eyes” (312). However, she believes that Greeks and other non-Muslim communities live in the Ottoman Empire at the risk of their lives (354). Thus, she is very much surprised to see a Greek riding around the courtyard with 20 horsemen, “too proud to appear in public without his attendants.” She regrets that the ancient temples and theatres cannot be restored to “their primitive state of perfection” (339), and that minorities are unhappy. She meets the Venetian Ambassador and finds him very sensible and conversable but unhappy in Constantinople, because he feels like “the Prince in the Arabian Nights, who landed in a country where all the inhabitants were turned into stone” (317). It is natural that a “nation which one does not associate with, is a nation of statues to strangers who are forced to remain in it” (318). The “statues of strangers” represent a metaphor for the condition of minorities like the Greeks, Armenians, and Wallachians in Craven’s letter. She thinks that they have no freedom and security under the Ottoman rule, which she finds tyrannical. However, she contradicts herself when she writes about the condition of the Hungarian community: Turkish idleness, which probably ever remains the same, gives a fine opportunity for the inhabitants of Hungary to become the richest and happiest people in the world—if fate had made me mistress of that particular spot … how I would encourage Asiatic splendor, superstitions, and laziness, and never do anything that would weaken such a barrier. (413)

The transcendental line that divides people, defining identity and rights, was religion. Thus, regulations were based on religious tolerance and the aim of the government was to preserve the balance, order, and rights of the subjects of the Empire from different religions and ethnic groups. The Ottoman court was representative of the present situation. Sir Paul Rycaut, for instance, portrays the diversity at the Ottoman court: “Mufti, and Kenan Pasha one of the vizier of the Bench, and Bayzade Efendi, who was formerly Lord Chief Justice, and well affected to the Spahees party enter[ed] the … Presence Chamber, perceive[d] a tumult in His Majesties Presence with different voices and languages … some cried in Georgian, others Albanian, Bosnian, Mengrelian, Turkish, and Italian … [together] how to proceed in this important affairs” (18). The capital city, Constantinople, North African, European, Crimean, Asian, Arab, Armenian, and

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people of different culture coexisted in order and peace. Jean Bodin, a French writer, expresses the present situation with admiration and even amazement: The King of the Turks, who rules over a great part of Europe, safeguards the rites of religion as well as any prince in this world. Yet he constrains no one, but on the contrary permits everyone to live according as his conscience dictates. What is more, even in his seraglio at Pera he permits the practice of four diverse religions, that of the Jews, the Christian according to the Roman rite, and according to the Greek rite, and that of Islam. (in Esposito, 41).

As it so happens, the Ottoman Seraglio was not at Pera and there were only Muslim rites at the Seraglio, but the Ottoman Empire was indeed a good model for coexistence and peace between people from different races and religions, especially in the European context of the Wars of Religion. Lady Montagu lived in Pera and thought that it was one of the most curious things in Turkey. Pera was a characteristically European town, the majority of the inhabitants being Christians. She observes that people have very different customs and habits at Pera. For instance, women do not veil, and if they do they do it to show their beauty. All the foreign ambassadors are located in Pera and are lodged very near to each other. It is possible to see the “jarring of different atoms in one child whose mother might be Greek, father Dutch. It is not seldom to see Greek perfidiousness, Italian difference, the French loquacity, and English thoughtfulness inherited in a family at Pera” (xl). Pera very well represents the Tower of Babel. They speak Turkish, Greek, Hebrew, Armenian, Wallachian, German, Dutch, French, English, Italian, Hungarian, Slovenian, Albanian, Russian, etc. Lady Mary’s grooms are Arabs, her footmen are French, English, and German, her nurse is Armenian, her housemaids are Russian, her servants are Greek, her steward is Italian, and her janissaries are Turks. She admits: “I live in a perpetual medley of sounds, which produces a very extraordinary effect upon the people that are born here.” It is more or less possible to enumerate the ethnic diversities in eighteenth-century European countries, but the same does not hold true for the Ottoman Empire. There is indeed a similar medley of races, but the races inhabit the same living space. Within ten miles it was possible to see Turkish, Greek, Serbian, Bulgarian, Albanian, and Armenian villages with their own religions and languages. The Ottoman Empire was a state of many people. A variety of Christian inhabitants of the different possessions in the Balkans, Anatolia, and Africa were subjects of the Sultan, and the same thing applied to the largely Muslim communities of Syria and Egypt.

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Faroqhi comments on the situation: In the Ottoman Balkans there existed more or less compact Greek Orthodox and—to a lesser degree—Catholic communities, and in the vassal state of Transylvania, there were some Protestants. Compact Jewish communities of varying sizes existed in many Ottoman towns, particularly in Istanbul and Salonica. In Anatolia, there lived both Greek Orthodox and Armenian Christians, even if there seem to have been fewer Greeks in western Anatolia during the sixteenth century than there were to be later, after immigration from the Aegean island in the nineteenth century. Each of these groups had its own liturgical language, separate from the spoken one. Thus, for example, in normal conversation the Sephardic Jews used a dialect of Spanish, which Evliya Çelebi, the seventeenth-century Ottoman traveller, a man proficient in languages, regarded as “Jewish.” Among the Greek Orthodox inhabitants of central Anatolia there was a Turkish speaking community, whose members bestowed Turkish names upon their children; the Greek language was used by clergyman in the liturgy (8).

It was common to see Muslim residence in Christian and Jewish districts and vice-versa. The variety of cultural and commercial enterprises was integrated in the Ottoman world, and people of different religions would know one another by occupational or social status. The ethnic, religious, and linguistic diversity in the Empire was not restricted to these groups. There were North African provinces; there were Spaniards, Italians, French, and Hungarians, some of whom joined the Empire of their own volition. Calvinist Hungarians, for instance, suffered under the Habsburg Empire and joined the Empire voluntarily. Unpaid Spanish soldiers and foreigners in the North African provinces voluntarily joined the Ottoman army, in which they were well paid and could easily rise in status (Ibid., 63), and the state considered all tax-paying subjects equal and identified them by a term that designated a common name for all subjects, both Muslim and non-Muslim. The subjects of the Empire, who paid tax, were named re‘aya to distinguish them from those with military and official occupations (18–19). This situation in the Empire caused much speculation and a variety of interpretations in Europe. According to Lewis and Braude, there are two opposing myths about Muslim tolerance of non-Muslims, and they are both European in origin. The first one depicts Muslims as oppressive, bigoted and intolerant. Gibbon’s figure of the fanatical warrior is an example of this. He rides with the Holy Quran and sword in either hand, and forces people either to convert to Islam or to die. The second is concerned with a utopia in which Muslims, Christians, and Jews work together in harmony and peace. The first charge begins with the Turkish thrust into Christian Europe, but has

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its source in the ancient Greeks who saw their engagement with the Persian as a fight for freedom against oriental despotism. The Turkish thrust into the heart of the European continent threatened Christendom and created the same feeling of fear and hatred among the European nations. In particular, the continual thrust was felt more by Eastern Europe, becoming a part of their national folklore. Later, travellers to Ottoman areas from different parts of the European continent looked for, and found, confirmation for this image in the tales and discourses of Christian subjects. They failed to see, or did not want to see, the order and autonomy of diverse religious communities in Ottoman society. The image was reinforced until the eighteenth century, which saw objections against religious intolerance. Yet, at the same time, Enlightenment scholars used the despotic oriental image as a mask to criticise Church and Christian—mostly Catholic— attitudes toward other religious communities. During the Reformation, Islam was sometimes represented as more tolerant compared to Catholic oppression, and sometimes as equal to Christianity. After all, Jews and Christians under Muslim rule had rarely been subject to the persecution or exile they suffered in European states. In this context, Herder depicted Saladin as noble and valiant and Christians as depraved. Rousseau, for his part, saw no difference between Turks, Arabs, and Christians in terms of tolerance. Moreover, that Islam did not have the caste system and aristocratic privilege of Europe provided a strong argument for Reformation scholars in their image of an egalitarian society. The social and cultural context of the Ottomans was rather different from the ordered hierarchical system of Europeans. Under the Ottomans, the rights and condition of non-Muslims were constructed upon the idea of necessary justice and order, which meant maintenance of political order by keeping each social group and element in their proper place, and by giving them what they should be given (Braude and Lewis, 7). This justice and order were not Ottoman choices; rather, they were essential for the Ottomans who, in certain periods, ruled as a minority over a majority Christian population. These regulations would maintain the balance and preserve peace and harmony between Muslims and non-Muslims. In addition, the Ottomans were tribal nomads; they were brave soldiers and warriors, but they did not have the skills and talents necessary for the administration of the state. Christians and Jews (dhimma) provided the required labour for the Empire, and were heavily engaged in trade and finance, playing a major role in foreign diplomacy and in the relations of the Empire to the nonMuslim world. In return for their service, the Ottomans provided them with a certain freedom and autonomy. The maintenance of balance and peace was a result both of conscious

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effort and more particularly of the millet system and the rights of dhimmi. The millet system was the framework within which the relations between members of communities and Muslims were organised. Millet means “a community,” and was first established as a system of Ottoman government by Mehmed II. He appointed patriarchs of Greek Orthodox, Armenians, and Jews as the heads of each religious community, and granted them certain privileges that regulated and granted the autonomy and taxation of the communities. The head of each community was responsible for the community’s taxes and justice. They were allowed to maintain social practices according to their religions. Divorce, marriage, and death were organised by the community and the state did not intervene. The members of the Orthodox Church were all considered as one community; thus, Greeks, Bulgarians, Yugoslavians, Romanians, Syrians, Macedonians, and all others who considered themselves Orthodox were one millet. The Ottoman recognised Judaism, Christian, and members of different religions within the millet system as a community, each of which was given autonomy and freedom to practice their religions. The state regulated the members of other religious communities to co-exist side by side with the dominant religion, and identified the restrictions and distinctions for each. The benefactors of the regulations were guaranteed the practice of their religion and given autonomous freedom in internal affairs, such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, and education. In addition, they were not bound by the restrictions that applied to Muslims. They were, for instance, free to buy, sell, and drink alcoholic beverages. Sometimes, these regulations caused problems, and it was not uncommon for Muslim to report Muslim to the Ottoman Judge (Kadi) for drinking wine at Christian and Jewish weddings. Though this Ottoman court occupied a higher position and judged all cases, different religious communities established their own courts and judged their own people according to their laws. Thus, Genoese, Venetian, Dutch, English, and French merchants founded selfgoverning courts in the trading cities of the Empire. Restrictions on non-Muslims included regulations on the clothes they wore, the colour of their houses, the height and restoration of spiritual buildings, the animals they rode, and the arms they bore. Their buildings and rituals were also subject to restrictions. Their buildings could not be higher than mosques; they could restore the old but could not build new. Christians and Jews were to wear yellow badges as emblems on their clothes and had to introduce themselves with special signs when attending public baths in order to not be mistaken for Muslims. They were to avoid noise and display respect for the supremacy of Islam. The members of non-Muslim communities were also subject to high taxes inherited from

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the Byzantine and Persian empires, but they were not confined to certain locations and there were no occupational restrictions. The government was responsible for the prevention of violence against non-Muslims. There was no law or restriction that forbade non-Muslim to be agriculturists, merchants, herdsmen, hawkers, or bankers. The variety of people from different religions in occupations was a blend of the population of major Ottoman cities. Visitors from outside the Empire were struck by this exotic mixture. Goffman (83) states that this ethnic and cultural variety was reflected in the urban population: Commercial districts did tend to be variegated[;] a concentrated blend of tongues, attire, cultures and especially spiritual beliefs, and western European visitors to Istanbul, Aleppo, Konya or Edirne marvelled at and usually condemned what was for them an exotic and shocking mix. Even residential quarters were not nearly segregated as is often supposed. While it is true that Ottoman cities comprised neighbourhoods deemed Christian, Jewish or Muslim and sometimes named after the inhabitants’ places of origin, they were not wholly exclusive.

Order and balance comprised the backbone of the Ottoman government’s political and social organisation. The state accommodated communities in certain districts, which were named after them. The Greek Orthodox subjects were dominantly inhabited at Finer [Planar]; Balata and Husky were major Jewish towns, and Faith was a Turkish town in every aspect. Galata was a Latin centre before the fall of Constantinople, and remained a free prosperous Italian town during the Ottoman period. Pera was a French and English habitat with almost no subjects from the Ottoman Empire. Certain communities also controlled certain occupations. Most pastoralists were Turkish, Mariners were dominantly Greek, Armenians controlled international trade, and textiles was a Jewish profession. These specialisations were not imposed or restricted by the state, and in fact the Ottomans provided employment opportunities for people with the talent to specialise in certain professions. Goffman takes the Greek association with the Ottomans in the matter of sailing as a good instance of this policy. He states that when the Turkoman faced the water they sought help from Greek shipbuilders and hired Byzantine ships to cross the sea. It is a very common instance in travellers’ accounts of Turkey to read about their journeys on Greek ships. Armenians and Jews were specialised in trade, and remained as middle-man communities with extensive commercial networks. Jews and Armenians could freely and safely trade in all parts of the Muslim world wherever they had networks that contributed to the wealth of the Empire. The Armenians, as Christians, had easy trade with Europe where

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they had commercial centres. The Jews were also international traders and had centres in major European cities like Venice, Amsterdam, and London. After the Iberian Jewish emigrated to escape obliteration, the Ottomans accommodated them particularly in Selaniko, which became the only city in the world in which more than half of the population was Jewish. The Iberian Jews brought with them new methods of textile production, medical knowledge, and financial and political experiences, which contributed to Ottoman-European relations. They established extensive textile factories in Palestine, Istanbul, and Salonika. The Ottomans made use of their networks and supported them in trade. The impression that certain occupations were controlled only by certain communities is misleading. A variety and mixture of occupations could be observed in the economic and social life of Ottoman citizens. There were Ottoman Turks who were fishermen, Armenian folk who were pastoralists, and Jewish subjects who were shoemakers. For instance, over half of the craftsmen who worked in mosque-building were Armenian, some of the surgeons were Muslim, and there were Christians who dealt with agriculture. The choice of occupation depended on need and ability, not on exclusion. The Ottomans imposed a political system, not an economic system; thus, Christians, Jews, and Muslims were able to construct their own commercial networks and organisations all over the empire. The State’s non-interference produced prosperity and wealth and preserved the order and peace in the diverse Ottoman world. Heterogeneity characterised the Empire’s social, cultural, and economic life. People from Gregorian Armenians, Orthodox Greeks, Iberian and Middle Eastern Jews, and Turks mixed and interacted in the markets and exchange centres. They were neighbours who lived together under the state policy. In many ways, the Ottoman regulations of the conditions of nonMuslims were liberal, practical, and easily integrated a large number of Christians into the Empire. As Lady Montagu remarks: “Turks do not take pains to introduce their manners as the polite ones over the nations they rule over” (Letter XXX). She observes that the Greeks are after the same models we find in ancient writers. She also witnesses, in the village near Belgrade, wealthy Christians who meet at the fountain every night to drink and dance (Letter XXXVII). When the Ottomans began their progress in Europe, they easily took over the control of many places in the Crimea due to the murder, continuing disorder, strife, and blood, which the population was weary of. The Ottoman promise to not interfere with the customs, language, and religion of the inhabitants appealed to the common people, who longed for order and fair taxation. People declared that they preferred the Sultan to the Pope and the aristocracy, and the Turks were, in fact,

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welcomed as deliverers of peace and justice. In this connection, Eliot remarks: “when Mohammed invaded Bosnia in 1563, the Bosnians refused to fight for Stephen, and handed over their fortresses to the Sultan. Herzegovina was occupied a year or two later, and thus the whole Balkan Peninsula became subject to the Turks” (43). The Ottomans were considered liberators by peasants in Crimea and the Greek Islands, where people were subject to severe economic exploitation by a feudal system: “Echoes of their readiness to accept Ottoman rule were heard in some towns of mainland Italy due to papal policy. A deputy was reported to have said ‘Monsignor, if the Turk comes to Ragusa we will put ourselves in his hands’” (Ibid., 145). After all, the Ottomans were not foreigners to the half-Easternised population of the Crimean regions. The Ottomans initially conquered the Greek territories and did not rule over them as conquerors. They recognised their autonomy and shared the same lands for a long time, which led them to share a common culture: “The Ottomans allowed the Greek community to maintain its physical existence, language, sense of history, cultural traditions and religious integrity over several centuries” (Lewis and Braude, 16). The Greek Patriarch of Jerusalem shared this idea and admitted that it is a glory of God to raise the powerful Ottoman Empire out of nothing and to guard once more the holy Orthodox faith (Ibid., 17). In this context, the birth and rise of the millet system may be considered to be political: The Greeks profited most from this policy. They were provided land to increase their wealth and influence at Constantinople. Phanar was given to the Greek Clergy and wealthy Greek merchants. Orthodox populations of the Empire were under the influence of Phanar. Bulgarians, Serbians, Wallachians, Macedonians, and others were brought together by the Ottomans under Phanar clergy. The Patriarch ruled over the Orthodox population as a king and dealt with all matters concerning marriage, divorce, inheritance, and justice. The Phanar community also provided the chief dragomans, who influenced and mediated the foreign policy in the Empire. The Chief dragoman was also Greek from Phanar and served as a High Admiral, administering the Aegean islands. An English merchant interpreted the privilege given to the Greeks at Constantinople as a continuation of the Byzantium Empire: “The Greek Empire, though it had ceased to exist as a political force, continued to exist as an intellectual, ecclesiastical and commercial force” (66). Indeed, under the Ottomans, religion, commerce, education, and finance in the Crimea were left to Greek control. The Jewish community was another privileged community of the Ottoman Empire, with a rather different history of settlement. Jews were

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always related to money and commerce by Europeans, and indeed Jews were one of the earlier native agents of commerce and trade in the Middle East. The Ottoman state encouraged them in their skills. Lady Montagu observes that most of the rich tradesmen were Jews and had incredible power and many privileges in the Empire, almost as if they had their own commonwealth, as they were judged by their own laws and controlled trade. She remarks that the Ottoman nobles trusted their secrets and business to Jews, who were at the same time citizens, physician, stewards, and interpreters. They were protected by every minister and whole bodies of affairs were negotiated by the Jews in foreign relations (Letters XXXV). There were Jews at Constantinople even before the Ottoman conquest, but the real Jewish settlement began with the immigration of Iberian Jews. The Ottoman Empire was a safe territory for the Jews who were exiled from Spain in 1492. They were welcomed by the Ottomans and largely located in Salonika. Their migration to the Ottoman Empire was profitable for both sides. The Ottomans needed a skilled population for administrative office and the Jews could provide this. The Iberian Jews hold a special place in the history of the Empire, for they were Ottoman subjects by choice, not by conquest. The skilful and intellectual Jewish communities contributed to the establishment of trade, industry, intellectual life, commerce, science, and diplomacy. The post of Physician of the Ottoman Court was occupied by a Jewish Doctor for centuries. The commerce of the Empire was controlled and improved by Jewish merchants until the eighteenth century. The Berat—a great distinction—was given to eminent Jews who served for the benefit of the Empire in councils, commercial affairs, and foreign relations. Coles gives an account of the Iberian Jew Joseph Nasi, who was born in 1520 into a Jewish family that was expelled from Spain. Nasi became a wealthy and respected merchant with trade networks in France, the Netherlands, and Italy. He had to move to Venice because of religious prejudice in 1544, and escaped from persecution to Constantinople in 1553. He was very happy to re-declare himself a Jew openly, and became a wealthy merchant and trusted advisor in the diplomacy of the Ottoman Empire. He was a privileged wine merchant and was referred to as Frenk Bey Oglu (the Frankish Prince) in the Ottoman documents of the period. Sultan Selim II declared him Duke of Naxos and appointed him the ruler of a few Aegean islands. A particular district, Beyoglu, was given to him, and this later became the location of the Jewish community in Constantinople. He constructed a network of diplomatic and commercial contacts in Poland, Moldavia, and Walachia. He was the viceconsul at the court and contributed to the Ottoman policy of expansion by sea. Coles also remarks that the Jewish influence had two advantages for

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the Ottoman Empire: “continuing contact with friends and commercial agents scattered throughout Europe which made them a unique source of information in the power struggle of Turkey against Spain; and possession of certain technical and financial skills which were scarce in Ottoman society” (156–8). The Armenian settlement and privileges in the Ottoman Empire were even older than those of the Greek and Jews. The history and condition of the Armenians in Asia Minor do not begin with and cannot be restricted by the historical existence and political control of the region by the Ottoman Empire. After the death of Alexander the Great there appeared a number of states in Asia Minor, one of which was called Armenia. The Armenian dispersal and trouble began in the region after the complicity of the Armenian King Dikran with Mithridates, King of Pontus, in the massacre of the Romans throughout the region. The two kings paid for this massacre when Pompey conquered their regions. The Armenians were one of the earliest ethnic groups to accept Christianity, which became another reason for their status as outcasts in the region. The King of Persia, Shapur, conquered Armenia, after which Tiridates began to rule over the Armenians. He is known for the persecution he inflicted on the members of the new religion (Eliot, 384–5). The lands where Armenians lived had been occupied and controlled by the Greeks, Persians, Arabs, Mongols, and Russians, respectively, and the Armenians had generally always been ruled over. None of their rulers had any intention of bringing stability and peace to the region, and certainly did not provide stability and an independent government. The Armenians dispersed into different regions and in no location did they comprise the majority of the population, though in some places they comprised almost half. Secondly, ongoing war, conquest, and the recurrent replacement of power in the regions where the Armenians lived forced their population to move from the east to the west. In the process of this exile and migration, they separately territorialised different towns. This territorialisation complicated and diversified historical memory and national myth. For instance, they fled to Cilicia in the eleventh century to escape the Seljuk Turks, but their new home became the crossroads for the Crusaders. During the struggle between the Byzantines, Seljuks, Ottomans, and Safavids over Asia Minor, the Armenians had to move to the Black Sea region, the Balkans, Eastern Europe, and Iran. Due to the lack of any national and political organisations strong enough to unite them, their separating from any powerful orthodox or catholic churches, and due to their division between different ruling authorities like the Ottomans, Russians, and Persians, they remained subjects. These circumstances were considered the chief cause of their trouble. Though they

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had not been a majority, their existence had for a long time been felt in towns like Erzurum, Kars, Harput, Bitlis, and Sivas. They first began to be prominent among Muslims during the reign of Shah Abbas, who transported forty thousand Armenians to Julfa and gave them the privilege to develop trade in Isfahan (Ibid., 386). The real history and significance of the Armenians began in the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the eighteenth century with the decline of the Safavids and the expansion of the Ottomans into the territories formerly held by Persians (Lewis and Braude, 21). For the first time in their history, the Armenians had a certain stability in their territories. Their lack of links with other cultures and nations, and their lack of connection with any other Orthodox Church, worked to their advantage. They were preferred over the other communities and supported by the Sublime Port to develop commercial and financial enterprises, especially when the Jewish merchants, who for a long time held the control of the trade in the Empire, began to weaken. Thus, Armenians began to rise in the life and commerce of the Empire. They gradually became the intendants of custom houses, practitioners of trades, dragomans, bankers to pashas, and purveyors of luxury goods. They were one of the most energetic elements in the Empire and began to appear as cosmopolitan financiers with considerable wealth and centres in different parts of Europe and Asia, while their fellow Armenians were dependent upon agriculture in Armenia, far from external influences. There appeared in the Ottoman Empire a group of wealthy Armenians with special power and privilege who were later named Amiras (Barsoumian, 171). The Amiras consisted of bankers, minters, merchants, and rulers. Since they were in a better position to represent the Armenians than the clergy, they claimed the leadership of the Armenian community. The Amiras became the leaders of the community at the capital and advanced their position over other hierarchies. For instance, the Duzian family can be given as an example of the privilege and position of the Amiras in the Empire. The family controlled and held the supervision of the mint in the Empire during the eighteenth century as a dynastic privilege (Ibid., 173). Another Amira, Hovsep (Yusuf) Çelebi, enriched himself by nearly monopolising the importation of watches from England, controlling their sale and distribution throughout the Empire. There were certain Armenian families who held the position of mimar baú (head-architects). Mimar Sinan, the greatest architect of the Empire, Meldon Arabian, and Sarkis Kalfa were among the head architects in the empire (175). The Armenian community independently developed their own liturgy and values in the Empire. The head of the Armenian Church in Russia and the Armenian Patri-

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arch of Constantinople were independent of each other. The Armenians who were Ottoman subjects were represented by the bishop at Constantinople, and the liturgy was largely controlled by the Amiras. For a long time there had been no attempt to interfere with their privacy, which was respected and protected. They also had some advantages, as suggested by Charles Eliot: There was no attempt [by the Ottoman Empire] at interference in matters … [no one] imposed on them any [religion] or language … they never lost their national consciousness … [they] preserved their religion, speech, customs, and idiosyncrasies as stubbornly as the Jews. (387)

More than two hundred thousand Armenians of the capital enjoyed all these privileges from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. They were wealthy and prosperous, and were free to manage their churches, schools, and hospitals. The Ottoman authority found in many ways the Armenians the most useful subjects, and did not concern themselves much about their customs, prayers, and language. The lucky ones transacted the business of the Ottoman elites and the poorer ones in the capitals were employed in domestic service. They were content to live and to spend their money among the Turks. “The Turks treated them with good-humoured confidence, and the phrase, milleti-sadika, ‘the loyal community,’ was regularly applied to them” (397). They were privileged and trusted with business, money, and even children, and were closer to the Turks than any other community. The Armenians living in the western and middle Anatolian villages with Turks had better conditions than those living in the East among Kurds, though they did not enjoy as many privileges as the cosmopolitan Armenians. These agriculturalist Armenians living in the central and western Anatolian villages were also content with living among Turks, with whom they were neighbours and sometimes relatives from marriage. They were mixed with Turks, but they were not combined since their religion and autonomy were respected and protected by law. As a consequence, they were much more in touch with Turkish habits and ideas, which they sometimes adopted and shared. Yet, the close relation between Turks and Armenians created a common lifestyle. For instance, the Armenian houses built in the village were very much like those of Turks. Eliot (403) describes their houses: Their houses are large burrows, lighted by a circular hole in the ceiling, and consisting of a family dwelling-room, into which neither Christians nor Muslims ever admit the stranger, and stable in which the sheep, cattle,

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Orientalising the Minority and horses of the owner are lodged. In this latter apartment is a small raised platform made of baked clay and surrounded by wooden latticework. This is the reception-room for guests, but the hospitality which it accords is not refreshing.

The large burrow, circular hole in the ceiling, and family dwelling-room are typical of the Turks’ houses in the village. Armenians, like Turkish people, accept guests in the reception room and, like Turkish women, the Armenian women show themselves little or never. The Armenian women also wear veils, though it is shorter than the Turkish version, and do not sit down with the men. The Armenian men were as jealous of their wives as the Turks, and there was a common custom among the two communities which forbade brides to speak to her husband’s relations after marriage. These eastern districts of the Empire had not been stable and free from turmoil and disturbances during the imperial period. The climate and geography made life difficult even for the native people of the region. The Armenians had to stand the environment and share the land with Kurds, the majority of whom were armed and enjoyed practical autonomy. The Armenians lived in this harsh environment under the protection of Kurdish chiefs, recognising them as their overlords and paying tributes in return for security. Consequently, the Armenian population of the eastern villages was regarded by the chiefs as their property, and were occasionally subject to murder and loss of livestock (393–4). In addition, they were sometimes caught between the Ottoman authority and the Kurdish chiefs, being asked to pay their taxes to both Kurds and Ottomans. Therefore, the Armenians of Eastern Anatolia lived in difficult conditions when compared to other Armenian subjects of the Empire. In conclusion, Ottoman state discourse, unlike that of the European travellers, always prefers the term “community” to the term “minority” to identify its Christian subjects. Order, flexibility and balance were the overwhelming characteristics of the Ottoman Empire in dealing with nonMuslim subjects. As Goffman admits, this order and organisation represented the secret of the longevity of the Empire and its ability to rule over the vast majority of regions and people. As he further states, the secret of the longevity and order “was simply its flexibility in dealing with this diverse society.” These concepts of constitutionality and citizenship, and the establishment of legal codes that granted each subject equal rights, did not exist in Europe until the early modern period. The Ottomans created and preserved the diversity of cultures for a long time, and for centuries took a more liberal stance than Europe (92). They granted relative autonomy and left traditional laws and customs unchanged. The state was careful not to disturb historical and political order and was tolerant and flexible in ad-

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ministration. Yet, the prevailing attitude and regulations were due to necessity rather than choice, since the Ottoman Empire was established upon the territory of dominantly non-Muslim populations. It was “imperative” for the state to integrate non-Muslims into the political and social order (Ibid., 170). The Ottoman attitude also influenced Europe and contributed to the development of a new structure of social organisation. Community trade-centres were established in France and England, and Venetians and Florentines alike delivered to Italy the Ottoman examples that permitted diverse communities to work and live together.

Works Cited Barsoumian, Hagop. “The Dual Role of the Armenian Amira Class within the Ottoman Government and the Armenian Millet (1750–1850).” In Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire: The Functioning of a Plural Society, edited by Benjamin Braude, B., and Lewis, B. New York: Holmes & Meier Pub. Inc., 1982. Craven, E. A Journey through the Crimea to Constantinople. London: G.G.J. & J. Robinson Co., 1939. Eliot, C. Turkey in Europe. London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd, 1965. Esposito, J. L. The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality? New York, London: Oxford University Press, 1999. Faroqhi, S. Subjects of the Sultan: Culture and Daily Life in the Ottoman Empire. New York: I.B. Tauris, 1989. Goffman, D. Britons in the Ottoman Empire, 1642–1660. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1998. —. The Ottoman Empire and the Early Modern Europe: Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Lewis, B. Islam and the West. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. —. Istanbul and the Civilization of the Ottoman Empire. Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press, 1989. Montagu, L. M. W. Turkish Embassy Letters. Athens G.A.: University of Georgia Press, 1993. Montesquieu, C. S. Persian Letters. Trans by C. J. Betts. Middlesex: Penguin, 1973. Rycaut, P. The Present State of the Ottoman Empire. Farnborough: Gregg International Pub. Ltd., 1972.

A MODEL OF SHEELA NA GIG IN LYBEAUS DESCONUS AND THE SQUIRE OF LOW DEGREE HÜLYA TAFLI DÜZGÜN ERCIYES UNIVERSITY

Abstract: A Sheela Na Gig is a carving of a woman with exposed and/or exaggerated genitalia, usually found on religious buildings in the Middle Ages and considered to be sacred. This paper seeks to examine the complexity of the naked female body in the Middle Ages embodying a sheela na gig model. The naked female body is usually regarded as a sinful object, as most of the medieval clerical anti-feministic writings deal with it in relation to the Fall of Eve. However, some anonymous Middle-English romances—particularly the fifteenth-century romances Lybeaus Desconus and The Squire of Low Degree—seem to resist the medieval representations of the naked female body as sinful. This paper argues that the naked female body does not seem to be a subject matter of evil in either the Middle English Lybeaus Desconus or The Squire of Low Degree. Key words: medieval woman, Middle English romance, Lybeaus Desconus, The Squire of Low Degree, female nudity and romance “Et aperti sunt oculi amborum cumque cognovissent esse se nudos” (Gen 3:7)

Eve is usually considered to be the first naked woman, responsible for the original fall of the human race into sin. In the Middle Ages, Eve becomes the model for understanding all women as persons whose nature makes them likely to tempt others to sexual sin. This is the reason why most medieval narratives suggest that “sexual desire is itself a punishment for original sin and that all sexual intercourse, tainted by uncontrollable desire, is at least venially sinful” (Schaus 2006, 247). The role assigned to Eve in the Fall may well be applied to medieval liturgy. Christian writers of the Middle Ages state that the virtuous woman is rare, as wives usually commit adultery: “mulierem fortem quis inveniet procul et de ultimis finibus pretium eius” (Proverbs 31:10). Apart from liturgy, secular medieval romances reflect women as sinful objects. Chretién de Troyes, in the Old-French Cligés, warns men about women

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who are objects of sin and are adulterous: “Por ce einsi com an prison / Est gardee an Costantinoble / Ja n’iert tant haute ne tant noble / L’empererriz, quex qu’ele soit” (Micha, 6652–5). Likewise, in the Middle English Bevis of Hampton the mother of Bevis is represented as sinful because she commits adultery, murdering her husband and attempting to kill her child (ll.337–54). The fourteenth-century Middle English Chevalere Assigne exemplifies a wife who is accused of adultery because the twins she conceives are combined with inordinate longing for children: “Thow hast bygylethe my sone it shalle þe werke sorowe” (l.78) Medievalists usually suggest that medieval narratives combine two themes: Eve’s nudity, and misogyny. One may note that the combination of elements such as adultery, the murder of a husband, and the mother of the hero attempting to kill her child may all be thought of as signs of misogyny. All of these were frequently used in clerical antifeminist writings, in which the notion of female promiscuity was fuelled by the role assigned to Eve in the Fall. While medieval woman’s sexuality and nudity are usually regarded as a threat to patriarchal values in the medieval texts, a few naked female representations do not seem to inspire any misogyny. Lybeaus Desconus and The Squire of Low Degree, Middle English romances, represent the naked female body and do not seem to inspire misogyny.1 The way that the naked body is represented in these romances seems to be ambiguous and different from the naked female representations found in clerical anti-feminist writings. In the Middle Ages, female identity was usually associated with female sexuality, and therefore with female nudity and virginity. Female sexuality was considered a potentially dangerous element because of its physicality. When a woman was depicted naked, her nakedness was associated with her sexual impurity. One must bear in mind that there were medieval discourses of nudity and virginity. Virginity was represented as a sacred vocation that was placed highest in the triad virginity-widowhood-marriage. It was also understood, along with nudity, as a phase in the life course of women intending to marry that produced the triad maid-wife-widow (Beattie). This way of categorising female sexuality was a commonplace of Christian thought and influenced medieval narratives. For instance, Chaucer’s The Parson’s Tale refers to the highest degree of maidenhood: ‘thilke precious fruyt that the book clepeth the hundred fruyt’ (ll. 867–8). After the Fall of Adam and Eve, women’s identity is sexualised, and women are named as sinners and thought of as followers of Eve. Augustine sets the stage for the Christian idealisation of virginity by associating the Fall of Man with sexuality, sin, and death, with sexual sin, often linked to Original Sin, therefore a result of the Fall (Zycha). It stands to reason

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that virginity would constitute the praiseworthy ideal of Christian perfection. Similarly, Tertullian (160–220 AD), the theologian who first denounced woman as the Devil’s gateway, accusing her of original sin, as well as of all manner of lesser evils, addresses her directly: In doloribus et anxietatibus paris, mulier, et ad uirum tuum conuersio tua et ille dominatur tui: et Euam te esse nescis? Viuit sententia Dei super sexum istum in hoc saeculo: uiuat et reatus necesse est. Tu es diaboli ianua; tu es arboris illius resignatrix; tu es diuinae legis prima desertrix; tu es quae eum suasisti, quem diabolus aggredi non ualuit; tu imaginem Dei, hominem, tam facile elisisti; propter tuum meritum, id est mortem, etiam filius Dei mori habuit: et adornari tibi in mente est super pelliceas tuas tunicas?

While Eve was naked and virgin, her nakedness was usually thought of not as a symbol of innocence, but of evil. This article seeks to examine whether or not the naked female body is a subject matter of evil in the Middle English Lybeaus Desconus and The Squire of Low Degree, and argues that the representation of the naked female body may be regarded as the symbol of innocence and ambiguity as depicted in the model of sheela na gig. Female nudity occurs in some medieval romances in the sheela na gig model that contradicts the general assumptions of the representations of naked and sinful women. Lybeaus Desconus and The Squire of Low Degree, formerly—and more appropriately—known as Undo Youre Dore, may be given as examples of medieval romances that represent female nudity more ambiguously and differently than these above-mentioned general assumptions about medieval women. In Lybeaus, the naked Lady of Synadowne, who emerges from the monstrous exterior of a worm, is ambiguous in her erotic effect. A worme ther ganne oute pas With a womanes face: “Yonge Y am and nothinge olde.” Hir body and hir wyngis Shone in all thynchis As amel gaye and gilte. Her tayle was mekyll unnethe, Hir peynis gryme and grete, As ye may listen and lere. Syr Lybeous swelt for swete There he sate in his sete, As alle had ben in frye; So sore he was agaste Hym thought his herte tobraste

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As she neyhid hym nere. And ere that Lybeous wiste, The worme with mouth him kyste And clypped aboute the swyre. And aftry this kyssynge Off the worme tayle and wynge Swyftly fell hir froo: So fayre, of all thinke, Woman, withoute lesynge, Sawe he never ere thoo; But she was moder naked. (ll.2067–92)

The text betrays a level of disappointment on behalf of her questing knight; his “woo” is a narrative that inspires a level of textual scrutiny seldom deemed necessary in Middle-English romance. Similarly, in Undo Youre Dore, the Princess of Hungre’s clothing mysteriously vanishes during the erotic wordplay she and her suitor partake in through her chamber door: Undo thy dore, my frely floure, For ye are myne and I am your That lady with those wordes awoke, A mantell of golde to her she toke She sayde: “go away, thou wicked wyght.” (ll.545–9) … Also naked as she was borne She stod her chambre dore beforne. (ll.673–4)

When the door is eventually unlocked and she confronts the corpse of the steward lying on the other side, her mantle is nowhere to be found. Undo Youre Dore refers explicitly to Lybeaus as a cornerstone of the chivalric canon; the princess includes a synopsis of the earlier romance to illustrate what is expected of a knight: Go forth and ask eme at my kynne, And loke what graunt you may wynne Yf that ye gette graunte in faye Myselfe therto shall not say nay, And yf ye may not do so Otherwyse ye shall come to Ye are bothe hardy, stronge, and wight, Go forth and be a venterous knight. (ll.583–90)

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However, the most brazen textual echo and homage to Lybeaus occurs in the very episode integral to this discussion. When the princess stands “as naked as she were borne” in her doorway (l.673), she does so just as the Lady of Synadowne does in line 2137 (“As naked as she was bore”) of Lybeaus Desconus. The present article suggests that the binding together of these texts through reference to the exposed female body encourages the re-evaluation of such incidences in romance that seem different from the general assumptions of female nudity. In order to achieve this, it is essential to unpick the complexities of the incidents themselves, both in development and structural placement, and also in terms of gender construction and the visualising of the nude. This should enable a consideration of the overall function and effect of these episodes within each romance as a whole. Accordingly, this study considers the instant at which the princess may disrobe and the repercussions this has upon the sequence as a whole. The recurring demands from her visitor to “undo her door” startle the Princess of Hungre from sleep, and she subsequently wraps her naked body in a rich golden garment as she rises: “that lady with those wordes awoke/ a mantell of golde to her she toke” (l.547). Confusion and concealment of her body operate in tandem here; the identity of the Squire is ascertained painstakingly slowly, and primarily through his assertion that he desires to take his “leave” of the princess: “to take my leave of you, lady" (l.570). It may be argued that this term is loaded with connotative possibilities; a metaphor that, much like the original title of the romance, reinforces the erotic undercurrent. Interestingly, this phrase recurs just before the reader glimpses her naked at the threshold of the chamber (ll.669–75). What does the lady intend when she attempts to “take her leve” unclothed? It may be stipulated that the “taking leve” used by both parties is operating here as an erotic euphemism; it is a signifier for a literal sexual act or an erotic fantasy. The princess’ demands for him to “go forth” as she lets her mantel fall seem far from sincere: “Go forth, and aske me at my kynne” (l.583), “Go forth and be a venterous knight” (l.590), “Go forth, and be nothyng afrayde” (l.596). It may be proposed that the playful vocal interchange through the chamber door is a substitute for physical intercourse. Of course, the “rub” of this episode, and ultimately what makes it so vital to the narrative energy, is that the text contains and restrains the desires of both the lady and the Squire. A detailed examination of this will follow, but at present it is sufficient to say that although the lady may be seen as a powerful and directional presence within Undo Youre Dore, her attempts to reposition the boundaries of the narrative convention are ultimately quashed. Fewster (146) advocates this idea, and

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deems the repeated appeals to “undo” ironic, “for she never can.” Sepulchred in her chamber and unable to break free, she becomes more than a little like the corpse that she reveres. If Undo Youre Dore presents nudity, than the Lady of Synadowne in Lybeaus Desconus is similarly aligned with sexual ambiguity. The range of explanations for why her questing knight should be “woo” as her reptilian attributes fall away, revealing her “naked as she were bore” (l.2137), will be explored in due course. At present, we pose the question of what exactly happens to the Lady of Synadowne during her imprisonment. It is not too fanciful to question whether she has been subjected to sexual exploitation, for the text in fact insinuates such occurrences. The fear that her captors may have “dodne her synne” is inherently bound up with her vulnerability as a female “ayre,” but the shadow of rape or, at the very least, that of sexual threat, infuses Lambert’s account: “Than is my lady ayre” (l.1786), “Luste they done hir synne” (l.1790). If the metamorphosis from worm to woman restores her to her original state, why is she naked at all? Her screams are heard with an ominous frequency, and though “Mabones will” is directly related to the surrender of “hir right” as trustee of a kingdom, the sadistic means by which this is demanded, and the natural stylistic stress on this line, suggest a deeper level of harm: Oftyn we hire hir crye: To sene hir withe none eye, Ther-to haue we no might. They do hir tormentrye And all the velenye And dreche hir day and nyght. This Mabon and Yrayne Haue sworne her othe certayne To dethe they will hir dight, But she graunte hem tyll To do Mabones will And yeven him her right. (ll.1773–84)

This observation provides the backdrop for the encounter itself, in which the Lady of Synadowne is truly the active player in an odd reversal of gender roles. In the form of a worm, she approaches a quivering and frozen Lybeaus uttering the strange pronouncement “yonge y am nothinge olde” (l.2069), as if she imagines this is the key through which Lybeaus’s revulsion can be reversed. It is interesting that of all the information she could have relayed, she chooses to market herself as youthful. She selfassuredly manages to counter all the female roles henceforth explored in

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the text. As James Weldon (73) puts it, “in her naked, disenchanted state, she counters illicit love with her legitimate marriage and substitutes female consent for parental choice.” The moment of Lybeaus’s “woo” thus heralds an empowering of the feminine; as the Lady of Synadowne casts off that which has concealed her, her identity blossoms. Much like the Princess of Hungre in Undo Youre Dore, she spiritedly controls her situation to the extent of her capabilities, which in the light of her questionable nakedness is all the more socially transgressive. This is clearly a text and overarching story concerned with the limits of female power. Regardless of this, the economy of desire is legitimised and driven by the masculine protagonists. The pursuit of the erotic goal is, in many ways, the very essence of romance. However, both Lybeaus and the Squire are presented as somewhat disenchanted with the framework offered to them by romance. As a man without an identifier other than “Squire,” the reader might well enquire; what is it that defines the Squire? Indeed, the lady herself struggles to make such distinctions, a factor that provides much of the humour in the “undo your dore” episode. The answer to that question is, however, somewhat darker. The actions and intent of the Squire are problematic. He interrupts events as “he was set and served at meate” (l.497), and slinks off into the darkness, not only disrupting the courtly rituals surrounding food consumption but also metaphorically suggesting that another appetite needs to be appeased. He enters through the “posterne gate” (l.505), grasping a phallic “drawen swerd” (l.507) and, most importantly, lies to the lady about being “besette with many a knife” (l.540), if it is assumed that this text utilises linear chronology, which the reader has every reason to believe it does. Here is a “squire of low degree” in valour, attempting to achieve sexual union with his lady before it is legitimised through knightly deeds. A similar motif operates to a lesser extent with Sir Degrevant, but here knightly deeds punctuate an ongoing erotic engagement, and Degrevant has to enter enemy territory with a certain admirable guile in order to come within reasonable distance of the object of his lust: That frely to folde, Wyth love she wondus the knyght, In hert trewly he hyeght, That he shall love that swer wyght, Acheve how hit wold (ll.476–80)

The Squire strives for a complete “short circuit” in the paths of both narrative desire and his own fulfilment. What the Squire strives for, Lybeaus

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gets, at least to some extent. Yet there is something in the Lady of Synadowne’s nudity itself that distresses him, for the description of her unveiling is complementary towards her beauty until her nakedness becomes overtly obvious: So fayre, af all thinke, Woman with-oute lesynge, Saw he neuer ere thoo, But she was moder-naked, As God had hir maked: Therfor was Lybeaus woo. (ll.2089–93)

Weldon (78) suggests that Lybeaus is embarrassed for the lady, and that this is the crux of his unease. This sentiment is only viable in one manuscript version of Lybeaus. In the British Museum Ms Cotton Caligula A II, there is a textual variant that highlights an intense emotion in the Lady of Synadowne; “sche stod be-fore him naked/ and all her body quaked” (ll.2014–15), and which could feasibly betray fear and shame. This, however, is somewhat thwarted in the light of her impending proposal. The version in the Lambeth Palace MS 306, from which the above text is cited, projects a more ambivalent standpoint in which it becomes increasingly unsatisfactory to use shame as a justification for Lybeaus’s grief. If parallel instances of his distress as a character within the text are searched for, an analogous incident during his fight with Maboun the necromancer may be found. The loss of his sword and his recognition of fallibility in battle against such a powerful opponent cause a momentary crisis of masculinity: “For he had lorne his swerde” (l.1991). The deprivation of his gendered and socially resonant appurtenances has a curious effect upon him. For a brief time, he is rendered metaphorically castrated and defunct: Tho was Lybeaus asshamed, And in his harte sore agramed, For he had lorne his swerde, And his stede was lamed And he shulde be defamed To Arthur kinge his lorde. (Lambeth, ll.1509–11)

If feelings of inability and failure provoke this response in the fight prior to the appearance of the worm, this has fascinating repercussions for the way in which his “woo” might be viewed in regards to the naked Lady of Synadowne. Is the text in fact insinuating that the knight does not want the

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lady on the erotic level expected of him? The moral jeopardy of desiring a woman who has been aligned with a serpentine form has not yet been touched upon, and this is of vital contextual importance to the episode. Northrop Frye (51) prudently warns people to be wary of imposing modern value judgements of gender performativity on subjects that are historically removed. Declining the advances of a female who is deemed accessible is no longer the fashionable way in which masculinity is asserted, yet to apply this criticism thoughtlessly to the medieval knight is to disregard the spiritual threat with which libidinous females were commonly associated. The micro-cycles of Lybeaus Desconus contain a notable number of episodes in which Lybeaus battles giants and other males who are aggressive in imparting their hyper-masculinity. Lybeaus is a romance in which, as Hopkins (54) has emphasised, the socially sanctioned desire for the female body is inextricably bound with the particulars of “wede and fassyon.” The beauty contest, in which the desirability of Ellyne and “Geffroun’s lemman” is assessed, is swiftly concluded without any detailed examination, for it is immediately obvious that “be-twene hem was partye” (l.841; l.926), and this gulf is one of material beauty.2 In this economy, a naked body, born like Saint Margaret from the dragon’s womb, is uncanny; it is at once the zenith of sustained excess and a spectacle of all worldy trappings stripped away. In the world of romance, the knight is a fallible entity. Temptations may seduce him and mistakes are permitted to channel their course, as Lybeaus’s lengthy sojourn with the “Dame Amoure” illustrates (Stevens, 80). However, even taking this into account, his horror and loathing in the final encounter seem markedly prominent. In the Lambeth version in particular, he perspires to such an extent that he almost appears to melt into the seat he lies petrified in: Sir Lybeous swelt for swete There he sat in his sete, As all had ben in fyre; So sore he was agaste Hym thought his herte to-braste As she neyhid hym nere. (Lybeaus, ll.2076–81)

In romance, love or, at the very least, erotic desire, are frequently ignited or propagated though visualising the lady who is often placed at a removed level (Stevens, 35). A similar motif operates within the Old French Florence de Rome; although King Garcy does not see the Princess of Rome, he hears of the beauty of Florence from the merchants and falls in love with her:

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Tot me tramble li cors, car forment sui lasses; Par moi n’iert mes ma lance ne mes portez. Alez moi por Florence et si la m’anemez! Je vuel ester de le basiez et acolez, Et en sa belle brace soit mes cors repouses. (ll.109–13)

Garcy is a harmless old man who wants to embrace (“brace”; “happe”) and cuddle (“acolez”; “hodur”) Florence. Even though he has not seen her, and has only heard of her beauty, he wants to marry her. When his messengers return to Constantinople and describe her beauty again, Garcy’s desire to marry Florence becomes inevitable, and the word “brace(r)” refers to his desire for sexual intercourse. Moreover, this is how Degrevant sees Melidor in Sir Degrevant, and indeed, the Squire in Undo Youre Dore frequents the garden ‘under her chamber window’ (l.66) in which he laments. It is curious to note that the parts of a woman on which the knight allows his eye to linger are never those carnal zones directly analogous with nudity. In the Lay of Guingamor, as the protagonist encounters a faery maiden bathing, it is her “limbs, long and smooth” that monopolise the narrative description (Weingartner, l.130). The blazons of beauty found in romances such as The Erle of Toulous herald a similar approach; the male gaze lingers on the exposed flesh at the limits of clothing; her facial features and her “hondys whyte as whallys bone” (Laskaya and Salisbury, l.355). Narrative description of an absent object is leisurely in these texts; literal bodily presence, on the other hand, does not permit the same voyeurism. The female Saint, as the heroine of a hagiographical text, is usually young, beautiful, rich, noble, virgin, naked, and tormented. After miracles, her naked body is concealed and she becomes one of the brides of Christ. In Vie Sainte Fey, St. Faith is illustrated as naked: “they stripped St Faith, and laid her on this throne. The young virgin was laid out naked on this bed, they who did not worship the church, which is the body of Christ, streched out her tender limbs on this bed.” Moreover, the vulnerable naked body of St. Agnes is miraculously concealed through three successive demonstrations of divine intervention. According to Shari Horner, the preservation here is similar to the way in which the princess’s nudity is textually restricted in Undo Youre Dore: “the illicit spectacle of the naked virgin body is immediately subverted by the various coverings which surround and protect it” (37). Admittedly, the lady only succeeds in exposing herself to the corpse of the man she believes is her lover, both within the chamber and at its threshold. If medieval nudity was something to be safeguarded, then in facing his unclothed maiden face-to-face, Lybeaus seems negatively afflicted by its

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brazen presence. The ambiguous “woo” may originate from the troubled allusions to the naked female popularised in contemporary Christian doctrine. If the virgin martyrs are seldom depicted fully naked, it is because nudity aligns itself with another less-virtuous category of women. The most obvious of these is Eve, and the development of iconography surrounding the Fall often included the virgin-headed serpent popularised in contemporary bestiaries and biblical commentary. Flores and Caviness suggest that the figure of lust fuses ideas of the libidinous with the serpentine, for she is commonly a nude woman upon whose erogenous zones snakes and toads feast (Flores, 168; Caviness, 120). Particularly, Caviness asserts that the disobedient wife of Lot receives similar treatment; prior to her unfortunate metamorphosis, the artistic penchant is to portray her as a nude woman readily accessible for pornographic scrutiny (62). Of course, the Lady of Synadowne conversely emerges from a snakish skin and stands devoid of shame in full view of the man she deems her saviour. This is the antithesis of the Man of Law’s “O serpent under femynynytee,” the pervasive metaphor for the duplicitous nature of all descendants of Eve, for in Lybeaus it is the woman herself that is concealed and then unmasked (Benson, l.160). The loss of innocence accrued through the Fall thus experiences a reversal to some extent here. In the Lambeth version of the text, Lady Synadowne does not even seem to acknowledge her absence of clothing, almost as if she is reverted to the prelapsarian state. In Lybeaus Desconus, the prescriptions bound up with both “religious and social nakedness,” as two modes by which the contemporary subject is to understand and approach nudity, clamour to be heard (Miles, 81). The libidinal economies at work in these texts are integral to their structure, and this article postulates that these moments of nudity are seams in the text, ruptures that startle the reader out of complacency. If Frye is right in that pornography has a stultifying effect, whereas the erotic maintains both interest and energy, then Lybeaus Desconus and Undo Youre Dore adhere to this oppositional paradigm (24). In the former, the sustained anticipation required for eroticism is eroded by other sexual encounters during the quest, and thus the naked Lady of Synadowne fails as an erotic object for Lybeaus. Through the denial of sexual resolution in Undo Youre Dore, the lady remains the impetus for the Squire’s quest, despite his measure of reluctance. To have let narrative desire “short circuit” here, to use the terminology of Peter Brooks, would have been a “premature discharge,” a momentum stifled too soon (109). Instead of undressing in the same space, the princess and her Squire are disrobed at a similar time in different spaces; whilst the princess manages to misplace her golden robe, the steward’s men remove the Squire’s “good garmente”

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outside her door (l.652). The door thus becomes a metaphorical breakwater between the two desiring parties. Guingamor experiences similar barriers to the fulfilment of his desire for the naked faery-maiden. He neither halts his quest for the boar nor resists her allure, but instead attempts to direct the narrative in order that he may recapitulate the erotic experience at more leisure: As soon as Guingamor saw her He was stirred by her beauty; He reined in his horse: He saw her clothes on a large tree And went there without delay; He put them in the hollow of ana oak tree; When he had taken the boar He would want to come back here And speak to the maiden; He knew well that she would not leave naked. (ll.434–43)

This intent is similarly thwarted as the maiden duly chastises the knight for his lack of honour. In a curious parallel with this episode, Lybeaus denies the Lady of Synadowne clothing for a considerable measure of narrative time. Indeed, he makes no attempt to dress her before he has had the proposed marriage sanctioned by Arthur. If this were a knight “woo” at her embarrassment, dressing her would surely be a gesture of high priority. It may be suggested that Lybeaus’s denial of her clothing is a conscious decision by which the young knight defers his quest’s end, and unclothed, the Lady of Synadowne is a figure in limbo; she may not be integrated back into society without material adornment. The nakedness of the Lady of Synadowne and the Princess of Hungre is more complicated than the general assumptions of the medieval anti-feministic stereotypes. The portrayal of Synadowne and the princess, elaborated through an emphasis on ambiguity and short circuit, as well as by their actions and interactions across the works, complicates traditional romance ideas of the female gender in the Middle Ages. Thus, Lybeaus Desconus and The Squire of Low Degree undermine the general assumptions of naked female representations.

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Notes 1 Lybeaus Desconus survives in six manuscripts: London, Lincoln’s Inn Library, MS 150 dating from the late fourteenth century; Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale, MS XIII. B.29 dated to 1457; London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 306 dating from the second half of the fifteenth century; London, British Library, MS Cotton Caligula compiled between 1446–60; Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole 61dating from the late fifteenth century; London British Library, MS Additional 27879 (Percy Folio) dated to 1650. The edition from MS Ashmole 61 will be used in this article: George Shuffelton (ed.), Codex Ashmole 61: A Compilation of Popular Middle English Verse (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 2008). Squire of Low Degree survives in one manuscript: London, British Library MS Additional 27879. The edition of Squire from this manuscript will be used: Erik Kooper (ed.), Sentimental and Humorous Romances Kalamazoo, (Michigan: Medieval Institute Publications, 2005). 2 The popular folkloric tale of Melusine is analogous to Lybeaus here, for it combines the curbing erotic desire and voyeurism with the monstrous female in a particularly significant way; on a certain day of the week in which Melusine reverts to a serpentine form, it is imperative that her husband avert his gaze.

Bibliography Augustine. De bono coniugali and De sancta virginitate. In Sancti Aureli Augustini, edited by J. Zycha, CSEL 41, 186–23. Vienna: G. Gerotd, 1900. Beattie, Cordelia. Meanings of Singleness: the Single Woman in Late Medieval England. Unpublished DPhil Dissertation. University of York, 2001. Caviness, Madeline Harrison. Visualizing Women in the Middle Ages: Sight, Spectacle and Scopic Economy. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001. Chaucer, Geoffrey. “The Man of Law’s Tale.” in The Riverside Chaucer (3rd edition), edited by Benson Larry D. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. —. “The Parson’s Tale.” In The Riverside Chaucer (3rd edition), edited by Benson Larry D. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988. Fewster, Carol. Traditionality and Genre in Medieval Romance. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1987. Flores, Nona C. “Effigies Amicitiae …Veritas Inimicitiae: Antifeminism in the Iconography of the Woman-Headed Serpent in Medieval and Renaissance Art and Literature.” Animals in the Middle Ages, edited by Nona C. Flores, 167–95. London: Routledge, 2000.

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Frye, Northrop. The Secular Scripture: A Study of the Structure of Romance. London: Harvard University Press, 1976. Gibbs, Henry (ed.). Chevalere Assigne. Early English Text Society. Extra Series 6, 1898. Herzman Ronald, Graham Drake, and Eve Salisbury. Four Romances of England: King Horn, Havelok the Dane, Bevis of Hampton, Altheston. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1997. Hopkins, Amanda. “Wordy vnthur Wede: Clothing, Nakedness and the Erotic in Some Romances of Medieval Britain.” In The Erotic in the Literature of Medieval Britain, edited by Amanda Hopkins and Cory James Rushton, 53–70. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2007. Horner, Shari. “The Violence of Exegesis: Reading the Bodies of Aelfric’s Female Saints.” In Violence against Women in Medieval Texts, edited by Anna Roberts, 22–43. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1998. Kooper, Erik (ed.). “The Squire of Low Degree (Undo Youre Dore).” Sentimental and Humorous Romances. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2006. —. “Sir Degrevant.” Sentimental and Humorous Romances. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2006. Laskaya, Anne, and Eve Salisbury (eds.). “The Earl of Tolous.” In The Middle English Breton Lays, 319–59. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1995. Micha, Alexandre (ed.). Les Romans de Chrétien de Troyes, Cligés. Paris: Champion, 1970. Miles, Margaret R. Carnal Knowing: Female Nakedness and Religious Meaning in the Christian West. Boston: Beacon Press, 1980. Mills, Maldwyn (ed.). Lybeaus Desconus. London: EETS, Oxford University Press, 1969. Schaus, Margaret C. (ed.). Women and Gender in Medieval Europe: An Encyclopedia. Oxon: Routledge, 2006. Stevens, John. Medieval Romance: Themes and Approaches. London: Hutchinson, 1973. Tertullian. De Cultu Feminarum Libri Duo: Liber I. In De Habito Muliebri, edited by Marie Turcan. 1971. Wallensköld. Florence de Rome: Chanson D’Aventure du Premier Quart du XIIIE Siécle. Paris, 1909. Weingartner, Russell (ed. and trans.). “The Lay of Guingamor.” In Graelent and Guingamor: Two Breton Lays. London: Garland Publishing, 1985. Weldon, James. “Naked as She was Bore: Naked Disenchantment in Lybeaus Desconus.” Parergon 24 (1) (2007): 67–99.

ANGLO-ISLAMIC RELATIONS IN THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD: WILLIAM DAVENANT AND JOHN LOCKE NABIL MATAR UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

Abstract: From the Elizabethan period on, English and Scottish travellers, in common with European merchants, sailors, diplomats, orientalists, and adventurers, noted the toleration/liberality of Islam. It is possible that the poet Sir William Davenant learned about this toleration and celebrated it in the first opera in English history, The Siege of Rhodes. Davenant’s choice of the 1522 Ottoman siege and his focus on Turks inaugurated an interest in oriental heroes that was to become a preoccupation of London playwrights until the beginning of the eighteenth century. By that time, John Locke, for his part, had articulated a theory of toleration of nonChristians in Britain. By studying the Muslim model, Locke concluded that the Christian monarchy of Britain should also grant toleration to nonChristians. Key words: William Davenant, John Locke, The Siege of Rhodes, Islam, Ottoman. The English and Moors seem’d to differ in nothing but Religion.1

The above words were written by William Crooke in an account about the British garrison in Tangier in 1681. In that year, there had been skirmishes with the Moroccan army, and fighting had been brutal. Crooke looked back to the better days of the garrison under the capable leadership of Lord Teviot, when, “affairs [had been] wisely manag’d” (18). Only good leadership, he asserted, could bring back the cooperation, amicability, and successful trade that had prevailed two decades earlier, when Britons had been indistinguishable from the Moors except in their prayers. The traditional historiography of the Renaissance, which began in the nineteenth century with Jacob Burckhardt’s seminal The Civilization of the Renaissance and with Jules Michelet and Walter Pater, paid limited attention to the diplomatic, military, and commercial exchange that took

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place in the Mediterranean basin between West European Christendom and North African and Levantine Islam. Such exclusion culminated in the pronouncement of Arnold Toynbee in his magisterial Study of History that, “the Muslims, the Hindus, and the peoples of the Far East … were outside the cultural world to which we belong.”2 With the appearance, however, of Fernand Braudel’s The Mediterranean World just over a decade later, a vast picture of economic and diplomatic links between the Christian and the Muslim sides of the Mediterranean basin was drawn. Inspired by Braudel’s model, scholars began to examine the implications of those links on the cultural, historical, and literary transformations in the two religious civilizations. In the past two decades, Jerry Brotton, Lisa Jardine, Deborah Howard, Walter D. Mignolo, George Saliba, and others have studied the movement of ideas, manuscripts, and material goods between Italy and France, on the one hand, and the Ottoman, Persian, and Mughal Empires on the other. Their work has enriched our understanding of the Renaissance, strengthening its claims to a European re-awakening. I would like to add England to the list of European countries whose Renaissance was also partly inspired by contacts with the Muslim World, both the Ottoman Levant and North Africa. In this paper, I will focus on the toleration that, from the Elizabethan period on, English and Scottish travellers had noted. They described how Quranic theology advanced the belief that all the prophets of monotheism—Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad—offered equal venues to God. By the Jacobean and Caroline periods, George Sandys, William Lithgow, Henry Blount, and others confirmed that the Muslim Empires, from Istanbul to Aghra, practiced what the Quran preached. Christians and Jews were permitted to live their faith and seek salvation in accordance with their own religious codes. This toleration/liberality that Islam instituted was noted by a wide array of European travellers, merchants, sailors, diplomats, orientalists, and adventurers. They found a mix of peoples, religions, and languages, so much so that Istanbul was, according to Daniel Goffman, a “polylingual, polyethnic, and polyreligious metropolis”3; and so too were Cairo and Aleppo where Edward Pococke learned Arabic at the hands of a local Muslim, who subsequently wrote to him in deep friendship. The cities of Islam provided places of cooperation and acceptance for Christian and Jewish refugees as well as traders and physicians, ascetics and priests. In 1643, Henry Robinson, eager to develop England’s capitalist venture, observed that Protestant merchants were leaving England and other countries to settle not only in America, but also “to live in Turky, or in Italy and Spaine” in order to conduct their business in religious freedom. Furthermore, some Christian princes on the Continent were asking the Turks to

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permit them and their subjects to live in their dominions, “enjoying Liberty of Conscience.”4 It is possible that the poet Sir William Davenant learned about the toleration of Islam and celebrated that toleration in the first opera in English history, The Siege of Rhodes, entered in the Stationers’ Register on August 27, 1656 (as a “maske”).5 A few years earlier, Davenant had presented Oliver Cromwell with a pamphlet, Proposition for the Advancement of Moralitie, by a New Way of Entertainment of the People (1653), in which he suggested that opera, which was popular on the continent but not yet tried in England, be given a chance. Unlike the “lewd” and “effeminate” theatre of the Stuarts, he argued, opera could strengthen the obedience of the people to authority, and promote their sense of patriotism. Perhaps assured of approval, he started writing an opera in 1656 and, as Ann-Mari Hedbäck notes: “Davenant seems to have been one of the first librettists to include Turkish characters.”6 His choice of the 1522 Ottoman siege and conquest of Rhodes and his focus on Turks for an unprecedented kind of English work inaugurated an interest in “oriental” heroes and histories that would preoccupy many playwrights in London until the beginning of the eighteenth century.7 The Siege became, “the most epoch-making play in the English language.”8 The opera developed gradually in three stages of composition and performance/publication in 1656, 1659, and 1663. It brought together the intersection of history and the interregnum literary genre, with Sultan Suleyman representing a historical/political figure, and Roxolana, his wife, modelled after the heroine of French heroic drama. At the time of writing the libretto, continental opera, predominantly Italian, had not yet entered its “Turkish” phase, and was still dependent on mythological themes with no historical verisimilitude.9 But, from the 1580s until the closure of the theatres in 1642, English dramatists had written dozens of plays on Muslim/Turkish/Moorish subjects; and, on the continent, especially France, there were numerous plays about the Ottomans, some of which had included music and dance. Davenant was influenced by these French productions,10 and on Twelfth Night 1638, he contributed his own “Turkish” show. He presented the masque Britannia Triumphans to King Charles, in which he lambasted the “cozening prophet” of Islam in the figure of “Imposture.” This figure appears in a quasi-Turkish outfit, “in a coat with hanging sleeves and great skirts, little breeches, a high crowned hat, one side pinned up,” a reminder of the janissary headgear (175, 267).11

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1656 Perhaps recalling the janissaries, in 1656 Davenant wrote the first part of The Siege, focusing on the figure supremely associated with the janissaries, the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. Davenant realised that he was taking a risk in writing an opera at a time of cultural opposition to dramatic entertainments, which may explain why he called it, “a representation by the art of prospective in scenes, and the story sung in recitative musick,” as the title page states. He doubled the risk by depicting Sultan Suleiman/“Solyman,” the Grand Turk, on stage—a figure who had been negatively associated with Cromwell before the re-imposition of censorship under the Protectorate. As Susan Wiseman has noted, “history and theatrical practice were both visibly politicized” in the 1650s,12 and there was a danger that the Grand Signor would remind the audience of Cromwell, who had become, in the words of the newspaper of royalist leaning, Mercurius Pragmaticus, “as absolute as the Grand Signior.”13 Furthermore, Davenant ended the opera not with the desirable victory of the “Western Nations” over the “Eastern Countries,” but with an uncertain cessation of hostilities as the Christians turned to their wine drinking, and the Turks to coffee. According to Eric Walter White, Davenant chose the OttomanChristian battle because of the, “proximity of [Davenant’s house in] Charterhouse Yard to the Grand Priory of St John of Jerusalem.”14 While the suggestion is feasible, it is more likely that Davenant wrote this “topical play”15 about the siege of Rhodes because of the ongoing Ottoman siege of another Christian island in the Mediterranean, Crete. In 1645, the Ottoman army landed on the island, but was unable to take the capital Candia; the army thus laid siege to the city until it collapsed in 1669 after possibly was the longest siege of a city in history. Davenant’s opera, written as the siege of Crete was in its eleventh year (thus the soldiers in the chorus singing of wine from “Candy” 1.3.4), recalls the standoff between the Rhodians and the Ottomans. At the same time, the Mediterranean setting of the opera reflected current British military and commercial activity there. In April 1656, just a few months before Davenant finished writing the opera, Cromwell had sent a cordial letter to the “Councel of State & war in the city of Algiers” (most likely in the person of Ahmed VI, the dey). He thanked the members for the “honourable respect” they had shown, and rejoiced, “that we have a league with just men.” So cordial had relations become since Blake’s threatening postures that Cromwell thanked them for, “the kinde reception & refreshment which you have given to our fleet & ships sayling to & fro, or trading in your ports.” He

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concluded by promising to, “be usefull to you we offer in like manner on our part, & recommend you to god.”16 That a “Puritan” should express such warmth to an “infidel” is noteworthy. Cromwell could have been polite and accommodating to the dey without adding the invocation at the end of the letter (and which is repeated in the two other versions that have survived: “commend you to the almighty god,” and “recommend you to God”).17 But the Lord Protector was not unhappy about cooperating with the Muslims: it could well be that he admired their strict religiosity, soberness, and, indeed, “Puritanism.” It is not known whether Cromwell had read the Quran, which had recently been translated into English (1649); in a letter written in June 1656, he praised the Algerians for being “in all things … men loving righteousnesse, hating wrong, & observing faithfulnesse in covenant.”18 The words recall a verse describing Muslims in the Quran. Still, even if this was a fortuitous echo, it shows a very open spirit. The Venetians had hoped as early as 1653 that Cromwell would lead a “Protestant crusade against the ‘Turk’,” and in late 1655, they had appealed to him in their Cretan war against the Ottomans.19 But Cromwell refused, and after a devastating defeat of the Ottoman fleet by the Venetians on June 26, 1656, he realised that the Ottomans would have to rely on English ships for trade. After all, and despite their loss, the Turks still held control of the eastern Mediterranean, and Cromwell was fully aware that there was, “too much English capital in the Mediterranean [that would be] vulnerable to Turkish attack.”20 In late August 1656, just about the time The Siege was performed, Cromwell met with the Venetian envoy who again implored him to discontinue cooperation with the “Turks.” But no change in English policy was announced. By December of that year, the Venetians had realised that Cromwell would only extend sympathy to the Cretans, but not military support. Cromwell’s heart was in the trade with the Muslims, and he was fully aware that the East Levant Company merchants would oppose him were he to fight the Algerians and the Tunisians.21 The only war he would launch was the Western Design, which was directed not against the Ottomans of Algiers but the Catholic Spaniards in the Atlantic. In the light of the openness of relations with the Islamic Mediterranean, and notwithstanding the siege of Crete, Davenant created a Solyman who was gracious and tolerant, reflecting the Islamic dignity expressed in Cromwell’s letters. Perhaps Davenant thought these descriptions, coming as they did from Cromwell’s Whitehall, dictated official policy—Muslims were to be viewed graciously because of the “league” between England and Algeria.22 Davenant, of course, could not ignore the confrontation

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between the two religions. From the very start, Solyman appears with the “crescent of the Ottomans” behind him, and for the first time on the English stage, Muslim and Christian armies are presented on canvas hanging behind the scenes, along with props and stage effects that were borrowed from maps of Crete and from illustrations of the Turkish fleet and siege operations. Notwithstanding this verisimilitude, Davenant presented unthreatening Turks—a singing (swinging?) Solyman, pashas, and janissaries. Furthermore, he presented a Turkish sultan who was counterstereotypical to what had been seen on the English stage—he was not a bloodthirsty “Mahometan” intent on killing every Christian he captured, nor a lascivious “Turk” intent on ravishing every Christian maiden. Davenant was able to go beyond the common dramatic type of the “oriental” and present Solyman as a ruler of generosity and honour, especially in regard to Alphonso and his wife Ianthe, a Sicilian couple fighting with the Rhodians against his forces. Alphonso opens by denouncing the Ottoman Solyman as a follower of the “cursed Prophet and his sensual Law” (1.1.84), but later changes and describes him as “wondrous” and “Christian” (3.2.104, 112; see also “wondrous Turkish chastity” [3.2.127]). When Ianthe refuses to remove her veil from her face, Solyman reminds her that Christian women did not hide behind veils; but he submits to her vow. It is not surprising that he “seem’d” to Ianthe “in civil France” (3.2.102).23 Davenant criticised the failure of European powers to come to the help of the beleaguered Rhodes: “Still Christian Wars they will pursue and boast/ Unjust successes gain’d, whilst Rhodes is lost” (1.1. 61–2). He also lambasted England’s Catholic enemies, those with the “triple Diadems, and Scarlet Hats” (2.1.14). Interestingly, Solyman chimed in, pouring scorn on Christians for their loose morality and drunkenness (2.2.35–42). The opera ends in a stalemate, perhaps reflecting conditions in the ongoing siege of Crete. And while Ianthe represented the strengths of the Euro-Christian woman—love combined with military courage—Solyman represented the power, and dignity, of the Ottomans at a time of expanding English commerce in the Islamic Mediterranean. A year later, in August 1657, Cromwell signed a treaty with Tetuan that ensured the safety of all Britons who might find themselves "cast away" upon the North African shore. It also stipulated that Muslim sailors and merchants could have, in the same way that Britons had for decades, "free liberty to buy and ship whatever provision or other necessaryes they shall have occasion of, from any part belonging to the said dominions."24 In February 1658 a similar treaty was signed with Tunis, which included the same articles. One of the last pieces of news that Cromwell received before his death on

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September 3, 1658 was that the English fleet in the Mediterranean had secured peace treaties with Tripoli similar to that with Tunis.25 A couple of months later, Davenant had completed another opera that promoted Cromwell’s foreign policy, The Cruelty of the Spaniards in Peru, which was produced at Cockpit Theatre in Drury Lane in November (Stationers’ Register, November 30, 1658). It was followed by The History of Francis Drake in 1659 (Stationers’ Register, January 20). Both operas supported the anti-Spanish war that had been launched by Cromwell.

1659 Davenant then wrote the second part of The Siege of Rhodes, which was entered in the Stationers’ Register on May 30, 1659, and staged in June. By now, Davenant had become adept at composing operas with contemporary political relevance, for the situation in England was deteriorating sharply. In April of 1659, John Evelyn wrote how Richard Cromwell, who had succeeded his father in September 1658, was “slighted,” and “all [is] anarchy and confusion; Lord have mercy on us” (April 25). Ten days later, Evelyn went to attend Davenant’s The Cruelty of the Spaniards and was distressed that people were watching such a “vanity” at “a time of such public consternation” (May 5). Richard Cromwell resigned that month, ending the Protectorate, and Evelyn wrote how the “nation was now in extreme confusion and unsettled, between the Armies and the Sectaries, the poor Church of England breathing as it were her last; so sad a face of things had overspread us” (May 29). The second part of The Siege of Rhodes continues with the same characters and storyline, although there is much more discussion about jealousy and the role of women than in the first. Significantly, the praise for Solyman is sustained: Ianthe expresses admiration for “The great Example which the Sultan gave/ Of virtue, when he did my honour save, / And yours [Alphonso]” (2.1.143–6). Davenant presents Solyman as a potentate of international power, receiving obeisance from, “Asia, Africa, and European kings” (337). Notwithstanding his seeming omnipotence, the sultan upholds his code of honour by showing respect for his husband-and-wife captives. That is why Ianthe praises, “gracious Solyman [who] will ne’er divide/ The Husband from his Wife” (5.6.200–1). Such is the respect that the Muslim potentate holds for the Christian wife (and her ungrateful husband) that he, the upholder of the Crescent, allows her, the admirably ferocious fighter for the Cross, to negotiate an honourable surrender for the Rhodians. Davenant ends the opera with Solyman, the “model” ruler, as Ann-Mari Hedbäck observes,26 singing of universal love and hope:

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Let Giant-Virtue be the watchfull Guard, Honour, the cautious Guide, and sure reward: Honour, adorn’d in such a Poets Song As may prescribe to Fame What loyal Lovers name Shall farr be spread, and shall continue long. (5.6.218–23)

Was this vision of love and harmony the wish that Davenant had for his troubled England? Would England need a Turk like Solyman, seated in the “Thrones of Monarchs” (5.6.214), to dispel the “confusion” of the uncertain months of 1659? In an undated epilogue to the opera presented to the restored king at Whitehall, Davenant praised the “supream Ottomans high Race, / Who so much honoured Vertue even in Foes,/ That oft when conquer’d they did nothing lose.”27 And in a 1663 dedication of the opera to the Earl of Clarendon, Davenant mentioned the, “civility & magnificence” of Solyman.28 Did Davenant, the ardent royalist, want Charles II to be a new Solyman and the English new Turks? The restored King was, after all, known for his love of music and singing. In this second part, Davenant introduced the figure of Roxolana, the famous/infamous wife of Suleiman. Davenant had ignored her in 1656, but now he saw a role for her. There was a rich legacy of literary and historical representations of Roxolana, both in England as well as on the continent. Most strongly associated with Roxolana, both in chronicle and drama, was her role in the murder of Mustapha. Thus, the 1575 accounts by Painter and Goughe, culminating in Richard Knolles’s The Generall History of the Turkes (1603), and Greville’s play Mustapha. These and other texts created one of the most negative portraits of the “Turkish” woman in English imagination. Whatever the audience may have remembered about the wife of Solyman, they would not have forgotten her use of witchcraft to control her husband, her viciousness in urging him to have his son strangled so hers would inherit the throne, or her deceptive charms and imperious authority.29 While briefly conceding the murder plot, Davenant apparently sought to exonerate Roxolana of the aspersions of historians and dramatists and to rehabilitate her into the model wife. Davenant mentioned the plot by Roxolana to kill Mustapha, but somehow allowed her to justify it on the grounds that, had she not carried out the plot, her son would have paid with his life. It may well be that in those three years between the first and second parts of The Siege, Davenant read some of the French heroic plays about Roxolana. Although Davenant presented Roxolana as an Asiatic woman, her dramatic importance lay not in her role in Ottoman history,

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but as an emotional and cultural counterpart to Ianthe. Where Solyman represented the historical/political side of the Ottomans, Roxolana reflected the gender side in Ottoman society. In her first soliloquy, Roxolana declaims against the culture of the court and the courtiers who, “believe, we Monarchs Wives/ Were made but to be Dress’t/ For a Continu’d Feast” (2.II.iii). She then asserts that she is not like a “European Queen” (2. III.iii.49), to be seen and not heard, and so tries to assume military responsibility by issuing orders to the generals. But such an image is soon undermined when Davenant describes her as a “second Wife,” perhaps to suggest that she could not be as assertive, or convincing, as one presumes the “first” wife would be, although, historically, there had been no other wife to Suleiman. Soon after, and at the same camp where she had given her imperious orders, Roxolana turns into a jealous woman, weakened by her emotions, defeated by the “Rhodian Lady,” Ianthe, and unable to do anything about Solyman’s desire for Ianthe. A few scenes later, Roxolana decides to kill Ianthe in an act of revenge, but fails, finding herself, “Conquer’d who came here to kill” (2 IV.iii.66). This Roxolana is clearly not the woman who engineered the cold-blooded killing of Mustapha in order to ensure succession for her son, and so Davenant has her kiss Ianthe upon recognising the latter’s virtue. Interestingly, Ianthe is not shown kissing her back—this is not an embrace of mutual friendship, but of submission and appeal. Roxolana, again, burst into tears: Perhaps, Ianthe, you may shortly hear Of Clouds, which threatening me, may urge your fear. Be virtuous still! Tis true my Sultan frowns, (She weeps). (2. IV.iii. 157–9)

When Solyman enters on the two women, Roxolana declares her love for him, and because, “former Love you have laid by; / Which, being gone, you know that I can Dye,” she weeps again. (2.IV.iii. 191–2) She weeps yet again as she tries to “break, or melt” the ice of his cold heart (232). Weepy as she is, Davenant still sees in Roxolana a woman of imperial power—she ridicules Western Courts, especially Italian Courts, “where little Princes are but civil Hosts,” and she prides herself that she rules “half the World” (2 V.vi.61), while Ianthe praises her for building to “Religion many Temples,” as indeed Roxolana had done by endowing numerous foundations in Istanbul. Notwithstanding all this power and braggadocio, she is again so humbled by the Christian wife, Ianthe, “so true, and wondrous” (2.V.vi.87) that she “Kisses her” in an act of contrition. That the most powerful queen on earth would kiss her Christian cap-

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tive is not just a sign of the attractive nobility of Ianthe, but also of the womanly softness of the Turk. This portrait of a weeping smoochy Roxolana fits in with Davenant’s goal to show a less-threatening Ottoman polity, both in the person of a singing Solyman and of his weepy wife. Gone is the image that had appeared in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century histories of the woman who was at the centre of court intrigue, assassination, and marital control by sheer sexual ingenuity, the image that appears in the most frequently published book about the Ottoman Empire in England, Knolles’s The Generall History of the Turkes (first published 1603). Not much is left except a helpless, powerless woman, excluded from her husband’s decisions and strategies—a woman with no role in the court or in the camp. That is why she is excluded from the play’s final celebration. Although she stands near Solyman, having begged forgiveness for her jealousy and regained his love, Solyman addresses himself to Alphonso and Ianthe, praising them for their love, and granting them safe passage to Sicily so that they would be spared, as he asserts (perhaps prophetically about Crete), “when Rhodes is lost” (2 V.vi.185). The happy ending celebrates the Christian couple, although there is a nod in the direction of Roxolana and Solyman, their foils. This Roxolana corresponds to the stereotype of the Muslim woman in the English imagination. As numerous travellers and chroniclers noted, the most distinctive characteristic of women in the Ottoman Empire was their familial submissiveness and their separation from political and religious affairs. In 1609, William Biddulph had written in his travelogue that if women in England were treated as they were among the Turks, they would be “more dutifull and faithfull to their husbands.”30 A few years later, George Sandys confirmed how the Turkish woman was faithful to her husband, and gave “him the reuerance of a maister.”31This characteristic captured the approving eye of Alexander Ross who, notwithstanding his vicious attack on Islam, praised the Turks for being, “more modest in their conversation generally than we; Men and Women converse not together promiscuously, as among us.”32 This domestication/feminisation of Roxolana may well have derived from the “softening” in her image on the French stage in Jean Desmare’s tragicomedy Roxelane (1643). As G. Yermolenko writes, there was a, “definite shift in the evolution of dramatic representations of Roxolana” on the French and Italian stages. Davenant was following suit, although his depiction of the weepy Roxolana is uniquely his, and appears nowhere else.33 The subdued figure of Roxolana helps to advance her powerful husband. Would England need a Turk like Solyman, seated in the “Thrones of Monarchs” (5.6.214) to dispel the “confusion” of the uncertain months of 1659?

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1663 In 1663, the two parts of The Siege of Rhodes were published together after they had been, “lately Represented in His Highness the Duke of YORK’s Theatre in Lincolns-Inn Fields. The first Part being lately enlarg’d.” Davenant, who will become a master at “improving” other playwrights’ works, including Shakespeare’s, decided to improve on Part I (but not Part II). And his improvement consisted in reintroducing Roxolana to that Part. Davenant repeated the image of Roxolana of Part II—she is a jealous woman, outmanoeuvred by Ianthe, and desperately trying to get back into the good favours of her husband. She is as maudlin as a teenager, and is not the “fiery … oriental” who was despised by European and Ottoman observers alike for ruling the ruler of an empire.34 The only care she has is to regain the sultan’s love—nothing else: Brave Conquest here where the Taker’s self is taken! And, as a present, I Bring vainly e’re I Dye That heart to him which he has now forsaken. (III.iii)

These lines belong to passages and scenes that were added in the 1663 edition of the play and portray Roxolana as emotionally insecure and in total obedience to her husband. Writing Roxolana back into Part I, Davenant presents a wife who is weak, fearful, and marginalised—that is why she has fewer lines than Ianthe. Further, the lines added in 1663 show her to be even more upstaged by Ianthe than in 1659. Roxolana is now a woman in “cursed Jealousie,” as the chorus of wives sings (IV.iv)—and jealousy was, of course, a most implacable “Turkish” quality. In another added scene, the ridiculousness of Roxolana is highlighted as she chides Solyman, now on the verge of a final attack on the besieged town, that he was more eager to, “take Ianthe rather than the Town” (V.iv). Not only is she jealous, she is also willing to35 subvert royal aspirations to satisfy personal emotions. Roxolana is not a woman driven by lust for power, or vicious in pursuit of an imperial role, as she had been in Knolles; rather, she is an insecure woman trying to regain the love that she fears she has lost. In this respect, Davenant’s depiction of Roxolana yet again confirms her as the obedient Muslim woman whose role was subservient to the powerful character of the Christian. “I have likewise,” he explained in his 1663 preface, “for variety, softened the Martial encounters between Solyman and the Rhodians, with intermingling the conjugal virtues of Alphonso and Ianthe.”36

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After the Restoration, The Siege of Rhodes became widely popular. Samuel Pepys saw it in the Duke’s Playhouse (July 2, 1661); and then numerous times (November 15, 1661, December 27, 1662, May 21, 1667) rehearsed songs from it (December 6, 1665), read it (August 5, 1666), and asked his wife to read to him from it (December 19, 1668). While Davenant continued to view the Christians as his heroes, as the 1663 dedication to the Earl of Clarendon shows, he nevertheless praised the “civility & magnificence” of Solyman.37 Did Davenant, the now-ardent royalist, recognise a heroism in Solyman that he hoped Charles II would assume?38 Whatever the final message of the opera, if there is one, Davenant shows that it might be necessary to learn from the Turks in order to achieve political stability. The Ottomans were no longer the present terror of the world, but possibly the models that needed to be emulated, and at a time of national reconstruction Solyman appeared to be the perfect example, notwithstanding his Turkishness. A decade later, Henry Stubbe would even suggest the Prophet Muhammad as a model of leadership for the British monarch.39 Ottomans and Muslims could be foils for the English and the Christians, but they could also be desirable models. At the same time, and with the rising flamboyance of the Restoration court, the Ottoman woman was being advanced as a model of submissiveness and weepiness—perhaps a model that English male writers wanted women to emulate. The religious harmony of which Solyman sings at the end of Part II could not but strike a chord with British theologians and legal experts, who were beginning to wonder why it was that their country did not demonstrate the breadth and openness to the denominationally and religiously Other that was practiced in the Islamic World. After all, throughout the century, Anglicans persecuted Catholics, Puritans persecuted Anglicans, and both persecuted Quakers and other dissenters. In the 1660s of Charles II, the “Great Persecution,” as the Anglican treatment of the Dissenters was described, recalled (rather exaggeratedly) the Diocletian Great Persecution of the early fourth century (303–5 AD). But how was toleration to be practiced in a kingdom where there was an exclusionary official religion and denomination? How could the breadth that travellers observed in the Muslim Empires be instituted in England? Only at the end of the century did John Locke articulate a theory of toleration of non-Christians in Britain. His theory, the first philosophical inquiry in European thought about the political, not theological, status of the religiously other, specifically included the “Turban’ed Nations,” as he called Muslims. Locke, who had studied Arabic under Edward Pococke, was familiar with the model of Islamic toleration through his reading of

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travel accounts about the Levant and North Africa. In his library, he had a copy of Paul Rycaut’s extensive description of the Ottoman Empire, and a manuscript of a dialogue between a Jew and a Muslim written in Arabic and translated by his friend John Greaves. Locke also knew Jean Bodin’s Six Books on the Commonwealth, in book four of which he would have found high praise for Islamic tolerance; and he possessed a copy of the French translation of the Quran by Andre du Ryer, which had appeared in 1647.40 By studying the Muslim model, Locke concluded that similar to the toleration that was granted to Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Empire, the Christian monarchy of Britain should also grant toleration to non-Christians, and not just toleration, but—and this is his phrase—full “civil rights.” Such civil rights should never be questioned, he continued, despite the fear of the Ottomans that he and the rest of Europeans felt in the second half of the seventeenth century. Nor did Locke allow the Ottoman fear to justify the detraction of the Muslim religion and social custom. As he declared in his famous Letter Concerning Toleration (1689): Neither pagan nor Mahometan nor Jew ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the commonwealth because of his religion.41

Locke urged the integration of Muslims in British society because he believed that they possessed divine law through revelation. “The Alcoran … being taken for a divine law it would have served men who made use of it and judged of their actions by it to have given them notions of morality or Moral Ideas.” Muslims in obedience to the Quran exemplified the moral ideas that Britain’s Glorious Revolution proclaimed. For that reason, Muslims, along with others who lived by moral ideas, should be part of the kingdom. After all, he continued, people upheld the same religion that their parents and community upheld. No religious group therefore had the divine authority to judge another since all men, Muslims, Christians and Jews alike, were error prone, and judgment on their error did not lie with the state magistrate but with God: In this, whether and how far any one is faulty, must be left to the Searcher of hearts, the great and righteous Judge of all men, who knows all their circumstances, all the powers and workings of their minds: where it is they sincerely follow, and by what default they at any time miss truth. God, we are sure, will judge uprightly.42

For Locke, religion could not and should not serve as an obstacle for full integration in the body politic. In this respect, he was unique in removing the discussion about the status of the minority from the vehemence of

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theological certitude to the field of cultural diversity. Locke realised that religion always carried with it cultural markers, but neither religion nor cultural markers, he believed, destabilised citizenship or threatened obedience to the crown. Over a century earlier, Francisco Nuñez Muley had made his famous plea of 1567 on behalf of the Moriscos of Spain, arguing that local traditions and ceremonies did not signify anti-Christian/Spanish national allegiance, but a unique historical culture with no danger to the political institution.43 Locke adopted a similar position as he turned to the example of the turban that Muslims wore to show how such a religiocultural habit did not threaten national unity or identity. Where for Davenant the exchange with Islam was imaginary and stage-based, for Locke, it was theoretical, and remained so until the nineteenth century when Muslims were legally integrated into the fabric of British society.

Notes 1

William Crooke, The Moores Baffled: Being a Discourse Concerning Tanger (1681), 18. 2 Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History, abridged. D.C. Somervell (New York and London: Oxford University Press, 1947), vol. 1:1–11. 3 Daniel Goffman, The Ottoman Empire, 54. 4 Henry Robinson, Liberty of Conscience: Or the Sole means to obtaine Peace and Truth (1643), “Epistle Dedicatory” and p. 10. 5 It was performed at the “Cupboard Stage” of Rutland House on Aldersgate Street (near Holborne), sometime in September 1656. 6 The Siege of Rhodes, lxxviii. 7 See the survey of plays by Louis Wann, “The Oriental in Restoration Drama,” University of Wisconsin Studies in Language and Literature, 2 (1919): 163–86. 8 www.poemHunter.com/sir-william-daveneant/biography/poet-7142. 9 In 1622, the “Ballet de monseigneur le prince” in Paris included among the dramatis personae a Turk by the name of “Augustin,” although it is not clear if Davenant knew of this work, M. De Beauchamps, Recherches sur les Theatres de France (Paris, 1735), 3:82. 10 For possible French sources, see the introduction in Sir William Davenant, The Siege of Rhodes, edited by Ann-Mari Hedbäck (Upsala: 1973); see, especially, Alwin Thaler, “Thomas Heywood, D’Avenant, and The Siege of Rhodes,” PMLA 39 (1924): 624–41. 11 The Dramatic Works of William D’Avenant (New York: Russell & Russell. Inc., 1964), vol. 2. For a careful study of the opera, see Matthew Birchwood, “Turning to the Turk: collaboration and conversion in William Davenant’s The Siege of Rhodes,” in Re-mapping the Mediterranean World in Early Modern English Writings, edited by Goran V. Stanivukovic (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 207–26.

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12 Susan Wiseman, Drama and Politics in the English Civil War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 163. Wiseman’s discussion of The Siege provides a helpful background to Anglo-Turkish interaction and representation, 151– 64. 13 For a discussion of Cromwell and his Turkish association, see Glenn E. Sanders, Puritanism and its Discontents, edited by Laura Knoppers (University of Delaware, 2003), 167–93. 14 A History of English Opera (London: Faber and Faber, 1983), 65, 71. 15 The Siege of Rhodes, lxvii. 16 Wilber Cortz Abbott, The Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell (New York: Russell & Russell, 1937–47), 4:149. 17 Ibid., 149–50, notes. 18 Ibid. 4:184–5. 19 Daniel Goffman, Britons in the Ottoman Empire, 1642–1660 (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1998), 191, 192. Did the Venetians recall that their forebears in 1481 had invited the Turkish ambassador to the city to participate in the Corpus Christi festival? R. Schwoebel, The Shadow of the Crescent: The Renaissance Image of the Turks (Nieuwkoop 1967), 179. 20 Christopher Hill, God’s Englishman, 154, quoted by Wiseman, Drama and Politics in the English Civil War. 21 As Goffman explains, “Bendysh at Istanbul, Charles Longland at Leghorn, and other career diplomats had helped convince him [Cromwell] of the commercial risks of overt hostility against the Turks,” 193. See also Julian S. Corbett, England in the Mediterranean (Cranbury NJ: The Scholar’s Bookshelf, 2005, 1st ed. 2005), 258. 22 Abbott, The Writings, 4:184. 23 As Alfred Harbage noted, “Solyman combines augustness and generosity to a greater extent than any of the author’s previous characters,” Sir William Davenant (New York: Octagon Books, 1971, originally publ. 1935), 247. 24 Writings and Speeches, ed. Abbott, 4:919. 25 Corbett, 1:339 26 The Siege of Rhodes, xli. See also p. l: “Davenant’s Solyman is a heroic figure, victorious and raised above every one else both in valour and honour.” 27 The Works of Sr. William Davenant Kt. (1673), 340. 28 The edition by Ann-Mari Hedbäck, n. p. 29 For a full study of the history of Roxolana in European literature and imagination, see the extensive collection of essays and translations in Galina Yermolenko (ed.), Roxolana in European Literature, History and Culture (Farnham, Burlington: Ashgate, 2010). 30 William Biddulph, The Travels of Certain Englishmen into Africa, Asia, Troy, Bythinia, Thracia, and to the Blacke Sea (London: Th. Haueland, 1609), 86. 31 Sandys, A Relationship, 55. 32 Alexander Ross, A View of all Religions in the World (London: Sarah Griffen, 1663, first publ. 1652), 172.

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33 Yermolenko’s Roxolana in European Literature, History and Culture (2010) is an exhaustive study of the image of the Ottoman Queen from the sixteenth to the twentieth centuries. The quotation is from 34. 34 Bridget Orr, Empire on the English Stage, 1660–1714 (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2002), 69. 35 See the discussion of this Christian ascendancy in Haitham Abdul Aziz Saab, “Davenant’s The Siege of Rhodes and the New Attitude Towards the Orient,” International Journal of Arabic-English Studies 2 (2001): 27–42. 36 The edition by Ann-Mari Hedbäck, n. p. 37 Significantly, as Bridget Orr observes, Solyman became an admired figure in English drama between 1658 and 1675 (Orr, 84). And if, as Ann-Mari Hedbäck states, Ianthe is to be identified with Henrietta Maria—through the sale of jewels to raise funds for the military campaigns of their respective husbands—Davenant added the scene of the sale in 1663 (I.ii), perhaps to appeal to Charles II by a favourable analogy with a portrayal of his mother. 38 Henry Stubbe and the Beginnings of Islam, ed. Nabil Matar (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), introduction. 39 For a discussion of whether or not Locke had read the Hayy bin Yaqzan text, see G. A. Russell, “The Impact of the Philosophus audodidactus: Pococke, John Locke and the Society of Friends,” in G. A. Russell (ed.), The “Arabick” Interest of the Natural Philosophers in Seventeenth-Century England (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994), 224–66. 40 Locke, A Letter Concerning Toleration, 56. 41 A Third Letter for Toleration (1692), in Works, VI, 298. 42 See K. Garrad, “The Original Memorial of Don Francisco Núñez Muley,” Atlante 2 (1954): 198–226.

CITY WITHIN A CITY: THE PAKISTANI GHETTO IN MAPS FOR LOST LOVERS BY NADEEM ASLAM A. NEJAT TÖNGÜR MALTEPE UNIVERSITY

Abstract: Britain has transformed into a multicultural, multi-ethnic, multi-racial, and multi-faith society after successive waves of immigration since the onset of the mass migration from the former colonies in the 1950s. The Pakistani immigrants in Nadeem Aslam’s Maps for Lost Lovers have obviously set up a microcosm of the Pakistani society, as they have maintained their daily routine, traditions, cuisine, religious festivals and mosques, language, clothes, and pastimes in this enclave. The Pakistani ghetto stands aloof from the British society with its own rules, standards, faith, community, economy, and reality. If it were not for the racist and discriminatory practices of unnamed and invisible white people, there are hardly any white men or women in the lives of the Pakistani immigrants in Maps for Lost Lovers. Ghetto life provides a safe haven in which the inhabitants are able to endure and minimise the economic, social, and linguistic hardships through kinship and solidarity. However, the diasporic people in the novel are portrayed to be suffering from the claustrophobic atmosphere of a close-knit community, patriarchal family structure, consanguineous marriages, and honour crimes—all of which culminate in ignorance, hypocrisy, injustices, complications, inter-generational conflicts, violence, abuse, superstitions, corruption, bigotry, and intolerance. Key words: Nadeem Aslam, Maps for Lost Lovers, immigration, ghetto, Pakistani diaspora

According to the 2011 census, the number of immigrants totalled around eight million out of a population 63 million people living in the United Kingdom. Rather than dispersing randomly into the cities, most of the immigrants clustered in certain localities of the big cities with people of the same ethnic and religious background. Most of the major cities in Britain, such as Leicester, Birmingham, Bradford, London, Leeds, Sheffield,

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Liverpool, Manchester, and Bristol, had heavily concentrated ethnic minority populations in the 1990s and 2000s (Hatton and Price, 20; Peach, 232; Adam, para. 8). Today, “Britain can boast a wide variety of diaspora communities that may trace connections to locations such as Australia, Africa, South Asia, the Caribbean, China or Ireland” (McLeod, 206). However, hundreds of thousands of immigrants could not adapt or integrate into Britain rapidly and smoothly because, “establishing roots and attempting to adjust to the dominant society are not free of conflicts, tensions, and ambivalences” (Ramraj, 223). Even if the immigrants were eager and willing to socially and economically adapt, integrate, or be assimilated into Britain, they “could not have done it without a welcoming hand from [their] new compatriots. Such generous gestures were rarely forthcoming. Instead, there was stinginess and suspicion, at both local and government level” (Kabbani, para. 6). Kirpal (59) also believes that the attitudes and reactions of the host society led to the withdrawal of the immigrants into certain localities: Eager for assimilation, he is met with repudiation (manifested as racial prejudice and racial discrimination) in the new land. Overtly, he is rejected on the basis of his colour (emblem of his race). Covertly, he is disclaimed because the white host sees in him the oppressed slave of colonial times, who has come from an inferior, technologically-backward, underdeveloped country to seek his protection and asylum. The migrant experience of homelessness, universal in all immigrants, is exacerbated in the Third World emigre because of the host’s unwillingness to treat him as an equal after all the loud declarations of assimilation made during the period of colonisation, and the promises of citizenship. The Third World immigrant sees through the deception, perceiving assimilation for the first time, not as a melting pot of different peoples and ideas, but as a tool for securing the other’s (the migrant’s) allegiance to the obviously superior, rational, civilised, achievement-oriented Western culture. The migrant reacts by withdrawing, and expressing his difference and divorce from the white man’s value system.

Bhugra and Becker voice similar concerns over the issue, and they pay attention to the move of the immigrants from predominately sociocentric, or collectivistic, societies into a society that is predominately egocentric, or individualistic. In order to relieve the problems the immigrants face, they “maintain ties to the culture of origin, either through increased ethnic density, improved social support or maintenance of religious beliefs and practice” (6–7). Peach also maintains the idea that chain migration may trigger the clustering of immigrants, and that, “hostility from the society within which the settlement takes place can reduce the ability of the group

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to disperse and defence may be an important element in clustering” (228). Immigrants who confronted social, cultural, economic, and linguistic problems in Britain sought the support and assistance of fellow countrymen. Potter also relates the settlement patterns of immigrants to, “the emotional and instrumental support through their social contacts at early stages of settlement … The construction of these ethnic neighbourhoods has the advantage of concentrating informational, social and economic resources, and support” (9–10). Paradoxically, Massey believes that the existence of fellow countrymen in the host country increases the likelihood of more immigration due to the consideration that these ties, relatives, or friends function like anchors as, “they lower the costs of migration, which include the direct monetary costs of making a trip, the information and search costs paid to obtain a new job, the opportunity costs of foraging income while searching for work, and the psychic costs of leaving a familiar environment and moving to a strange setting” (24). Weiner (53) also draws attention to the bifunctional aspect of ghetto life: The creation of an enclave within the new homeland is sometimes regarded as an impediment to the process of assimilation, particularly to learning the new language and culture of the host society. At the same time enclaves are often seen as a haven which enables the migrant to adjust to the new environment. It makes a difference, however, if the enclave is a permanent ghetto or a half-way station, whether socially mobile members of the immigrant community are freely able to move into the larger society or are restricted to the ghetto through the housing and employment practices of the larger community … self-segregation accompanied by limited education and employment opportunities will sustain separateness and often generate conflict between the migrants and the indigenes and among various migrant communities.

Consequently, these ethnic neighbourhoods where immigrant populations are clustered transform into economically, culturally, ethnically, religiously, and linguistically segregated ghettos, which are defined as, “a residential district which is almost exclusively the preserve of one ethnic or cultural group” (Eyles, in Peach, 216). In “psychological or material ghettos” (Kabbani, para. 6), “residential concentration which prevents all contact with the mainstream society can be a serious hindrance to the integration of the individual, and of the ethnic community” (Potter, 10). So, the life in the ghettos constricts the vessels of contact to the British society and slows down the adaptation and integration of the ethnic communities. In these ethnic enclaves, the communities continue to live with their traditions, lifestyles, religion, economy, language, and reality. As an inevitable result of their segregation, “the integration or assimilation process in the ghettos

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is so slow … that in many cases it will never happen” (Jun, para. 5). The Pakistanis in Britain have shown the same tendency to come together in the ghettos. The number of Pakistani immigrants in Britain was found to be 1,174,987, the second largest ethnic group after the Indians, in the 2011 Census. The figures were 476,000 and 747,283 in the 1991 and 2001 Censuses, respectively. Although the first-generation Pakistani people came to Britain in the 1960s and the 1970s to work in the British textile industry, they did not intend to stay permanently as, “they planned to stay just as long as it took them to earn enough money for a return home in prosperity” (Schulz, para.4). Indeed, the Pakistani settlement patterns were marked by chain migration based on kinship ties (Anwar, in Adouno, 30; Hatton and Price, 43–4), and the work patterns of the Pakistani immigrants determined their residence in inner-city areas in northern textile towns. After the manufacturing industry collapsed with economic regression, the whites and the Afro-Caribbeans moved to other areas (Kundnani, 1; Bodi, “Ghettos in the North,” para.7), whereas the unemployed and mostly unskilled Pakistani men tried other jobs instead of returning to Pakistan (Modood, 349; The Economist, “Race and Immigration: A New Kind of Ghetto”), because they had already brought parents, prospective wives, and relatives over (The Economist; Bodi, “Ghettos in the North,” para.8). Pakistani people, and particularly women, are the most disadvantaged among the diasporic communities (Abercrombie, Warde, and Deem, 254– 7; Hatton and Price, 22–40; Algan, Dustman, Glitz, and Manning, 10–24; Schulz, para. 8). There is widespread poverty among the Pakistani people, who are also, “still disproportionately located in inner-city areas, and are the most residentially segregated of all groups” (Modood, 343). But the foremost dynamic in the creation of the exclusively Pakistani ghettos is the racist and discriminatory practices the Pakistani people are exposed to in Britain. Khan and Khan note that, “British Pakistanis are 8 times more likely to be victims of a racist attack than white individuals. The chances of a Pakistani being racially attacked in a year are more than 4%—the highest rate in the country, along with British Bangladeshis. Though, this has come down from 8% a year in 1996” (93). Kundnani also relates ghettoisation to the rising incidents of racial violence that resulted in “selfsegregation—the attempt by Asians to create their own exclusive areas or ‘no-go areas’ because they did not want to mix with whites” (para. 10). Prompted by their desire to minimise the likelihood of racist slurs and practices by withdrawing into the safe areas, “the British Pakistani citizens … are concentrated within 20 constituencies—demonstrating their close knit communities” (Wade, para. 5). As a matter of fact, behind the walls of their mini-Pakistans, the Paki-

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stanis preserve, “components of cultural identity including religion, rites of passage, language, dietary habits and leisure activities” (Bhugra and Becker, 5). Bhugra and Becker also claim that, “religious rituals and beliefs, even if not followed as an adult, make up a key component of an individual's cultural identity,” as well as their linguistic competence (5). They also suggest that: Attitudes to food and food preparation … are a component of cultural identity that can be influenced by religious teachings. Leisure activities, including music, movies, sports, and literature, are important components, along with language and religion, in allowing an individual to feel part of their culture while living in a place with a different culture and may or may not change during the acculturation process. Social and cultural qualities and attitudes are typically more resistant to change and are usually last to adjust during acculturation. (Ibid.)

In these enclaves, Pakistanis are able to preserve, practice, and enforce their, “Muslim religion, language, halal dietary requirements, [and] cousin marriages” by means of, “strong network contacts which are preserved by geographical proximity” (Peach, 233). They live as if they were still in Pakistan as, “almost all the women wear the traditional Salwar Kameez, their lives are restricted to their homes and the local Asian shopping streets, [and] they speak the languages of their old home rather than English” (Schulz, para. 10). Bodi (“Ghetto Blasted,” para. 6) notes that: The ethnic exclusivity of certain areas only aggravates matters. In Bradford this has taken on an extreme dimension with the Pakistani community fragmented further along ethnic lines. Lidget Green is predominantly Pathan, as is Bradford Three (Bradfordians know their city by its postal divisions). Manningham on the other hand consists of mainly Kashmiris. Of course within these ghettos, the Bangladeshis have their own little clusters, as do Sikhs and Hindus.

All these issues find an echo in Maps for Lost Lovers (2004) by Nadeem Aslam, in which he explores the lives of Pakistanis in a tightly-knit Pakistani ghetto in an unnamed city in Britain in the mid-1990s. The first and second generation Pakistani immigrants in the novel have obviously set up a mini-Pakistan in Britain with few Indian, Bangladeshi, Sikh, and even fewer British, people in their lives, and with minimum contact with the mainstream British society outside the ghetto they have renamed Dashte-eTanhaii—the Wilderness of Solitude/Desert of Loneliness. The murder of two lovers, Chanda and Jugnu, offers insights into this unnamed Pakistani ghetto.

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Like other immigrant ghettos, the Pakistani ghetto stands aloof from the British society within which it remains distinct, with its own rules, standards, faith, community, economy, and reality. Typically, the neighbourhood was ghettoised after they moved there. In time, the whites and the Hindus left, “leaving behind the Pakistanis, the Bangladeshis, and a few Indians, all of whom work in restaurants, drive taxis and buses, or are unemployed” (Aslam, 46). The Pakistani immigrants in Dashte-e-Tanhaii have obviously set up a microcosm of the Pakistani society, as they have maintained their big families, close ties, daily routine, traditions, cuisine, religious festivals and mosques, language, clothes, pastimes, respect for their elders, and a strong sense of family in this enclave even generations after migration (Ray, 2; Wade, para. 10). As Abercrombie, Warde, and Deem claim, when they first came to Britain the Pakistani people believed they would eventually return to Pakistan, so they did not want to buy any items that they would not be able to take with them (252). Consequently, they did not, “go through the process of redefining their identity, a process that is central to assimilation and incorporation” (Weiner, 52). For Kaukab, as was the case for most firstgeneration immigrants, her stay in Britain would be temporary, “but things didn’t turn the way [they] thought they would. Decades passed and [they] are still here” (Aslam, 148–9). Therefore, immigrants like Kaukab are trapped and desperate. Kaukab bitterly voices her dilemma: “I refuse to settle [in Pakistan] permanently even though there is nothing I would like better. There is nothing on this planet that I loathe more than this country, but I won’t go to live in Pakistan as long as my children are here” (Aslam, 149). The ghetto not only segregates the Pakistanis physically from the rest of British society but also severs their link with the British people mentally, psychologically, and linguistically. Having imported their religion, language, customs, attitudes, habits, food, clothes, and lifestyles with them, the Pakistanis have established a microcosm of Pakistan in Britain where they hardly ever need to speak English. Instead of adapting to the circumstances and lifestyle in Britain, they have altered, adopted, and appropriated their environment according to their tastes, habits, and traditions. “Perhaps as a mechanism of defence against total facelessness—to cling to his own traditions and to mix with people of his own country” (Kirpal, 48), the Pakistani changes his surroundings according to his taste, traditions, and habits. Although Shamas is one of the few people who can, “negotiate the white world on its own terms” (Aslam, 15), he paints the rooms of their house the same colours as the house in Pakistan in which he was born and lived until his 20s in order to create a familiar atmosphere

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for him and his family. In a similar manner, “the chrysalis fluttered into the adjoining drawing room where the vase Shamas had brought from Pakistan in the 1950s—as a reminder of home—was on the glass table …” (21). With similar feelings, the immigrants in the novel rename the roads, streets, and boroughs with the names they import from Pakistan, India, and Bangladesh, such as “Annemarie Schimmel Street,” “Muridke,” “Saddam Hussein bus station,” “Habib Jalib Street,” “Ustad Allah Bux Road” (174, 249), “so that they do not sound so unfamiliar” (Weingarten, 7–8). Although the town in question is apparently in Britain, the inhabitants have changed all the names: As in Lahore, a road in this town is named after Goethe. There is a Park Street here as in Calcutta, a Marabar Hill as in Bombay, and a Naag Tolla Hill as in Dhaka. Because it was difficult to pronounce the English names, the men who arrived in this town in the 1950s had re-christened everything they saw before them. They had come from across the Subcontinent, lived together ten to a room, and the name that one of them happened to give to a street or landmark was taken up by the others, regardless of where they themselves were from. But over the decades, as more and more people came, the various nationalities of the Subcontinent have changed the names according to the specific country they themselves are from—Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, and Sri Lankan. (Aslam, 29)

Indeed, “each road is renamed with reference to a part of the Indian subcontinent from whence a specific minority group hails” (Moore, 6), and “to make the new place inhabitable by laying claim on its intelligibility” (Lemke, 173). Indeed, as Shamas voices, giving Pakistani, Bangladeshi, or Indian names to roads, streets, avenues, and neighbourhood is an effort, “to give the map of this English town a semblance of belonging— amassing a claim on the place bit by bit …” (Aslam, 159). The Pakistanis portrayed in the novel are also intent on appropriating their food in Britain by slaughtering, cooking, and serving meat according to the halal tradition. The use of spices for food is interestingly a determinant in their isolated lifestyle from the mainstream of the British society, because: “The smell penetrates. In Pakistan it gave no trouble because the houses there were—are—big and airy and nothing lingers. But here the rooms are small and closed up, and the smell refuses to shift” (Aslam, 107). Therefore, “the whites call the Asians ‘smelly’ but they do have a point: the coats are hung in the kitchens and the pungent smells of the spices get into them. The Asians who have moved out to the suburbs also call the Asians in this poor neighbourhood ‘smelly’ and ‘stinky’ …” (305). Instead of becoming an integral part of the British society, they remain as outsiders due to linguistic, economic, social, religious, cultural, and

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psychological barriers, and they preserve the ethnic exclusivity of their neighbourhood. They are so separated from the British society at large that they may threaten a child that, “he would be handed over to a white person if he didn’t behave, a threat that had reduced his siblings into submission when they were his age” (74). In a similar manner, one of the Pakistani girls is, “told to behave herself or she’ll be given away to a white person who’ll make her eat pork and drink alcohol and not wash her bottom after going to the toilet—forcing her to use only toilet paper” (225). Apparently, the ghetto life provides the Pakistanis with a safe haven in which they are able to endure and minimise the economic, social, and linguistic hardships through kinship and solidarity. Dahya argued that Pakistani concentration in multi-occupied accommodation was a preferred, not an enforced, strategy (in Peach, 228). Dahya claimed that, “chain migration by village and family, the desire to maximize savings, shared language and religion, culinary needs and so forth all argued in favour of sharing accommodation” (Ibid.). The mainstream of the British society and the British people are outside, far away, and irrelevant to them if it were not for the racist practices they are sometimes exposed to. Despite little contact with the English people, the Pakistani community in Dashtee-Tanhaii suffers from occasional physical attacks, white drunkards who roam the streets after the pubs are shut, verbal abuse, humiliation, and racist and discriminatory acts like dropping a pig’s head outside the mosque. Because of, “fear of racial harassment outside the ghettos” (Jun, para. 10), they prefer to stay within the borders of the ghetto, so that the Pakistanis are, “held together by negative forces … [and] a solidarity based on siege mentality, of protecting the group at all costs in the face of external threats” (Waterman, 20). In the ghettos, which are physically and mentally separated from the larger British society, they desperately need instruments through which they can reassert their identities. Religion is the most powerful outlet to prove their existence and cement together the Pakistanis, because, “religion can preserve values within the community and foster a sense of belonging” (Bhugra and Becker, 5). In support of this idea, Kerlivio suggests that, “religion is generally assumed to reinforce the ethnicity of an immigrant group, if it is different from that of a receiving country” (in Bengtsson, 9). Pakistani, Indian, and Bangladeshi people from the sub-continent devoutly practice their religious rituals and practices according to their Muslim, Sikh, Hindu, or Buddhist faiths in the ghetto, where “the closeness of the mosque” matters (Jun, para. 10). While the Muslims practice their religion in the mosque and the Hindus in their temple, the Sikhs in the area start to cast the ashes of their dead into the nearby river just like

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they do in the sub-continent. Evidently, their, “religion is another central matter that serves to distinguish the Pakistani community” from the people of other religions (Bengtsson, 9). Although the Pakistanis “set up an isolated ‘colony’ to combat all that is ‘foreign and strange’ to their customs and traditions” (Butt, 157) and live in the manner they wish and are accustomed to, the ghetto life does not offer a heaven that supplies them with immunity. The results of “clos[ing] the doors on anything contrary to their culture … reject[ing] any cultural form that is not in accordance with their traditions and taboos” (Butt, 159) do not bring them peace, stability, or happiness. On the contrary, the diasporic people in the novel are portrayed as suffering from the claustrophobic atmosphere of close-knit community, patriarchal family structure, consanguineous marriages, and honour crimes, all of which culminate in ignorance, hypocrisy, injustices, superstitions, complications, inter-generational conflicts, violence, abuse, corruption, bigotry, and intolerance. The patriarchal family structure and traditional distribution of roles are visible in their lives with specified wifely and husbandly duties. Particularly for women, it is more difficult to live within the confines of the ghetto where they, “rarely need to venture outside. The women are totally isolated. The majority of them are brought to England to have children. They are coming from a remote village, and suddenly they find themselves in a society they know nothing about" (Jun, para. 6). The Pakistani women have to act properly according to the roles defining them as wife, mother, sister-in-law, or relative. Kaukab explains what is expected from a proper Pakistani woman: “she must never take the last of something in case someone else needs it, and she must never take the first helping or cook something especially for herself because it indicates an indecent lack of restraint” (Aslam, 96). Similarly, according to Kaukab: “Looking after the children is the woman’s job while the man gets on with his work … Parents are supposed to hit children, disciplining them … Too much freedom isn’t good for anyone or anything” (59). To follow the traditions, Kaukab tried, “to obtain legitimacy for her decisions by invoking [her husband’s] name … She had cast him in the role of the head of the household and he had to act accordingly” (113). In the mini-Pakistan, the Pakistani people have their own clinic run by Pakistani doctors, which sometimes gives advertisements in the Urdu newspapers: “We tell you the sex of the foetus while you wait.” Shamas knows what insidious and cruel message these ads give: “so that if it’s female you may have it aborted quickly” (89, italics in original). Islamic laws take precedence over British secular laws. Anxious couples visit the

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clerics at the mosques, who may order the cutting down of a tree that hosts djinns, or the beating to death of a rebellious girl possessed by djinns. Mothers are too concerned with the marriage, honour, and dignity of their daughters because honour crimes are widespread, and the parents suffer from the consequences of their daughters’ so-called inappropriate behaviour and actions. The Pakistanis, most of whom are, “involved in organized crime called arranged marriages” (108), consider consanguineous marriages, preferably between cousins, as the only reasonable and moral way of family union. They stubbornly keep their formalities, codes, rituals, customs, and ceremonies intact. The community tries to cover up the sins, crimes, and inappropriate behaviour of fellow countrymen in order to not defame the community as a whole. Their, “horizons [are] bounded by the invisible but very real walls of the ghetto” (Bodi, “Ghettos in the North,” para. 8), which materialise as the Ustad Allah Bux Street for Kaukab because she dares not cross beyond that street due to her consideration that, “white people’s houses start soon after that street, even the Pakistanis there are not from our part of Pakistan” (Aslam, 42). Obviously, Dashte-eTanhaii is, “a transplanted Pakistani village, its language and customs and religion more or less intact. It is a place where ancestral feuds and gossip are carried over from the homeland, where the diktats of clerics supersede English common law and arranged marriages are the norm. The society at large is kept resolutely at bay” (Kapur, para. 2). The close-knit community apparently fosters gossip, superstitions, bigotry, hypocrisy, interference and intolerance, so the inhabitants of all ethnic and religious backgrounds come to believe a Pakistani saying: “He whom a taunt or jeer doesn’t kill is probably immune to even swords” (Aslam, 197). Because their contact with the larger British community is constricted and minimised, the Pakistani people inevitably know very much about each other, and interfere with and talk about each other’s lives, businesses, and affairs. In order to not be shunned or stigmatised by fellow countrymen or women, they are extremely cautious about their actions and behaviour, because, “in this neighbourhood … the people are making you feel that it was you who was the odd one out” (120). The Pakistanis come to believe that, “this neighbourhood is a place of Byzantine intrigue and emotional espionage, where when two people stop to talk on the street their tongues are like the two halves of a scissors coming together, cutting reputations and good names to shreds,” as a result of the concentration of so many people with the same ethnic, religious, cultural, familial, or social background (180). The taxi drivers in particular are very instrumental in, “spreading news to all corners of Dashte-e-Tanhaii through their radios—who was seen when and with whom and where—

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and [Mah Jabin] always avoids a conversation with them, letting them listen to their Hindi music or taped sermons of Muslim clerics” (123). To conclude, the atmosphere in the Pakistani ghetto vibrates with tension, fear, and misery due to social, economic, cultural, and criminal problems. The Pakistani people keep their contact with people of different nationalities like the British, the Indians, and Bangladeshis, and with the people of separate religions like Hindus, Christians, and Sikhs, at a minimum level. “Therefore, you know, it became part of their culture to live within their ghetto. And they don’t show any intention to integrate with the society” (Jun, para. 7). They live in this enclosed parallel society with their code of shame and honour, their separate religious education, their diverse concerns, dissimilar rites and faith, inharmonious practices, different language, and different legal practices in order to, “hold the demons of British culture at bay” (Lemke, 174). Their, “umbilical cord with home” (Kabbani, para. 5) has not been severed, despite 45 years in Britain, and they still suffer from alienation, isolation, and despair. The ghetto life is more or less the same as it is in Pakistan, with carvings on the trees in Urdu, Bengali, and Hindi, all-night quail fights, matchmakers, henna, interim marriages, Asian radio stations, salwar kameez, and dahl. Although the importing and preservation of Pakistani features provide them, to some extent, with safety, protection, solace, and solidarity, nevertheless, honour crimes, hypocrisy, consanguineous marriages, bigotry, and ignorance plague and suffocate these denizens of the ghetto.

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Massey, D. S. “The Social and Economic Origins of Immigration.” In Immigration and the Social Contact: The Implosion of Western Societies, edited by John Tanton et al., 22–6. Hants: Avebury, 1996. McLeod, J. Beginning Postcolonialism. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000. Modood, T. “Conclusion. Ethnic Diversity and Disadvantage.” In Ethnic Minorities in Britain, edited by Tariq Modood and Richard Berthoud, 339–59. London: Policy Studies Institute, 1997. Moore, L. “British Muslim Identities and Spectres of Terror in Nadeem Aslam’s Maps for Lost Lovers”. Postcolonial Text 5 (2) (2009): 1–19. Peach, C. “Does Britain have Ghettos?” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers: New Series 21 (1) (1996): 216–35. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0020-2754%281996%292%3A21 %3A1%3C216%3ADBHG%3E2.0.CO%3B2-R. Potter, S. M. The Social Resources of Immigration. PhD Thesis. University of Toronto, 1999. http://ceris.metropolis.net. Ramraj, V. “Diasporas and Multiculturalism.” In New National and Postcolonial Literatures, edited by Bruce King, 214–29. Oxford: Clarendon, 1998. Ray, B. Immigrant Integration: Building to Opportunity. Migration Policy Institute, October 1, 2002. http://www.migrationinformation.org. Schulz, B. “In the Prison of Social Poverty: Pakistanis in Britain.” June 22, 2005. http://en.qantara.de/content /in-the-prison-of-social-povertypakistanis-in-britain. The Economist. “Race and Immigration: A New Kind of Ghetto.” November 11, 2013. http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21589 230-britain-no-longer-has-serious-race-problem-trouble-isolation-newkind. Wade, M. “British Pakistanis—the Two-way Street towards Better Integration. Maps for Lost Lovers (2004).” June 30, 2013. http://www. conservativehome.com/platform/2013/06/with-over-2m-immigrantssettling-in-the-uk-over-these-past-10-years-and-an-estimated-13mbritish-pakistanis-already-uk-citi.html. Waterman, D. “Memory and Cultural Identity: Negotiating Modernity in Nadeem Aslam’s Maps for Lost Lovers.” Pakistaniaat: A Journal of Pakistan Studies 2 (2) (2010): 18–35. Weiner, M. “Determinants of Immigrant Integration: An International Comparative Analysis.” In Immigration and Integration in Postindustrial Societies: Theoretical Analysis and Policy-related Research, edited by Naomi Carmon, 46–62. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996.

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Weingarten, J. “Traditional Claustrophobia—Intersections of Gender and Religious Identities in Nadeem Aslam’s Maps for Lost Lovers.” Transfers: A Postgraduate eJournal for Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies 1 (2011): 1–18. www.ons.gov.uk/.../census/2011/index.html.

NONTRIVIAL SIMPLICITY OF THE ABSURD: ONE-SENTENCE UTTERANCES AND UNORDINARY POLITICS IN HAROLD PINTER’S MOUNTAIN LANGUAGE ÖNDER ÇAKIRTAù BINGOL UNIVERSITY

Abstract: Harold Pinter reveals for the most part a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour. During a reading of Pinter’s plays, in a familiar pattern of words, another language shape or meaning is suddenly recognised. The power of jokes and one-sentence utterances creates some possibilities for something like the power of a peculiar language aspect. Though the dialogue is mostly composed of simple one-sentence structures, these statements often distort ordinary language rules or misdirect expectations in order to accomplish their tricks. The language of the selected plays, its use in dialogue, its grammar, its particular way of making sense, and especially its quality, reveal a “hidden literality.” The exploration of literary allusions and the part played by the hidden language disclose the power of the text—its “nontrivial simplicity.” This paper aims to explore Pinter’s magical power of one-sentence utterances, his subtle diction and wittiness, and his dialogues’ direct way of moving in the original direction towards the disclosure of literality and politics. Key words: Harold Pinter, Theatre of the Absurd, simplicity, onesentence utterances, politics. “Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says it.” —Malcolm X, By Any Means Necessary

Being the perfect political activist, Harold Pinter, in many of his plays, sets the conflict within a specific power struggle, and by the end of each play the struggle is either lost or won by the opposing characters. In all these plays, it would be expressive to say that. Pinter is an absurdist. Constituting one of the numerous differing facets of his works, the absurd functions as a means of getting into the reality; thus, reality is Pinter’s

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central concern. He reveals two real basics of the individuals, the oppressed/ruled and the oppressor/ruler, within the boundaries of the visible reality. Pinter’s Mountain Language deals, in just 25 minutes of running time, with the banning of the Kurdish language in Turkey. On his own website Pinter remarks: In 1958 I wrote the following: “There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.” I believe that these assertions still make sense and do still apply to the exploration of reality through art. So as a writer I stand by them but as a citizen I cannot. As a citizen I must ask: What is true? What is false?

“What is true? What is false?” is the statement behind what is observed in the real events; the reality that encourages Pinter to write the plays that he does; plays that are, at heart, addressing the exploitation of humanity. In Mountain Language, Pinter deports himself as a universal citizen through whom he tries to distinguish between true and false. He groups the characters into two: those who are for the state and those who are against. The Sergeant and Officer metaphorically represent the state while the Young Woman, Elderly Woman, and the Prisoner are citizens who are said to have broken the law. What Pinter urges is the proclamation of the sharp discontinuity between right/justice and injustice/inequity. In his diction, there seems to be some hostility expressed towards the perpetrators of brutalities, while some strong language is uttered by the citizens to express related strong feelings. The play starts with the interrogation “Who?” (252), which is the key question that takes us to the reality of the problem. Who is responsible? Who is the lawbreaker? Who is true and who is false? Pinter exposes a politics-based shock that is rendered in a simple or absurd utterance. The fact that the first question is directed by an official at an infringer is another focus of Pinteresque politics. The first scene reveals the whole play in a nutshell: OFFICER: Who? Pause. Who? Who's been bitten? (252)

The silence (pause) after the first inquiry echoes the answer behind the problem—who is responsible? Is it the state or the public? The answer is a huge pause. Throughout the play are such pauses that evoke the system of

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manipulating other people on a civic or discrete level; that is, politics itself and the organised control over a community. Another significant focus is on the interrogation sentences. Pinter’s employment of these interrogation usages is due to the fact that they all are the reflections of the “authority.” The question sentences are for the most part directed by those who have much power, such as sergeants and officers, while the infringers are supposed to answer them. Pinter’s politics-based language is not in the politics-based words such as government, law, state, or public autonomy, but within his menacing theatre. The stylistic usage of menace is reflected through the attitudes and dialogues of the characters: Every dog has a name! They answer to their name. They are given a name by their parents and that is their name, that is their name! Before they bite, they state their name. It's a formal procedure. They state their name and then they bite. What was his name? If you tell me one of our dogs bit this woman without giving his name I will have that dog shot! (253–4)

The stress here is obviously on “name,” and the word is echoed in a threatening way. Considering that the threats are uttered by those who are dangerous and in authority, it is easy to conclude that it is a menacing environment for the weak. In the main, “the study of politics examines the acquisition and application of power” (Safire, 566). In many dialogues in Mountain Language, Pinter hints at the application of power; it is sometimes fulfilled through the words, the menaces, and the attitudes selected: OFFICER: … you cannot speak your language to your men. It is not permitted. Do you understand? You may not speak it. It is outlawed. You may only speak the language of the capital. That is the only language permitted in this place. You will be badly punished if you attempt to speak your mountain language in this place. This is a military decree. It is the law. Your language is forbidden. (255)

“Pinter’s initial hostility towards politics was largely a hostility towards institutional politics and politicians because of their tendency to indulge in reductive social analysis” (Quigley, 9). In Mountain Language, the corruption is acted out through the use of legislated powers by government officials for illegitimate private gain. The Young Woman is harassed in an action that parodies individual self-righteousness and political naiveté at a time when the menace to human rights and the established form of government in Turkey asserted itself:

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Silence. The OFFICER and SERGEANT slowly circle her. The SERGEANT puts his hand on her bottom. (256)

An illegal act is performed by a few officeholders, though the interrogation is directly related to their official duties. OFFICER: These women, Sergeant, have as yet committed no crime. Remember that. SERGEANT: Sir! But you're not saying they're without sin? OFFICER: Oh, no. Oh, no, I'm not saying that. (256)

The sardonic equivocation in the last sentence divulges the organisation of dehumanisation in the definitions of authority, law, control, and governance; a brutalising act. Political corruption is nothing more than the individual urges of someone who would like to colonise the rights of another. Pinter, harshly criticises the individualism of not just one person, but one country, one community, one state, etc. In Mountain Language, he rejects the idea of endorsing one's own political visions, the idea of cooperation with one state language, the individual-based laws, exercising force, torture, and warfare against those who are within the same state.

References Audi, R. (ed.). The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Blackham, H. J. Six Existentialist Thinkers, London: Routledge, 1961. Buck, R. A. “Pinter's the Dumb Waiter.” Explicator 56 (1) (1997): 45–8. Corrigan, R. Theatre in the Twentieth Century. New York: Grove Press, 1961. Esslin, M. The Theater of the Absurd, London: Eyer & Spottiswoode, 1964. Etheridge, J. M. (ed.). Contemporary Authors: A Bibliographical Guide to Current Authors and their Works, Michigan: Gale Research Company, 1964. Gale, Steven Jr. Harold Pinter’s The Birthday Party and Other Stories, New York: Monarch Press, 1972. —. Harold Pinter’s The Homecoming and Other Stories, New York: Monarch Press, 1971. Gascoigne, B. Twentieth Century Drama, London: Hutchinson University Library, 1962. Glicksberg, Charles I. The Tragic Vision in Twentieth-Century Literature,

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Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1965. Gray, W. R. “Looking Backward: Reversible Time in Harold Pinter's Betrayal Screenplay.” Journal of Popular Culture 35 (1) (2001): 145–53. Gregory, S. “Ariel Dorfman and Harold Pinter: Politics of the Periphery and Theater of the Metropolis.” Comparative Drama 30 (3) (1996): 325–46. Hope-Wallace, P. “Feeling Cheated.” In Harold Pinter: The Birthday Party, The Caretaker & The Homecoming, edited by Michael Scott. London: MacMillan, 1986. Hynes, J. “Pinter and Morality.” The Virginia Quarterly Review 68 (4) (1992): 740-–51. Innes, C. Modern British Dramatists: 1890–1990, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Murray, James H. A., et al. (eds.). The Oxford English Dictionary. London: Oxford University Press, 1970. Pinter's Homepage. (2014). http://www.haroldpinter.org/home/index.shtml. Pinter, H. The Room and The Dumb Waiter. London: Eyer Methuen, Ltd, 1959. —. The Birthday Party: Seven Plays of the Modern Theatre, New York: Grove Press, 1962. —. Harold Pinter: Plays Four. London. Faber and Faber, 2005. Quigley, Austin E. “The Dumb Waiter: Undermining the Tacit Dimension.” Modern Drama 21 (1) (1978): 1–11. Safire, William. Safire's Political Dictionary. New York: Oxford University Press. Schmidt, Barbara A., Bardes, Mack C., and Shelley, Steffen W. American Government and Politics Today: The Essentials (2011–2012 Student ed.). Boston: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2011. Vinson, J. (ed.). Contemporary Dramatists. London: St. James Press, 1973.

LITERATURE AND POLITICS NESTED: JAMES JOYCE’S “TWO GALLANTS” AS ALLEGORICAL REPRESENTATIONS OF ENGLAND AND IRELAND YIöIT SÜMBÜL ERCIYES UNIVERSITY

Abstract: Although James Joyce is generally regarded as distanced from social issues, he always keeps his political and social consciousness in the background of his works and implicitly comments on the present condition and fate of his nation, especially in his short stories published in Dubliners (1914). Among these stories, “Two Gallants” comes to the fore with its veiled allusions to the social and political issues of the period, particularly the English oppression and exploitation of Ireland. The actions of the two protagonists, Corley and Lenehan, and their relationship resemble English-Irish issues in the macrocosm. Thus, the aim of this article is to unearth Joyce’s veiled political criticism concerning the psychological and material victimisation of his nation by England through allegorical portrayals of the two protagonists in “Two Gallants.” Key words: England, Ireland, oppression, exploitation, allegory, Corley, Lenehan, politics Corley and Lenehan are the two morally corrupt and idling fiddlers Joyce depicts as the protagonists of his short story “Two Gallants,” written in 1906 and published in 1914 in Dubliners. Apart from being the thirteenth story Joyce wrote in order of composition, “Two Gallants” is “the sixth story in Dubliners, and, according to Joyce’s own division of the book, the third tale of adolescence.”1 As in many other Joycean short stories taking Dublin life as the subject matter, this story of a few pages centres on the gloomy atmosphere of Dublin and the claustral experiences of two of its citizens over the course of a few hours. Joyce touches upon issues like materialism, the sexual and emotional exploitation of a woman, the triviality of Dubliners’ daily pursuits, and problems that lower-class people encounter in the modern world. In addition, he also, “deals with such gno-

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monic matters as … the dejected dreaming of some snug corner,”2 as Friedrich observes, putting the emphasis on the situation of Lenehan, in which he aspires to achieve a bourgeois lifestyle. The story revolves around the walk of two working-class Dublin citizens, Corley and Lenehan, through the streets, during which they have a conversation about Corley’s libertinism and his imminent meeting with a servant girl. From the talk, it is inferred that Corley usually hangs out with girls in order to take advantage of them both sexually and financially: “I know the way to get around her, man. She is a bit gone on me.”3 Their conversation is interrupted when the two arrive at the street where Corley is going to meet the girl; and the focus of the story moves on to Lenehan, who idles some time away until Corley returns. The reader is presented with the stream of Lenehan’s consciousness, reflecting the situation of modern man in the city of Dublin. An air of mystery also dominates the story, as the two men have been carrying out a discussion on something Corley is going to acquire from the servant girl, whether it be some sexual pleasure or something materially valuable. The story comes to an end when Corley meets Lenehan again, showing him the golden coin he has taken from the girl, which either already belonged to her somehow or she stole from her employers for the sake of her love for Corley. Although, from a general viewpoint, the story seems to be superficially touching upon an ordinary love affair and friendship, it also, “reveals the shuddering depths of human meanness [and how] the men, villainous of soul and repugnant of aspect, trade on the affections of young servantgirls. Even for these outcasts some hope might remain.”4 In this respect, the story takes a critical stance, focusing on modern human nature, but it also places itself among the minority in the modernist literary canon with the simultaneous presence of hope with human tragedy. As mentioned above, the story clearly exemplifies Joyce’s critical and distanced stance against the present situation of the Irish public in daily matters. He openly despises the way his fellow citizens waste their lives on trivial daily matters, trampling on Ireland’s reputation in the global sense. For Bulson, “Lenehan and Corley are representatives of the kind of Irishman that Joyce despises most of all because they actively contribute to Ireland’s political and psychological submission to the British Empire.”5 Joyce himself takes the way his countrymen throw away Ireland’s potential as a betrayal of his soul, as he cannot tolerate their blindness to economic, political, and cultural independence from England: “Give me for Christ’ sake a pen and an ink-bottle and some peace of mind and then … if I don’t … write tiny little sentences about the people who betrayed me, send me to hell. After all, there are many ways of betraying people.”6

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Joyce here shows a great awareness of Ireland’s present situation under the eyes of other nations, and he apparently feels concerned regarding the development of his nation, showing a certain degree of social consciousness. He carefully penetrates the lives of Dublin citizens in all his stories with the aim of correction and national development through social criticism. The very language used in “Two Gallants” expresses such concerns; as the narrator’s tone and language are, “poignant, tolerant, and frequently sensitive and he does not say anything about its purport. He shows, but he does not tell.”7 Joyce apparently uses his narrator to show the shortcomings of modern Irish society on purpose with no intimacy of character, and no room for empathy to be felt by the readers. What Joyce actually opposes as an artist is the evident downfall of his nation and the wasting away of its potential due to the indifference of the Irish people towards the political, artistic, economic, social, and cultural developments throughout the world. Instead, the Irish citizens depicted in Joyce’s fiction tend to maintain their passive and sleepy state, almost paralysed in the face of modernity, with no hope for the future. In “Two Gallants,” the fact that Lenehan walks in circles through the Dublin streets reveals the modern Irishman’s confinement to and entrapment in his daily trivial pursuits, and that there appears to be no way out of his spiritual paralysis. The coin at the end of the story, in this respect, being also a circle, can easily be regarded, “as a symbol of Irish paralysis and self-betrayal,”8 making reference to the circular, never-ending nature of the Irishman’s life struggle. The self-betrayal of Irish society is inevitably related to the English suppression of the Irish experience over the course of centuries. What Joyce criticises in his stories is the way his people seem to have easily digested the cultural and political exploitation imposed on them by England. Delany analyses of the symbolism in “Two Gallants” and comes up with the observation that the story comments upon the English issue at a deeper level: Corley triumphantly displays his sovereign, extorted from a gullible servant-girl, at the end of "Two Gallants." Such exploitation is both individual and allegorical. Since Corley, for example, is an informer for Dublin Castle (the seat of English administration), and the girl is a symbol of Ireland itself, their relation sums up the political relation between the two countries: England robs Ireland of her virtue and reputation, while making her pay for the privilege.9

Clearly, there is something about the Irish nation that Joyce was uncomfortable with, and wrote to correct. The characters’ listlessness towards the street musician and the art he performs in the middle of the story also re-

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veals itself to the eyes of the readers as a means of criticism of the Irish people. “The transformation of the harp-strings into railings hints that the Irish are imprisoned by their heartstrings, railed in by the seductive music of national self-pity.”10 The circular structure of the story, images like the coin around which the story revolves, and Corley’s head being globular, may be interpreted as technical elements employed purposefully to reflect the cyclical drift of Dubliners within their meaningless everyday pursuits, with no hope for recovery. The opening of the story also reflects the general condition and the mood in a modern metropolis, dominated by grey colour and lack of action and sensibility: The grey warm evening of August had descended upon the city and a mild warm air, a memory of summer, circulated in the streets. The streets, shuttered for the repose of Sunday, swarmed with a gaily coloured crowd. Like illumined pearls the lamps shone from the summits of their tall poles upon the living texture below which, changing shape and hue unceasingly, sent up into the warm grey evening air an unchanging unceasing murmur.11

In these lines, Joyce establishes the contrast between the greyness of human psychologies and the vividness of their appearances. While the “unceasing” murmur of the streets adds a certain dimension of action to the scene, its being “unchanging” displays the dullness and meaninglessness of such a tension in the paralysed city of Dublin. As this long, descriptive paragraph at the very beginning of the story suggests, what Joyce tries to criticise is, “a world dominated by dissimulation and false appearances.”12 Clee draws a parallel between the atmosphere depicted in the story and T. S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land” in terms of the domination of the feeling of paralysis and inaction in the scene: “Corley and Lenehan present the dilemma of the choice between action and inaction, they are, in effect, the Sweeney and Prufrock of a Dublin Wasteland.”13 In such a comparison, Corley and Lenehan represent the ultimate modern man’s impotency, his inability to take action and his sensual imprisonment in the modern world, as in the case of J. Alfred Prufrock. Representative of the general condition of modern Irish citizens, especially those living in the city of Dublin, Corley and Lenehan are two friends who spend most of their time on Dublin streets doing almost nothing because they have both been out of work for a long time. Although Joyce names these lower-middle-class men “gallants,” meaning nobleminded gentlemen like the knights in courtly love tradition, Corley and Lenehan are far from gallant towards anybody, let alone women. Instead,

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they generally idle away their time on Corley’s sexually explicit stories and swindling women by abusing their sentiments. Walzl describes these two Dubliners as: The two gallants are penniless ne'er-do-wells who seek to trick out of her savings a servant girl, whom one of them has already seduced. For Corley love is purely mercenary, and in ultimate irony the trapper is trapped. For in accepting the girl's gold coin, it is Corley who becomes the prostitute. His friend, Lenehan, acquiesces to evil out of inertia … but is too weak and defeated to do more than experience vicariously his friend's sex act and share abjectly in the swindled money.14

Of the two “gallants,” Corley appears to be doing much of the talking while Lenehan reveals by his expressions that he implicitly despises the other’s manners, “owing to his companion’s rudeness [wearing] an amused listening face.”15 Besides the rudeness dominating Corley’s character, Joyce adds a certain level of lack of morality to the two men’s personalities, which is to be observed in Corley’s possible leaking of information to the police about his exploitation of the servant girl’s love accompanied by Lenehan’s collusion in this business, though with a feeling of remorse on his present situation. Their indifference towards the street musician’s art is also keynoted by Joyce, emphasising their deprivation of aesthetical taste and lack of intellectual capacity. Their response to the street music is one of insensitivity due to their lack of imagination. “Moreover, it points out the forced nature of their bond and is, itself, another example of their psychic darkness, as they can perceive nothing uplifting or life-affirming in this art form.”16 Even though Joyce lumps Corley and Lenehan together by ironically naming them two “gallants,” such an equation seems a bit unfair when Lenehan’s character is compared to Corley’s in terms of the depth of personality Joyce adds to the former, which reveals that these two men are almost totally different in essence. Corley appears as the one directing much of Lenehan’s actions and sets a foil for him to highlight the Irishmen’s inner worlds, whatever their actions may tell. When compared to Lenehan in character, Corley is more deprived of any moral and humane sentimentality, and turns into a prostitute himself. Delany remarks that, “Corley’s name is a corruption of ‘Cor loyal.’ He is indeed a debased ‘gallant,’ a knight of courtly love who takes advantage of the rituals of courtship to rob his gullible ‘lady’.”17 It is not entirely clear from the account that the “Two Gallants” give the reader whether the victimisation of the servant girl is limited to her giving away all the money she earns to Corley just out of her hopes to make a husband out of him, or if Corley forces her to steal the gold coin from her masters.

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In either case, Corley’s exploitation of the opposite sex is purposefully contrasted with Lenehan’s purity of hopes, thus singling him out as the malefactor causing Ireland’s underdevelopment. “Sex to Corley is a contest, the endpoint is victory, getting what he wants with no concern for the feelings of the second party … Guilt, shame, or even momentary selfdoubt, are beyond him.”18 Corley’s being the son of a former policeman might be interpreted as the reason why Joyce lays the guilt at his door, as Joyce draws the police as a symbol for English oppression of the innocent Irish people, like the servant girl. Joyce depicts Corley as a betrayer of Ireland’s dignity as a nation and of its holy cause to gain its independence from England. Tindall observes that, “Corley’s connection with the police fits him for the role of Ireland’s conqueror,”19 which is obviously England in this case. Joyce’s severe criticism of the Irish lower class’s trivial occupations in their daily lives through Corley is so explicit that Noon cannot help but comment upon the same possible symbolism in the story. For him, “in Corley the reader sees [Ireland] ignored, despised, and sold for a gold coin.”20 Holding himself responsible for his nation’s future development, Joyce intentionally devotes most of the flow of the story to Lenehan’s consciousness in order to show the true face and potentials of an Ireland with much goodwill but no impulse to take action. To put it in a more direct way, it is highly possible to specify Lenehan as the protagonist of “Two Gallants,” inasmuch as the narrative either follows his consciousness or reflects his point of view on the issues generally directed by Corley. Lenehan is the one who simply observes Corley’s reducing of daily pursuits and language to mere triviality and vulgarity, which appear to be making up much of their lives. Portrayed as, “Corley’s shadow, he wanders around with Corley, admires him, follows him when Corley meets the girl, and, impatiently and anxiously, waits for Corley to return.”21 From this angle, Lenehan seems to be lacking any personal drive to have his own word in daily matters or react against the misbehaviour he observes in Corley’s character. The true feeling of paralysis is much more effectively reflected in Lenehan’s personality, as he cannot take action or show reaction against what he does not approve, or at least cannot commit to at first hand. Throughout the story, Lenehan generally represents the gaze of the reader towards Corley’s actions as a, “neutral, uncommitted observer, attentive to the moral horrors around him, but indifferent as if his interests were purely aesthetic.”22 It would be far-fetched to claim that Lenehan stands for Joyce in this respect, as he does not even tend to criticise the other’s actions, contenting himself with the dreams of a better future: “to settle down in some snug corner and live happily if he could only come across some good, simple-minded girl with a little of the

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ready.”23 The humbleness and simple-mindedness of his expectations from life set a contrast with Lenehan’s actual life of aimless wanderings, which appears in most of Joycean fiction as the dominating element in Irish society that cripples his fellow countrymen’s psyches. Like most of the citizens in the city of Dublin in Joyce’s time, Lenehan is depicted as, “a mere voyeur, who dreams of public and marital respectability … [and] aspires to be so conventionally bourgeois.”24 The possible interpretation that Lenehan and Corley symbolically represent Ireland and England respectively also fits with Lenehan’s situation, as the reader can only read his true consciousness when Corley is off the stage, giving Lenehan a certain degree of mental peace and some time to elaborate on his own realities. Joyce critically reflects England’s crippling domination of Ireland in Lenehan’s relationship with Corley. Although, “Lenehan seems quite aware that he is in a degraded state, both morally and materially,”25 he is not even given the opportunity to take action out of this plight due to a suppressing force. In his long, listless walk towards the cheap restaurant he is going to wait in until Corley comes back from his tryst with the servant-girl, Lenehan feels the vanity of his existence and the meaninglessness of his daily pursuits, from which he still cannot find the urge to rescue his soul: “He found trivial all that was meant to charm him and did not answer the glances which invited him to be bold. He knew that he would have to speak a great deal, to invent and to amuse, and his brain and throat were too dry for such a task.”26 However hopeful he might be in finding better occupations than following Corley in his trivialities, Lenehan still ends up with Corley, only to see that he has managed to take advantage of the servant girl. And however critical Joyce might be in correcting his nation’s wrongdoings, he ends up with an anti-hero in a state of clinical psychological paralysis.

Notes 1

A. Nicholas Fargnoli and Michael Patrick Gillespie, Critical Companion to James Joyce: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work (New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006), 55. 2 Gerhard Friedrich, “The Gnomonic Clue to James Joyce's Dubliners,” Modern Language Notes LXII (6) (1957): 423. 3 James Joyce, “Two Gallants,” Dubliners (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 38. 4 Fargnoli and Gillespie, Critical Companion to James Joyce, 80. 5 Eric Bulson, The Cambridge Introduction to James Joyce (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 42.

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6

James Joyce, Letters of James Joyce, vol.ii, edited by Richard Ellmann (New York: Viking, 1957), 110. 7 Joseph M. Garrison, Jr., “Dubliners: Portraits of the Artist as a Narrator,” NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction 8 (3) (1975): 232. 8 Bulson, The Cambridge Introduction to James Joyce, 43. 9 Paul Delany, “Joyce's Political Development and the Aesthetic of Dubliners,” College English 34 (2), “Marxist Interpretations of Mailer, Woolf, Wright and Others,” (1972): 260. 10 Maud Ellmann, The Nets of Modernism: Henry James, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and Sigmund Freud (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2010), 122. 11 Joyce, “Two Gallants,” 36. 12 Lee Spinks, James Joyce: A Critical Guide (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2009), 61. 13 David Glyndwr Clee, “The Theme of Class in James Joyce’s Dubliners,” Diss. (Vancouver: The University of British Columbia Press, 1965), 36. 14 Florence L. Walzl, “Pattern of Paralysis in Joyce's Dubliners: A Study of the Original Framework,” College English 22 (4) (1961): 225. 15 James Joyce, “Two Gallants,” 36. 16 Grant Bernard Coleman, "Imagination, Illusion and Vision in James Joyce's Dubliners," Diss. Open Access Dissertations and Theses, Paper 6951, (2012), 54. 17 Delany, “Joyce's Political Development,” 260–1. 18 Clee, “The Theme of Class in James Joyce’s Dubliners,” 37. 19 William York Tindall, A Reader’s Guide to James Joyce (New York: The Noonday Press, Inc., 1959), 25. 20 William T. Noon, “Epiphany in Two Gallants,” in Dubliners (Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1969), 105. 21 Heleno Godoy, “Ungallant Gallantry: The Process of Defamiliarization and the Reader’s Response to James Joyce’s ‘Two Gallants’,” Signotica 5 (1993): 59. 22 Tindall, A Reader’s Guide to James Joyce, 24. 23 Joyce, “Two Gallants,” 43. 24 Clee, “The Theme of Class in James Joyce’s Dubliners,” 38. 25 Fargnoli and Gillespie, Critical Companion to James Joyce, 56. 26 Joyce, “Two Gallants,” 41.

Works Cited Bulson, Eric. The Cambridge Introduction to James Joyce. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Clee, David Glyndwr. “The Theme of Class in James Joyce’s Dubliners.” Diss. Vancouver: The University of British Columbia Press, 1965. Coleman, Grant Bernard. "Imagination, Illusion and Vision in James Joyce's Dubliners." Open Access Dissertations and Theses. Paper 6951. 2012.

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Delany, Paul. “Joyce's Political Development and the Aesthetic of Dubliners.” College English 34 (2). “Marxist Interpretations of Mailer, Woolf, Wright and Others.” (1972): 256–66. Ellmann, Maud. The Nets of Modernism: Henry James, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, and Sigmund Freud. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Fargnoli, A. Nicholas, and Michael Patrick Gillespie. Critical Companion to James Joyce: A Literary Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts on File, Inc., 2006. Friedrich, Gerhard. “The Gnomonic Clue to James Joyce's Dubliners.” Modern Language Notes LXII (6) (1957): 421–4. Garrison, Joseph M. Jr. “Dubliners: Portraits of the Artist as a Narrator.” Novel: A Forum on Fiction 8 (3) (1975): 226–40. Godoy, Heleno. “Ungallant Gallantry: The Process of De-familiarization and the Reader’s Response to James Joyce’s ‘Two Gallants’.” Signotica 5 (1993): 57-62. Joyce, James. Letters of James Joyce. vol. ii., edited by Richard Ellmann. New York: Viking, 1957. —. “Two Gallants”. Dubliners. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Noon, William T. “Epiphany in Two Gallants.” Dubliners. Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1969. Spinks, Lee. James Joyce: A Critical Guide. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009. Tindall, William York. A Reader’s Guide to James Joyce. New York: The Noonday Press, Inc., 1959. Walzl, Florence L. “Pattern of Paralysis in Joyce's Dubliners: A Study of the Original Framework.” College English 22 (4) (1961).

PART II: CULTURAL STUDIES AND FILM

RESISTING THE CULTURE INDUSTRY: THE CREATIVITY OF NEGATION IN THE FILMS OF LARS VON TRIER DILARA BILGISEL

Abstract: The challenge that Lars von Trier embodies for the current Hollywood-dominated film industry bears similarities to Theodor Adorno’s critique of the culture industry, in which he advocates the usage of negation as a means of resisting the commodification of works of art. This paper will develop this parallel as a means both of understanding the functioning of Trier’s works, and as a supplement to Adorno’s notion of negation as resistance, which he never develops into a full strategy. Drawing both on the gravity the concept of negation has in Adorno’s works and on his belief that the division among disciplines is imposed on them from outside, it can be argued that in order to be able to negate effectively, we must create an environment of interdisciplinarity. To extend and explore this premise, the paper will examine how Trier’s most creative and challenging aspects emerge through the use of a specific set of negation strategies, all of which include a free correspondence amongst different disciplines. On this plane of interdisciplinarity, the borders between certain academic and artistic disciplines become vague via his unusual film techniques, the character as an individual is negated toward existential death, and the expected moment of resolution is postponed indefinitely. Key words: culture industry, individual resistance, negating the work of art, interdisciplinarity, existentialism

The postmodern culture industry celebrates the absence of meaning, hybridity, and nihilism, all of which communicate an unbound sense of freedom. Following the gradual decline of conventions in the modern era, the postmodern took a further step by rejecting and even mocking modernism due to its so-called elitism. The unrestrained approach of our era shows itself in the domains of consumerism and communication by celebrating the endless variety and availability of cultural products along with the immense web of communication, which brings together dissenting voices. Nevertheless, these liberating aspects of the postmodern might be seen as more deserving of criticism than approval. One powerful critique has been

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made by Terry Eagleton, who argues that the “undeniably democratic” nature of the postmodern milieu can actually be “positive and manipulative together.”1 This postmodern condition that killed the author, embraced an anti-conventional understanding of artistic production, and chose to revel in the hybridity of popular culture calls for resistance against the wide scope of freedom individuals are granted, on the basis that we might actually be making an important compromise to have this freedom. The widespread commodifying and communicative aspects of the postmodern culture industry create pseudo-individualities, despite its focus on the subject’s emancipation. This phenomenon illustrates the severe restraint freedom has over the consumer’s individuality and the work of art. Theodor Adorno is one of the most eminent members of the Frankfurt School of Thought. His work relies heavily on criticising or negating the ways of thinking and theories that the philosophical and cultural traditions have come to produce. In The Culture Industry, a collection of essays focusing on several different branches of the modern, post-World War II culture he was situated in, Adorno criticises the arts in his time by making use of the basic concepts of Freudian psychoanalysis. Taking television and the manipulative outcomes of consumerism as his main targets of critical study, he tries to locate the authentic within the resistance against the domination of the culture industry. Restraining himself from making the straightforward and rather superficial distinction between high art and low art that is widely associated with modern popular culture, Adorno expresses the consumerist and capitalist foundations almost every work of art is based on within its modern cultural milieu. Pointing at an overall system of cultural manipulation, which draws its power from the source of commodification and false identity politics, he criticises the way the modern culture industry transforms works of art into mere purchasable products and creates an unhealthy environment of group psychology based on the appearances of these works of art. While on the one hand, this appearancevalue of the work of art necessitates a discussion of authenticity in modern times, on the other hand, the work of art, which has now become a commodity, is posed as an object of desire that is continuously circulated around the world seemingly for entertainment, but in reality for economic concerns. Here, Adorno proves how the individual is being transformed from a responsible agent that consciously makes use of and participates actively in the domain of culture to a consumer with multiple pseudoindividualities, in search of not the work of art, but the cultural commodity to satisfy the desire of purchasing and become part of the masses. Thus, in order to illustrate the almost fascistic restraints the culture industry puts on the individual, Adorno draws parallels between the nauseating web of

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group psychology that National Socialism wove during its prime and the mechanisms that the culture industry employs to recruit more subjects to entertain. Adorno’s underlying concern throughout the whole collection of essays is how the individual can resist this capitalist scheme of assimilation without falling into the trap of becoming a pseudo-individual; in other words, how the individual can embody the characteristics of authenticity by harmonising the subjective and the objective. Applying the above theories to our postmodern condition reveals how accurately Adorno predicted the rise of the culture industry, which now holds a restraint over the individual much more strongly than it did in the post-WWII era. His statement, “mass culture is a system of signals that signals itself”2 manifests the immense effect he had on Jean Baudrillard’s criticism of the postmodern in Simulacra and Simulation, which names our time as the epitome of melancholia.3 Despite praising some of the aspects of the postmodern by pointing out its way of breaking the rule and domination of the concept of meaning, Baudrillard still holds at the end of Simulacra and Simulation that the postmodern creates and can actually be defined by a sense of yearning for the past, drawing parallels with Adorno and Friedrich Nietzsche. Regarding the fact that Adorno’s main concern about the culture industry was due to its deforming impact on the authenticity of the individual, I can say that this focus on meaninglessness that the postmodern condition nurtures stems from the constant shift of identification and dissociation between the individual, which is the subject, and the product of the culture industry, which is the object. In other words, while the idealistic differences between the subject and the numerous objects that it is in constant touch with gradually disappear toward a much less privileged, liberalist understanding of the subject, the subject in its postmodern milieu is under the threat of identification with these objects in a way that its individuality is annulled and made to serve the new order, one of whose most important constituents is the culture industry. It can be said that the missing link in Adorno’s otherwise flawless analysis of the culture industry is how exactly the individual should position themselves in terms of the work of art to be able to resist the industry effectively. His suggestions as to how the individual can possibly negate the culture industry bring together and highlight a very significant area that is yet to invent a different theoretical approach that can avoid the ideological categorisations engendered by the strict belief in the separation of academic disciplines. Adorno’s remark, “the praxis of the nihilist is a blunted perseverance”4 and, as mentioned above, his art of negation that considers subjectivism and objectivism to be equally misleading, bring up a new discussion of

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existentialist philosophy that never pretended to be idealist or rationalist. The interdisciplinary nature of existentialism caused it to be shunned, especially within “the tradition of positivism,” which does not regard it as “proper philosophy.”5 Existentialism was condemned to become obsolete and irrelevant after the post-WWII era, in which its cultural and political importance diminished with the rising current that emphasised the importance of collective resistance, especially following the May 1968 events in France. However, the postmodern condition that humanity is facing today actually bears strong similarities with the atmosphere after World War II, in which individuality was threatened by the domination of the masses. What first appeared to be a confirmation of the possibility of group action during the 1970s has now become a condition that entraps the individual and the work of art once again, requiring yet another wave of resistance. Redeeming the individual from the masses without falling into the trap of inauthenticity is a requirement of our postmodern condition, and certain key elements of existentialist philosophy may be recovered in a post-existential mode to fulfil that requirement. I suggest that the overlooked creativity lying underneath existentialism can be brought back as the post-existential, especially through the later works of Jean-Paul Sartre. He not only officially founded and then revolutionised the existentialist tradition but also expressed similar concerns about the subject/object dichotomy in his works. There are strong parallels between Sartre’s treatment of subjectivity and the poststructuralist conception of the self, which can be seen in the Sartrean subject who “is not a self but a presence-to-self,” to the extent that it is almost “non-self-identical.”6 The distance both Sartre and the post-structuralists take from a positive understanding of concrete selfhood manifests the relevance of the existential to our era. Moreover, the postmodern condition’s need for, “an ethical practice without metaphysical commitment or inviolable laws and principles”7 can inspire the theorist to reconsider the still-unexplored existentialist way of looking at the individual’s social praxis. Existentialism can resist the postmodern condition by using the parallels that exist between them because it can still inquire into the notions of, “individual freedom, responsibility, and authenticity in the midst of various forms of determinism, conformism, self-deception, [and] technologism,”8 all of which characterise the postmodern condition. The interdisciplinary origins of existentialism can constitute a framework for Adorno’s discussion of the culture industry, which demands a non-idealist and a non-rationalist theoretical approach as a celebration of negation. It is true that one part of existentialism stems from “the cogito” and “the creative power of thought,”9 on which the German idealists re-

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lied. Nonetheless, the rationalism of the existential can be discerned in the thought of Sartre, who is, “a realist about the objects of consciousness,”10 and who also claims that, “the Ego … is outside, in the world.”11 Thus, despite Adorno’s claim that Sartre saw “subjectivity” as “existent for itself,”12 we can see that existentialism took a turn towards facticity after the 1960s instead of a continued persistence of subjectivism. There is even an early anticipation of this turn in Sartre’s remark that, “consciousness does not have by itself any sufficiency of being as an absolute subjectivity,”13 which shows that, even during the prime of existentialism, the notion of the individual as a choice-maker who stayed intact against the world of objects was being questioned. Adorno’s understanding of individuals, which supports the view that their “real interests” are “still strong enough to resist, within certain limits, total inclusion,”14 is perfectly applicable to existentialism’s non-idealist and non-rationalist approach toward philosophy. When Sartre’s much later critical investigation—which begins from the individual with “his abstract praxis,” extends to “the structures of the various practical multiplicities” prevalent in society, and concludes with the absolute “historical man”15—is brought together with Adorno’s belief that, “if ontology were possible at all, it would be possible in an ironic sense, as the epitome of negativity,”16 it rids existentialism of its aim to achieve the absolute as a pseudo-Marxist concern and gives Adorno’s critique of the culture industry a more coherent theoretical basis that places the individual carefully within their facticity. Examined through these two opposing lines of inquiry into the individual and their resistance against the masses, the post-existential emerges as a new critical area that not only breaks down the ideological distinctions among academic disciplines that simply prevent us from making a healthy criticism of the postmodern conditions, but can also become the new breath in the philosophical and cultural tradition that can reposition the individual amidst the various advantages and threats of the postmodern culture industry. I aim to build the post-existential parallel between Adorno’s criticism of the culture industry and Sartre’s existentialist theory of the individual on two main propositions: the practico-inert as an alternative to the subject/object dichotomy, and the concept of dissensus against the factor of amusement. Freedom is a condition that Adorno tends to treat with careful cynicism because, according to him, “the conception of absolute freedom of decision is as illusionary as that of the absolute I,”17 suggesting that existentialism should be criticised for its celebration of individual autonomy. However, the existentialist conception of freedom is actually bound by facticity in such a way as to be both “a responsibility”18 and “to be situated,”19 which roughly summarises the function of Sartre’s practico-inert.

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The practico-inert stands for the, “objects which are not mere things and agencies which are not exactly people either.”20 According to existentialism, my freedom is actually limited by TV, for example, which is a practico-inert because it replaces equality with inequality21 by “the enjoyment of luxury” it provides for the consumer through “sight” instead of “lived reality.”22 Adorno’s pseudo-individual is also akin to Sartre’s individual with bad faith, because both of them are marked by an absolute belief in freedom, which leads them only to in-authenticity. In order to locate the authentic, it is crucial to prepare an environment of negation that avoids both idealism and rationalism. For this reason, the individual should be regarded as a being-for-itself and the work of art as the Other within the framework of Adorno’s discussion of the culture industry. The reason for regarding the individual as a being-for-itself is that it, “include[s] its own nothingness as the nihilation of identity,”23 and thus avoids one of the practices Adorno criticises most—identification with the work of art.24 Only by being a foritself can the individual accept their nothingness and see the work of art as an object of negation. On the other hand, the work of art should be considered as an Other because in the domain of the postmodern culture industry, it is “a thinking substance of the same essence as”25 the individual. The postmodern culture industry requires the individual to be the negation machine of the existentialist discourse if they want to resist their object, which now has its own pure autonomy as the threatening presence of the practico-inert, whose defining gaze is always on them. I suggest that this practico-inert can be observed and examined fully in Lars von Trier’s film Nymphomaniac,26 which questions both the notion of subjectivity and the objective concerns of the film industry. Aside from the concept of the practico-inert, the second main proposition on which I would like to pose my theory is the idea of dissensus as a strategy of resistance against the entertainment-related concerns of the culture industry. Adorno claims that the individual finds an “escape from the mechanized work process” in the amusement that the products of the culture industry provide, while in reality these products function only as a “prolongation of work.”27 The pseudo-individualities that they generate, based on false identifications with fictional characters and the banality of their artistic conflicts,28 constitute an obstacle between the individual and their authentic resistance. Especially the recurrence of the same conflict with an anticipated resolution forces the work of art to be an object of consumption that aims only to amuse its consumers. The criticism of this entertainment function of the work of art is observed in Felix Guattari’s argument that, “the goal of capitalism is … to control the last vestige of anx-

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iety, madness, pain, and death,”29 because by giving the audience pure entertainment the mechanisms of the postmodern culture industry can annihilate the instance of dissensus and “the singular production of existence.”30 In order to generate dissensus instead of consensus, I suggest a careful scrutiny of Nymphomaniac, because it perfectly exemplifies the art of negation through its “recounting of suffering: fear, disgust and abjection”31 when analysed under the light of the post-existential theory of the individual and the work of art. One of Sartre’s most eminent strategies against the subject/object dichotomy existent in the culture industry is the effective usage of literature. He underlines the importance of literature in terms of resistance by arguing that literature “speaks[s] in order to say nothing,”32 the more recent echoes of which can be found in Jacques Derrida’s claim that literature has a hollow point that defies filiation33 by not “meaning (to say)”34 what it is supposed to say. This hidden aspect of literature implies its value for resistance against the culture industry. Cinema can also be used to produce non-knowledge, as Sartre suggests that “we must learn to speak in images,”35 which is similar to Baudrillard’s belief in cinema’s “intense imaginary.”36 Adorno’s suggestion of a cinema that is simply montaged into a continuation of images “in a constellation akin to that of writing”37 also insinuates the possibility of resisting the popular with a narrative straightforwardness that resembles some of the artistic currents within postmodern cinema. These mediums that ask “neither for survival in this world nor for promotion to culture’s paradise”38 trigger the nihilation of the individual with the strength of narration in a world of in-authenticity that is engendered by the liberating aspects of the postmodern. Von Trier regularly receives contradictory and problematic reviews from the audience due to his usage of sexuality and violence in his films, contrary to his true-to-life and challenging view of humanity. His works are usually perceived as something between the artistic and the provocative, because he employs cinematic techniques that come from other disciplines such as literature and theatre, and he has the premises of taboobreaking, along with highlighting heartlessly cruel revelations about his main characters. Von Trier is famous, which means the audience is more likely to be familiar with him than not. His works are artistic, which means that, instead of producing anything that can be even remotely similar to the expected product of the Hollywood industry, he aims to preserve his widely-accepted position among the representatives of European cinema. Finally, he is provocative, which means that he distresses his audience without having to make a horror film. He achieves his aim of disturbing the audience by taking up deeply psychological and social issues and weaving

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them into the fabric of his narrative-like films. Von Trier is, in many ways, the Antichrist of the postmodern film industry. He is not afraid of touching the image of a grieving mother who has just lost her new-born child. He can delve right into the realm of desire to show not only how human but also how inhuman the individual’s psyche is. He is able to depict a mental illness in such a way that the will to death blossoms out of that depiction beautifully. He does not even restrain himself from filming a scene in which the six children of a family are brutally murdered in a shoot-out. Aside from the content or story-based examples above, Von Trier uses untraditional and experimental film techniques, like making use of the hand-held camera, trying to exclude all kinds of flashbacks from his narratives, avoiding artistic transitions between scenes that follow each other, making use of music the least he can or using the effect of music on the film against itself, often applying a chapter-based plotline to his stories, and even trying out theatrical tricks, like using a Brechtian stage design for a film that is almost three hours long.39 Directing is Von Trier’s playground, or, to put it in a more exact manner, his own game of creating space. In this game, the limits of filmmaking are questioned and challenged in a way that the images from his films can manifest themselves as immensely naturalistic, even literally too raw to be considered within the traditional definition of art, in a way that he forces himself to make films with the least technical support possible, and, of course, in a way that his films become somewhat lengthy existential trials in which the audience is the god-like observer who is in endless pain, ecstasy, and awe in front of the spectacle they have to witness. Yet, Von Trier is one of the most eminent figures in the culture industry, regardless of his defiance of the popular and purely entertaining. Following Adorno’s restraint from treating high art and low art as if they represented the opposite poles of the cultural domain, the aim of this article is embodied in the figure of Von Trier who both belongs to the popular side of the culture industry and who also feels extremely eclectic in contrast with the homogenised and assimilated products of it. As one of the most successful representatives of European cinema, he has the potential to fulfil the task of directly representing Adorno’s suggestion that “the dialectical critic of culture must both participate in culture and not participate,”40 because his cinema acts as a conscious agent against its very self. Nymphomaniac, as the best of Von Trier in posing the film as a practico-inert, and being an almost flawless example of the art of negation, tells the story of Joe, played by Charlotte Gainsbourg. Having had nymphomania since early childhood, Joe is found half-beaten in a narrow alley by Seligman, played by Stellan Skarsgård, and taken to his damp, tiny apartment. In that apart-

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ment, she tells him her whole life-story, which has been dominated by her rare sexual disorder, rendering the beginning of the film the end of her narrative. Each one of the eight chapters of the film focuses on an important period of her life in chronological order. As mentioned above, the separation amongst various academic disciplines can be regarded as a synthetic order that is a consequence of the capitalist ideal of consensus and harmony. The creative force that can resist this segregation is the practico-inert, which draws its power from the source of interdisciplinarity. The intimate relationship between the practico-inert and interdisciplinarity can be observed in the proposition that the tradition of interdisciplinarity does not allow any room for an overtly subjective research by avoiding the ideological terminology and historicalness of each discipline on its own, as an attempt to set subjective and objective concerns on an equal basis. Adorno makes it very clear in his Culture Industry that the separated state of the disciplines is one of the obstacles modernity has to overcome: The division of labour between disciplines such as sociology, philosophy, history and psychology is not contained in or dictated by their material, but has been forced on them from the outside. There is no discrete or unique object, for example, the mind or psyche, whose objective characteristics entail or directly correspond to the concepts and categories of psychology or psychoanalysis; nor is there a discrete object whose objective characteristics entail or correspond to the concepts and categories of sociology, history or philosophy. Rather, the same forces of fragmentation and reification which have produced the great divide between high art and the culture industry produced the division of labour among the various disciplines.41

Nymphomaniac takes up the role of resisting this division of labour by employing various disciplines instead of being an example of cinematic illusion. By introducing literature as an extra discipline and posing the concept of life-story as something to be questioned, Von Trier alienates the audience from the illusions of filmmaking. The more Seligman expresses his doubts about the missing links in Joe’s story, the more the film makes fun of its own premise. For example, the character called Jerôme appears first as the person that Joe willingly gives her virginity to, then as the young man she not only falls in love with but also gets married to, and finally, after more than 15 years, as the heinous man who beats her almost to death in the dark alley where Seligman finds her in the beginning of the film. Jerôme’s continuous transformation according to the theme of the chapter that Joe recounts, and the unrealistic number of coincidences including him, only indicate that the life-story is not as intact as one may think.

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Another example that can be said to force the audience to doubt the authenticity of the story is the fact that every chapter begins with Joe noticing an object in the room where she is lying in bed, with Seligman sitting on a chair next to her listening to her story. The second chapter of the film, which takes place during Joe’s early 20s and is about love and effeminacy, begins after Joe notices that Seligman brings her a piece of pastry with a cake fork, which she finds effeminate. The seventh chapter of the film, which is called “The Eastern and the Western Church,” on the other hand, is instigated by a religious painting on Seligman’s wall about the separation of the Christian church, yet it is used as a motif to tell Joe’s adventures with the light and dark sides of sexuality. Moreover, the usage of music in the film as another discipline is carried out in such a deliberately superficial way that the film becomes more proof that Joe’s story is made up than being her first honest confession that she comfortable making only to a stranger. While Rammstein’s Fuehre Mich is applied to give an overdramatic touch to the beginning of the film, which is actually as quiet and insidious as possible with a number of obviously subconscious images, Steppenwolf’s classic Born To Be Wild, which is played during teenager Joe and her best-friend B’s sexual experiences with random men on a train, is such an exaggerated choice for Von Trier, who never used music during his Dogma 95 years, that the film reminds one uncannily of any other Hollywood chick flick. Thus, the film plays with itself and the audience by using other disciplines, not to enhance the constructed reality of the film, but to underline the illusions of the film industry with the weapon of negation. It can be said that Von Trier still sticks with his Dogma 95 manifesto, which attempted to rewrite the rules of film-making as a criticism of the current film industry, by reminding us of his statement that, “the ‘supreme’ task of the decadent film-makers is to fool the audience.”42 In Nymphomaniac’s case, the elements that appear to be similar to the techniques and aspects of the film industry, and thus fool the audience, are actually used as means to negate the industry and point towards the unreality and illogicality of the film. Another way in which Von Trier poses the film as an Other is through the constant objectification of his characters until their individualities are fully negated. As mentioned above, the products of the culture industry generate pseudo-individualities based on false subjective conceptions. In order to avoid this condition, Von Trier employs techniques that render his characters beings-for-themselves in a post-existentialist sense. He does this by focusing on the affirmation of essentialist concepts, like gender and parenthood in Nymphomaniac, to bereave the individual from autonomy and free will, and thus he restrains himself from creating pseudo-

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individualities. Along with and in contrast to this, however, he reasserts the still-underlying importance of the individual by breaking the taboos that he himself sets for the film, because the individual is still the only resource that has the potential to resist the illusions of the culture industry in the end, both according to Adorno’s teaching and the post-existentialist point of view introduced above. To differentiate his film from the freedom and limitlessness of the postmodern trend, Von Trier uses Joe as a flat example of femininity and positions Seligman opposite to her by emphasising his endless rational comments on and references to her story. If the name of fiction and fantasy is woman in this film, man certainly defines logic and intellect. Whenever a magical realist aspect of Joe’s life-story comes up, such as her childhood experience when she encounters the Virgin Mother and the Whore of Babylon, Seligman expresses doubt. It is also possible to say that Joe takes up the poetic and fantastic aspects of the story while Seligman makes his contribution in a masculine, logical manner, such as making a reference to the Fibonacci numbers in the first chapter “The Compleat Angler,” or focusing on the technical aspects of Bach’s polyphonic chorale prelude in “The Little Organ School” as Joe recounts her sexual experiences in harmony with the piece in a poetic style. A similar pattern to the above examples can also be observed in Joe’s father and mother, who are portrayed in a perfectly Freudian manner so that the father becomes a sexually idyllic but listlessly resigned figure under the gaze of an uninvolved yet hostile mother. In a situation that can easily be a reminder of the Freudian Electra Complex, Joe calls her thick notebook, full of different kinds of tree leaves she and her father used to collect when she was a child, the Book of Comfort; her last resort when her disorder is at its worst. Her father remains the voice of sanity and the infinite source of comfort throughout the film, despite his death in the fourth chapter “Delirium,” where Joe has her worst nervous breakdown. However, these rough essentialist conceptions are continuously negated in Nymphomaniac by Von Trier’s effective taboo breaking, which renders his film an active practico-inert and manifests the hollowness of the subject/object dichotomy. This taboo-breaking can be best observed in the fact that all Von Trier’s main characters live on the edges of life, and even though it is true that they are all conditioned by various external elements that often have an essentialist nature, his characters always suffer from their own choices in life in the end. Thus, the characters exist through a constant act of negating their world, and become beings-for-themselves while making the film a practico-inert, instead of a regular product of the culture industry that advocates pseudo-individualities. This negation shows how the character, as the being-for-itself of the film, exists only as a

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resistance against the concrete conditions surrounding her freedom, reminding us of Sartre’s remark that, “there can be a for-itself as engaged in a resisting world. Outside of this engagement the notions of freedom, of determinism, of necessity lose all meaning.”43 To complete and sum up my post-existential theory, I can say that Nymphomaniac creates dissensus through its usage of the abject and its postponement of the moment of resolution. Here, I find it most suitable to adhere to Julia Kristeva’s definition of the abject due to the reference she makes to the arts in her definition. In her Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, she writes: Is it the quiet shore of contemplation that I set aside for myself, as I lay bare, under the cunning, orderly surface of civilizations, the nurturing horror that they attend to pushing aside by purifying, systematizing and thinking: the horror that they seize on in order to build themselves up and function? I rather conceive it as a work of disappointment, of frustration and hollowing—probably the only counterweight to abjection. While everything else—its archaeology and its exhaustion—is only literature: the sublime point at which the abject collapses in a burst of beauty that overwhelms us—and “that cancels our existence.”44

Thus, she characterises consensus as the order of civilization and criticises its nurturing elements, against which she sets the abject that is exemplified at its best in a narrative that flourishes as the sublime, thanks to the clash of the beautiful and the terrifying. This contrast produces a new definition of the aesthetic and leaves no room for identification with the work of art. Admitting that the recent press coverage of Nymphomaniac stems mostly from its heavily sexual content now becomes insufficient here, because the manner in which the film portrays sexuality is that of passionless detachment and, moreover, the abject. From the first chapter about Joe’s loss of virginity to her much later experiences with sado-masochism towards the end, the film treats sex as heartless pornography, which sets its own abject aesthetics in order to place a sense of alienation right in the middle of the audience’s need for consensus. Despite its overall importance and popular, stimulating value in the current culture industry, sex becomes an object of scrutiny, an abnormality in human nature, while still holding its constitutive and creative power throughout the film. Almost every depiction of Joe’s sexual experiences is overridden by the contrast between emotional sensuality and heartlessly graphic qualities, to the extent that the instance of sexual intercourse becomes both detestably disgusting and promisingly stimulating. In short, the element that was originally supposed to form a consensus of amusing free-time activity amongst the audience is transformed into a dissensus effect that makes the viewer suffer within the

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boundaries of their own individuality and prevents them from45 obtaining the relief an ordinary product of the film industry would easily grant them. The terrified individual in the work of art and the one that regards the work of art can now differentiate between a purely entertaining piece and the one that creatively destroys the subjective existence of the individual. Along with the abject and as a complementary element for the dissensus effect, Von Trier applies the postponement of the moment of resolution by posing another irresolvable conflict in Nymphomaniac and completely negates his four-hour film in the end. Very similar to the spiritual reference at the end of Breaking the Waves,46 which can be regarded as his most realistic film, or the extreme moral dilemma that he exposes his audience to by making Grace slaughter the whole town at the end of Dogville,47 Von Trier completely puzzles the viewer with Joe’s indirect, but this time genuine, confession that her whole story in the film was merely the figment of her imagination, or a life she only might have had. Thus, Von Trier insistently refuses to amuse his audience and brings in a revolutionary understanding of the conflict in the work of art—the indefinitely postponed one. As the film draws to a close, the audience is reassured of the candid and intimate nature of the correspondence between Joe and Seligman. However, when the viewer is still surprised about how much one can share with a stranger and how decent people can be at times, the virgin Seligman, who shows no sign of sexual stimulation as Joe tells him about her experiences in full detail, attempts to have sex with her. The ending, which was expected to give a feeling of closure with the final chapter of Joe’s life and the beginning of her possible friendship with Seligman, leaves the audience in the lurch by negating the personalities that Seligman and Joe represent until the very end of the film. While a probably asexual and very religious man decides to treat Joe like any other man in her previous experiences would, a woman who bases all her personal narrative on sex ends up shooting a person only because he came back into her room with no pants on. These two extreme reactions manifest how Von Trier enjoys disillusioning his audience by making it clear that what his characters portray with coherence is only the image of the people they desire to be. The deterred moment of relief—for the sake of which most films today are made, and for which most of us want to watch them—throws us back to Adorno’s teachings on the paradoxical conflict that the work of art has to include if the consumer can be made to resist the culture industry effectively. In his criticism of the products of the culture industry, he argues that: The eye of the camera which has perceived the conflict before the viewer and projected it upon the unresisting smoothly unfolding reel of film has

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already taken care that the conflicts are not conflicts at all. In so far as the individual images are played past in an uninterrupted photographic series on the screen they have already become mere objects in advance. Subsumed as they are, they pass us impotently by.48

Here, Adorno points out that even the camera techniques of a film serve to guide and entertain the audience on the trails of a mock-conflict instead of intriguing the viewer and making them question the motives behind the production of the film in question. Adorno says that even though “social conflicts are represented in the mass media,” they “mostly represent claims against the ideologies of sexism and racism, which were always incompatible and regressive with respect to the egalitarian logic of legal persons in the market-place.”49 Thus, it becomes obvious that the industry repeats itself unnecessarily as an attempt to go along with the liberalist world order, which is already very well known to resist gender and ethnicity based biases. While this phenomenon manifests the lack of conflict in the examples of the modern culture industry, Adorno insists on being an advocate of the kind of conflict that “concentrates past and future in the present,”50 in order to point out the universal nature of a good conflict; one that is exemplified in the temporally polyphonic self-narrative of Joe: Responsible art sees itself confronted with a paradoxical choice: either it develops purposive forms so unrelentingly in their purposiveness that they come into open conflict with all external purposes when pursued to the bitter end, or it abandons itself so unreservedly to describing the existent without paying the slightest attention to special aesthetic considerations that its very refusal to intervene in the aesthetic formation of the object actually reveals itself as a purer law of form free of any decorative ingredients.51

Here, it can be said that Nymphomaniac, and Von Trier’s films in general, fit the first definition because of the clear purposes of depicting the abject, shocking the audience with the least-expected outcome, avoiding ideological or politically correct language and portraying the individual in the film along with the one in the audience on a post-existential plane. Moreover, it can now easily be observed that every aspect of the film serves these ends both in terms of the content and of the visual and narrative aesthetics. The negations of Nymphomaniac, which have been illustrated by the practico-inert and the concept of dissensus, portray the “escape and search”52 that the individual undertakes in real life, which is not only exemplary but also promising for the concrete resistance the individual should assert against the domination of the culture industry. In almost all Von Trier films, but certainly most significantly in his Nymphomaniac, the

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endeavour to defy absolute notions comes together with the negation that persists to deny the complete objectification of the individual in order to manifest the clash of the immanent and the transcendent, which I have tried to situate within the domain of post-existentialism. I believe that we can use this clash to not only better understand the restrictions of the postmodern condition of the arts and their audience, but also use the potential of this condition by bringing together the opposing voices embedded in our intellectual history, like those of Adorno and Sartre, and reassert the importance of interdisciplinarity. In this way, the individual can embrace the absurdity of the human quest53 and, moreover, be inspired to treat this clash with irony instead of welcoming it with despair or heroism,54 as one of the most recent and eminent advocates of existentialism, Thomas Nagel, suggests. In that case, it is needless to say that the arts can hold up a mirror to our concrete state once again and form the basis of a resistance that can free the consumer from the trap of mindless consumption.

Notes 1

Terry Eagleton, The Illusions of Postmodernism (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), 19. Theodor Adorno, The Culture Industry (London: Routledge, 1991), 82. 3 “Melancholia is the inherent quality of the mode of the disappearance of meaning, of the mode of the volatilization of meaning in operational systems. And we are all melancholic.” Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994), 106. 4 Adorno, The Culture Industry, 85. 5 Vincent Colapietro, and John J. Stuhr, The Journal of Speculative Philosophy 26 (2) (2012): 308–20, 309. 6 Thomas Flynn, Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford UP, 2006), 117. 7 Ibid., 125. 8 Ibid., 106. 9 L. A. C. Dobrez, The Existential and Its Exits (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986), 52. 10 Stephen Priest (ed.), Jean-Paul Sartre: Basic Writings (London: Routledge, 2001), 90. 11 Jean-Paul Sartre, The Transcendence of the Ego (Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2004), 12 Theodor Adorno, Negative Dialectics (New York: Routledge, 1991), 34. 13 Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness (New York: Washington Square Press, 1992), 618. 14 Adorno, The Culture Industry, 196–7. 15 Jean-Paul Sartre, The Critique of Dialectical Reason Volume I (New York: Verso, 2004), 52. 2

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Adorno, Negative Dialectics, 121. Ibid., 33. 18 Dobrez, The Existential and Its Exits, 150. 19 Ibid., 167. 20 Sartre, The Critique of Dialectical Reason Volume I, xxiii. 21 Jean-Paul Sartre, The Critique of Dialectical Reason Volume II, (New York: Verso, 1991), 438. 22 Ibid., 439–40. 23 Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 78. 24 “Dissonance in music, the stress on individual colors or brush strokes in painting, or particular words, images or psychological states in the novel negatively express the false unity of the whole.” Adorno, The Culture Industry, 9–10. 25 Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 223. 26 Lars von Trier, Nymphomaniac (Les Films du Losange, 2014). 27 T. Adorno, and M. Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment (New York: Herder & Herder, 1972), 137. 28 Adorno, The Culture Industry, 76. 29 Felix Guattari, “The Three Ecologies,” New Formations 8 (1989): 139. 30 Ibid., 138. 31 Julia Kristeva, Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), 145. 32 Jean-Paul Sartre, Between Existentialism and Marxism (New York: Verso, 2008), 272. 33 Jacques Derrida, The Gift of Death and Literature in Secret (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1995), 134. 34 Ibid., 156. 35 Jean-Paul Sartre, What is Literature and Other Essays (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988), 217. 36 Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994), 36. 37 Adorno, The Culture Industry, 182. 38 Maurice Blanchot, The Space of Literature (London: University of Nebraska Press, 1982), 222. 39 Lars von Trier, Dogville (Lions Gate Entertainment, 2003). 40 Theodor Adorno, Prisms (London: Neville Spearman, 1967), 33. 41 Adorno, The Culture Industry, 2–3. 42 Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg, “Dogma 95/The Vow of Chastity,” (P.o.v. filmtidsskrift, 1995). 43 Sartre, Being and Nothingness, 621. 44 Kristeva, Powers of Horror, 210. 45 Lars von Trier, Breaking the Waves (October Films, 1996). 46 Lars von Trier, Dogville (Lions Gate Entertainment, 2003). 47 Adorno, The Culture Industry, 72. 48 Ibid., 23. 49 Ibid., 74. 50 Ibid., 81. 17

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51

Dobrez, The Existential and Its Exits, 68–9. Thomas Nagel, “The Absurd,” The Journal of Philosophy 68 (20) (1971): 716– 27, 726. 53 Ibid., 727. 52

Bibliography Adorno, Theodor. The Culture Industry, 1st ed. London: Routledge, 1991. —. Negative Dialectics, 1st ed. New York: Routledge, 1991. —. Notes to Literature. Vol 1, 1st ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 1991. —. Prisms, 1st ed. London: Neville Spearman, 1967. Adorno, Theodor, and Max Horkheimer. Dialectic of Enlightenment, 1st ed. New York: Herder & Herder, 1972. Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation, 1st ed. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994. Colapietro, Vincent, and John J. Stuhr (eds.). The Journal of Speculative Philosophy 26 (2) (2012): 308–20. Dobrez, L. A. C. The Existential and Its Exits, 1st ed. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986. Eagleton, Terry. The Illusions of Postmodernism, 1st ed. Oxford: Blackwell, 1997. Flynn, Thomas. Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction, 1st ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006. Guattari, Felix. “The Three Ecologies.” New Formations 8 (1989): 131– 47. Kristeva, Julia. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, 1st ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 1982. Nagel, Thomas. “The Absurd.” The Journal of Philosophy 68 (20) (1971): 716–27. Sartre, Jean-Paul. Being and Nothingness, 1st ed. New York: Washington Square Press, 1992. —. The Critique of Dialectical Reason Volume I. 1st ed. New York: Verso, 2004. —. The Critique of Dialectical Reason Volume II, 1st ed. New York: Verso, 1991. —. What is Literature and Other Essays, 1st ed. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988. Von Trier, Lars. dir. Breaking the Waves. October Films, 1996. —. Nymphomaniac. Les Films du Losange, 2014. —. Dogville. Lions Gate Entertainment, 2003.

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Von Trier, Lars, and Thomas Vinterberg. “Dogma 95/The Vow of Chastity.” P.O.V. filmtidsskrift. Richard Raskin. March 13, 1995.

SOCIAL NETWORKS AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE: THE MAY GEZI PARK PROTESTS FIKRET GÜVEN GAZIANTEP ZIRVE UNIVERSITY

Abstract: Social networks provide a good opportunity for the coordination and exchange of opinions. However, those exchanges through social media can be misleading as they could be used to manipulate people, distort facts, and give a wrong impression. The case of the May 2013 protests for the redevelopment of Gezi Park, Istanbul, serves as a good example of how the social media can distort public opinion. The present paper uses Stuart Hall’s essay “Encoding Decoding” to evaluate how messages were produced and disseminated in the context of the Gezi Park protests. Jodi Dean’s essay “The Net and Multiple Realities” is used to analyse whether the internet represents accurate public opinion, and finally, Nancy Fraser’s essay “Rethinking the Public Sphere” is used to introduce a better understanding of social media in the representation of public opinion. Key words: social networks, public sphere, Gezi protest, Facebook, Twitter

In his essay “Encoding Decoding,” Stuart Hall explains how messages are produced and disseminated. He proposes the stages of communication as production, circulation, use, and reproduction. While each stage has its respective determining limits and possible outcomes, they are interdependent as well. Hall’s approach proposes that TV and media audiences are introduced to messages that are decoded in several ways, which could change according to an individual's economic standing, cultural background, personal experiences, and choices. Hall states that an audience can actively participate in decoding messages: “Each stage will affect the message being conveyed as a result of its discursive form. However, the sender of information can never be sure that the message will be perceived by the target audience in the way that was originally intended” (508). How consumers perceive things and interpret the message are based on their values and cultural and social backgrounds. Furthermore, consumers take three distinctive positions during the encoding process. In the hegemonic position, Hall claims that the consumer takes the

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message directly, and decodes it exactly the way it was meant to be decoded. The consumer is located in the dominant view and interprets the code’s intended meaning completely, accepting and responding to the intended meaning. Here, there is no misunderstanding in interpretation because both the sender and receiver have the same cultural biases: The domains of preferred meanings have the whole social order embedded in them as a set of meanings, practices and beliefs: the everyday knowledge of social structures, of how things work for all practical purposes in this culture, the rank order of power and interest and the structure of legitimations, limits and sanctions. (Hall, 510)

In the negotiated position, there are both accepting and rejecting elements. Readers are accepting the dominant message, but do not show any willingness to accept completely the way the encoder had originally intended it. Readers, to a certain extent, share the text’s code and generally accept the preferred meaning, but resist and modify it in a way that reflects their own experiences, interests, and points of view. As Hall (510) states: Decoding within the negotiated version contains a mixture of adaptive and oppositional elements: it acknowledges the legitimacy of the hegemonic definitions to make the grand significations, while, at a more restricted, situational level, it makes its own ground rules—it operates with exceptions to the rule.

In the oppositional position, a consumer understands the literal meaning, but due to different backgrounds, individuals have their own ways of decoding messages, while forming their own interpretations. The reader’s social situation has placed them in a directly oppositional relation to the dominant code, and, although they understand the intended meaning, they do not share the text's code and end up rejecting it. Based on Hall’s classification of the consumer’s position during the decoding process, the reaction on social media to major political events, in the example of the Gezi protests, differed a great deal from public opinion. Operating under the belief that social-network users comprise only a small stratum of the greater population, it can be said that during those protests they did not represent public opinion. Most notably, users of Twitter and Facebook during those protests were considerably younger than the general public, and therefore only represent a fraction of the population. Participating groups, using social media, had a mutual cause as well as sharing values and social and cultural backgrounds. The mutual cause of the protestors was their dissatisfaction with the government’s practices. Their position of discord with the practices of the government, however, represents only one side of the argument at hand.

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When taking into consideration the government supporters, in addition to those members of the populace not involved in social-media communications, they remained a minority. Their minority status becomes further emphasised when taking into consideration those protestors using social media, but living outside the country. The Gezi Park protest movement marked a special moment because it indicated a point at which negotiated code, through the mass communication force of the media, instantaneously burst into oppositional coding. The hitherto dormant perceptions of the minority mobilising and perpetuating the protests had engaged in a mostly negotiated means of coding information and positions put forth by the government up to that point. However, with the help of the social-media catalyst, a mass movement into an oppositional mode of interpretation of the events occurred. The opinions of social-media users assumed a position contrary to the negotiated positions that had existed before and, due to the communicative fluidity of the internet, spread rapidly and exhaustively, perpetuating the illusion that the positions held by this group were general public opinion. Furthermore, the role of social media in this shift is important, not only as a means of communication of information, but also as a means of portraying it. Along with words, media items such as photographs and video footage were disseminated. These photographs and videos were largely disturbing and violent images, and quickly assumed a “preferred” or “dominant” meaning that was misused by social-media users for the perpetuation of a non-universal idea. Hall’s definition of “ preferred meanings” are those which, “have the whole social order embedded in them as a set of meanings, practices and beliefs: the everyday knowledge of social structures, of ‘how things work for all practical purposes in this culture,’ the rank order of power and interest and the structure of legitimations, limits and sanctions” (134). Because the images explicitly displayed violent acts committed against the population who were protesting the Gezi Park reconstruction—the same people utilising social media networks—the media associated with the protest quickly assumed the dominant meaning of a transgression on certain socio-political expectations and beliefs held by the community spreading it—namely, those of the government’s protection of its people. As this dominant belief represented what social media users considered a violation of their understanding of “how things [should] work” and an overall severely negative meaning, the images and their negative portrayal under this dominant belief spread rapidly. Hall’s essay on how messages are produced and disseminated can be applied in conjunction with an understanding of the importance of exchanges through the internet. In her essay “The Net and Multiple Realities,” Dean analyses the significance of considering the internet as a public sphere. The

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internet, she asserts, provides the opportunity to interact and register thoughts in several ways. She suggests that it is similar to democracy in terms of a functionality, which is based on discussion, inclusion, and participation. Thanks to advancements in technology and the internet, there has emerged a “World Public Sphere,” which means that information is no longer the privilege of the elite, but that everyone can access it and register their thoughts freely: The internet is a great facility to enhance democracy and individual participation in politics, only if the thoughts and voices of different people are posed properly, with organization and clarity, through a website that is recognized by the state and government, a website that has legitimacy. (Dean, 524)

However, the challenge in considering the internet as a true public sphere is that, even today, it is limited to the urban population, and to the urban middleclass or wealthy populations in developing countries. Again, people who engage in internet debates and discussions are the elite, and not the masses. Those communities participating in the Gezi Park protests were largely those with reliable and frequent access to technology and the internet. This group by no means comprises the whole population and therefore cannot be assumed to represent public opinion. Thus, the notion of the internet as a completely incorporative public sphere is far from accurate when considering the demographics and socio-economic factors of a society. In addition, Dean redefines the internet as communicative capitalism. The most significant aspect of the internet is that it is a medium of communication. It has become a system like capitalism, with its own rules, regulations, and structure: “Communicative capitalism designates that form of late capitalism in which values heralded as central to democracy take material form in networked communications technologies” (Dean, 528). Even though the internet is encouraging participation, in fact, “it is a financially mediated exchange centered on advertising, public relations and the means of mass communication.” Thus, it operates on a system of gains and losses, and the incurrence of value upon certain types of information. More importantly, Dean indicates that, “with the commodification of communication, more and more domains of life seem to have been reformatted in terms of market and spectacle.” In other words, that which has pull in the internet world tends to be that which has value and an ability to draw an audience with its audacity. She puts it quite clearly when she states that, “finance and consumption-driven entertainment culture” are the facets of democratic governance today that, assuming the internet is a democratic governance, “attribute value to media that is transmitted rapidly on the Internet.” These points are particularly noteworthy in the case of the Gezi protests for

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many reasons, starting with the belief that the information disseminated during the protests was highly commodified and artificially imbued with value. The heightened entertainment value of the histrionic video footage made it a naturally commodifiable quantity on the internet. While violent images have a high value as it is on the internet, the fact that the images in question were meant to further a particular political agenda inflated their value. Furthermore, highly stylised images and artwork that spread during the protests had all the advertising verve of a well-placed television ad. As Dean states rather bluntly, “democracy demands publicity,” and the false internet democracy perpetuated by the provocative imagery “advertising” a certain political viewpoint gained momentum and popularity due to inappropriately commodified communication. This commodification of information during the Gezi protest, on the basis of its violence value and politically motivated allure, falls into line further with Dean’s attempts to discredit, or at the very least question, the nature of the internet as a true public sphere. She asserts that, “market competition as public good thus displaces attention from the actual antagonisms, the actual conflict going on in the world in various forms and spaces.” The media that gained speed during the Gezi protests, imbued with its violent and political internet market value, became a currency and catalyst for competition in what Dean would consider the internet democracy. Those with differing political beliefs were compelled to counter social media users’ comments, media shares, and currency, in the sense that once the understanding of the internet value of these media items became known their proliferation multiplied and their value increased further. That being said, the inflated valuation given to social media items, as Dean posits, just took attention away from the greater real-life concerns of the greater populace. Those individuals whose political agendas were allegedly being addressed by social-media users comprised only a small portion of the internet-using community, while in real life the greater public sphere was left without access or contribution to this marketplace of media. The exclusion of this portion of society in the context of the Gezi protests cannot be overlooked, and serves to further invalidate the notion that the internet represents a viable notion of the public sphere. While one may believe that an important aspect of social media is that the reaction to political events reflects the comments and views of active users and provides a perspective into how communities of interest respond to certain circumstances, it does not reliably present the overall reaction of the public. In our era, communication with many people has become easy and cheap thanks to social media. However, one major handicap that social media presents is that the number of online activists who engage in fierce battles does not always match the number of activists who appear on the streets. There is an un-

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deniable gap between individuals who are willing to represent their political agenda via the internet and individuals willing to represent their political agenda on the internet and in person. This co-existence of different public spaces allows more people to speak out and disseminate ideas to influence others, but it is far from realising a true public opinion due to the disconnect from real-world activities that it intrinsically represents. Dean’s concept of the internet as a “zero institution” perhaps best illustrates the fallacy that social-media users fell into during the Gezi protest. She suggests that the internet may just be, “an institution that has no positive function at all—its only function is to signal the actuality of social institutions as opposed to pre-institutional chaos.” As the social-media users in the Gezi protests were primarily protesting political institutions via the internet, it is clear that their online proliferation of hyperbolic media with regard to political institutions only served to further actualise the political institutions that they were protesting in the first place. Meanwhile, the political institutions themselves, as well as the greater population, represent, in real life, what it was the protestors were attempting to protest against without the buffer of the internet. In this “zero-institution” interpretation of Dean’s, although the public at large is not represented via the online ruminations of a select group like the Gezi protestors, it makes no difference as that public is undoubtedly the real-life manifestation of what internet users end up reaffirming. Social media provides a fast flow of information exchange to disseminate the most intriguing messages, create opposition, and spread ideas. According to Jürgen Habermas, “the public sphere is conceived as a neutral social space for critical debate among private persons who gather to discuss matters of common concern in a free, rational and in principle disinterested way” (in Calhoun, 92). Habermas's emphasis on the bourgeois conception of the public sphere stresses its claim to be open and accessible to all citizens, and he saw the media as contributing to the, “decay of the rational-critical discourse and causing the decline of the public sphere” (93). The Gezi protests fail to fulfil Habermas’s criterion for the notion of the public sphere in this respect. First, the nature of social-media use during the protests was inherently one-sided, making the internet and certain social media sites in particular non-neutral spaces. Social-media platforms became volatile grounds of discourse, with Gezi supporters hurling comments at those who disagreed with their political notions. The fervid nature of the discourse that took place on these platforms also eliminated the possibility that users were “disinterested.” This lack of “disinterest” eliminates the possibility of “rational-critical discourse” that Habermas posits as necessary for the notion of a public sphere. Habermas recognised three institutional criteria that act “as the precondi-

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tions for a public sphere to exist ….” The first precondition refers to the “disregard of status”; that is to say, one could participate in those public discussions regardless of status, position, or profession. If status is disregarded the influence of rank will be diminished, and thus the better argument will uphold against the hierarchy imposed by the society. In this way, the uniformity of “common humanity” will be asserted. The Gezi protests do not adhere to this criteria. As stated before, with technology as the harbinger for discourse there is the undeniable truth that in developing regions of the world, computer and internet access is not universally available. Therefore, status, position, and profession—as they correlate with wealth, financial ability and, consequently, the ability to access, with some regularity, the computer and the internet—prevent universal participation in online discourse. In the case of Turkey, its classification as a still-developing country means that profession and status undoubtedly interfere with the individual ability to participate in online discourse. Assuming individuals of such a status comprise a reasonable stratum of the public, it can be said that, in this respect, the internet does not represent a public sphere. The second precondition for a public sphere to emerge is that it needs to be a “domain of common concern.” If the discussed issue is a common concern for participants it is likely to have fruitful participation. Before the development of the public sphere, the authority of interpretation lay in the domains of the state and the church. These two institutions had a monopoly of interpretation in the fields of literature, philosophy, and art. During this time, philosophy, literature, and art became commercialised and were accessible to private citizens only. As time went by, these matters no longer remained domains of the church and state. As Habermas states: “Cultural products and information became the common concern of private citizens and this paved the way for other issues of common concern to be introduced as topics of deliberation” (36). Once again, the issue of access to technology in the case of the Gezi protests nullifies the notion of the internet as a public sphere on the basis of Habermas’s criterion. Limited public access to computers, internet access, and social media websites ensures that the internet is not, as Habermas would call it, a “domain of common concern.” With that in mind, the positions and ideas perpetuated by the Gezi protestors do not fall within the public sphere. The last precondition is the idea of “inclusivity,” the process that commercialises cultural products and information, and makes them inclusive. Even at times when the public strengthened its boundaries to exclude people, it was never able to shut itself down to disallow participation. Thus, the public sphere has always been immersed within a more-inclusive public of private individuals. These private individuals could gain from this process. Issues discussed,

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which were previously confined to the debates amongst secluded groups, now became general and common in their accessibility. Thus, everybody was able to participate. Within the internet, these three criteria are, to some extent, attached to people who have access to the internet via virtual identities. All the individual needs to access the internet is the right socio-economic status and some computer skills. Yet, the individual is not the only one who can access the internet. The mass communication medium is used by interest groups and other organisations to explore and use the information available. Most of the actions pop up spontaneously after information is exchanged on social media. Actions such as these have started to change the perception and the dynamics between citizens, government officials, and economic interests. The Gezi protests created a political sphere in which political participation was enacted through the medium of talk and communicative action. Thus, the sphere allowed democratic participation and demand for rights and privileges of a specific segment of Turkish society through contemporary institutions of deliberative democracy. By employing social media for a rapid dissemination of false information, though, the protest lost its credibility. Thus, a peaceful protest with all the good intentions that could have helped make a stronger participatory and deliberative democracy turned into a masquerade. The disorganised structure of protestors and lack of ability to turn opposition into meaningful demands had a negative effect on the creation of a true public sphere. The public sphere is an ideal model that has probably never existed. According to Habermas, people are encouraged to participate, “in a process of deliberation and access that is guaranteed to everybody; they are respected as equals and are expected to contribute to the common good; power elites are held accountable to the independent public body” (37). In the contemporary context, however, the modern public sphere and public discourse cannot be separated from the social media. Public opinion has been facilitated by various forms of media, including newspapers, magazines, television talk programs, and the internet. The internet has been taken as a new potential public sphere as it has opened new channels for political communication and public discourse. Within the internet, exchanges are seen as representing a potential development that could act as a new form of this public sphere. Social media helped organise massive protests demanding justice and calling for action. The role of social media in the Gezi protests can be understood through its relation to social networks and mobilisation mechanisms. In the Gezi protests, social media provided space and tools for the formation and the expansion of networks that the government could not easily control. Thus, social media helped a popular movement for political change to expand its sphere of participation.

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Social Networks and the Public Sphere: The May Gezi Park Protests

Works Cited Calhoun, Craig. “Habermas and the Public Sphere.” MIT Press, Cambridge MA, USA, 1992. Dean, Jodi. “The Net and Multiple Realities.” In The Cultural Studies Reader, edited by Simon During. London: Routledge, 2007. Hall, Stuart. “Encoding/Decoding." Floating Data RSS. The WordPress Experts, 20 Apr. 2011. www.wordpress.com/

DARK TOURISM IN TURKEY: SITES, PARTICIPANTS’ DETERMINATION, AND MANAGEMENT IRINA KANTARBAEVA-BILL MELIKùAH UNIVERSITY

Abstract: In the postmodern, postcolonial world, new regimes of memory are appropriated, negotiated, and contested by communities and nation states to achieve the agendas of domination and/or resistance. As an integral part of this global tendency, dark tourism is being reconsidered as a crucial instrument toward the historicisation of social, cultural, and public memory. This paper seeks to uncover a specific manifestation of public interest in this process of historicisation, with Gallipoli-Çanakkale dark/battlefield tourism and, specifically, the 2015 commemoration of the Centenary of the Battle of Gallipoli as examples of a collective duty (devoir de mémoire) that works towards refashioning modern identities. Besides the theoretical issues of how and to what extent Turkish dark tourism plays a role in the globalised convergence between memory, self and the Other, and self and the Nation, an attempt will be made to consider the practices and experiences of its various actors and cultural intermediaries. Key words: dark tourism, thanatourism, battlefield tourism, Turkey, Gallipoli-Çanakkale, ANZAC Day, identity quest, collective memory Despite the long history and the increasing contemporary evidence of travels to sites associated with death, it is only relatively recently that academic attention has been focused upon what collectively has been referred to as “dark tourism,”1 also known as grief tourism or thanatourism2; i.e., the tourism involving travel to sites historically associated with death and tragedy. Although dark tourism activities in Turkey are still rather limited, this combination of the words “dark” or “grief” with “tourism,” the latter connoting escape and hedonism, creates an enticing headline and academic challenge within national and international boundaries. With its unique history, Turkey hosts a lot of destinations for dark tourism: GallipoliÇanakkale, the Mausoleum in Ankara, Sarikamiú in Kars, Afyonkarahisar,

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the Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul, and Uluçanlar Prison in Ankara are among the most famous. This paper will examine one of the manifestations of dark tourism in Turkey in particular, the Gallipoli-Çanakkale memorials and commemorations, as an identifiable form under the “battlefield” or “war tourism” heading. Our insistence on the distinction of this type of dark tourism from other death-related tourist activities, such as “morbid tourism,” i.e. the desire to celebrate crime, deviance, or morbid curiosity as principal drivers, is meaningful since war cemeteries, memorials to multiple deaths and acts of personal or/collective sacrifice, are a more powerful and positive means of confronting death than more “playful” attractions, such as the “houses of horror” categorised by Richard Shapley and Philip Stone.3

Divisions of the dark Perilous places Dangerous destinations from the past and present Houses of horror Buildings associated with death and horror, either actual or represented Fields of fatality Areas/land commemorating death, fear, fame or infamy Tours of torment Tours/visits to attractions associated with death, murder and mayhem Themed thanatos Collections/museums themed around death and suffering

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towns of horror dangerous destinations

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dungeons of death heinous hotels

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bloody battlegrounds the hell of the Holocaust cemeteries for celebrities

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mayhem and murder

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morbid museums monuments to morality

Over the last century, war-related tourism has increased significantly, reflecting both the growth of tourism more generally as well as the number of wars and other military conflicts that have occurred since the early 1900s. In particular, the First World War represents a watershed in the emergence of battlefield tourism. Since then, war-related tourism has expanded dramatically, to the extent that “memorabilia of warfare and allied products … probably constitutes the largest single category of tourism attractions in the world.”4 Inevitably, perhaps, the representation/interpretations of wars/battles between nations may focus on a nationalist heritage or, to put it another way, battlefields may be interpreted in such a way as to communicate a politically nationalist and identity heritage.

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Gallipoli-Çanakkale Battlefield Geography and Experience Gallipoli-Çanakkale in Turkey was the site of one of the bloodiest battles of World War I. Over a period of eight months during 1915, more than five-hundred thousand casualties,5 dead and wounded were suffered by each side before the defeated Allied Army finally retreated. It is now a much-visited battlefield that epitomises the horror, futility, and sacrifice of war. Not only do the terrain and the positions of the Turkish defenders point to the hopelessness of the task facing the allied forces, but the numerous graves of the fallen “heroes of the Dardanelles” represent a powerful and emotive reminder of the scale of the sacrifices. What Gallipoli signifies to Turkish, Australian, and New Zealand audiences has changed over time and continues to evolve. Despite being a major defeat for the allied forces, Gallipoli has achieved almost mythical status through the role of the Australia and New Zealand Army Corp (ANZAC) in the campaign, becoming the “psychological birthday” of both Australia and New Zealand as nations.6 At the same time, however, Gallipoli is a significant event in Turkish history. Not only was it a pivotal point between the eventual collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1919 and the birth of modern Turkey in 1923, but Mustafa Kemal, later known as Ataturk, regarded as a hero of the defence of Gallipoli, went on to become the first President of the Republic of Turkey.7 New books, films and documentaries about Gallipoli have proliferated. These new works continue to reinforce the official mythology that has developed around Gallipoli since the time of the actual battles.8 Indeed, at the recently opened Dardanelles Epic Information Centre (Çanakkale Destan Tantm Merkezi) at the base of Second Ridge Road, moving platforms, 3D glasses, and wide-screen movies cast the battle in terms of a martyrdom foundational to modern Turkey’s prosperity.

Gallipoli battlefield tourism geography The Gallipoli-Gelibolu Peninsula Historical National Park, run jointly by The Ministry of Environment and Forestry and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, represents a 33,000 hectare national park that commemorates the area where battles occurred, and invites visitors to learn about the campaign. The Çanakkale War Monument honours the Turkish war participants. Visitors may tour the Kilitbahir, a historic fortress castle that the Ottomans used to defend Gallipoli. A second, smaller museum near the monument also chronicles battle events. ANZAC Cove commemorates the

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spot where the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps landed. Throughout the battlefield area, the ANZAC memorials are marked by the Christian cross and the remembrance expression “Lest We Forget.” The Ari Burnu Memorial constructed by Turkey provides comfort to the bereaved families of Allied forces with an abbreviated version of Ataturk’s speech to a group of Allied pilgrims in 1934, stating in part: “You, the mothers, who sent your sons from faraway countries, wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.” Other nearby sites include battlefields and cemeteries located adjacent to the main park. These include Turkish gun batteries and the V Beach Cemetery. The Allied graves are marked by low rectangular headstones with the emblem of the soldier’s religion, rank, name, age at death, battalion or unit, badge of service, date of death and an inscription from the soldier's relatives. Unlike Allied soldiers, very few of the Turkish defenders received individual graves during and immediately following the war. However, in 1992 a symbolic cemetery was built close by containing individual rectangular marble headstones resembling in shape and size those of the ANZACs, inscribed with some of the names of the men who accompanied Ataturk. The cemetery also has a monument, a fountain, an open-air mosque for prayer, a pole with the Turkish national flag, and a large relief of the charging 57th infantry Regiment (57nciAlay, or Elli Yedinci Alay). The Gallipoli-Çanakkale landscape that developed during the battle is well preserved beneath the scrub and cemeteries. All three countries have invested in the best methods for understanding and protecting the Great War battlefield historic sites, and as the traces of the battlefield fade a little more each year, the Joint Historical and Archaeological Survey (JHAS)9 has ensured that the remnant features have been accurately documented before all evidence of the conflict disappears forever.

Participants’ determination: pilgrimage, grieving and quest for identity Battlefields are arguably one of the most visited dark-tourism sites, but few visitors to battlefields would happily consider themselves as “dark tourists” or “thanatourists.” Many would be horrified to think that academia places them in the same category as, for example, those who travel to witness the sites of disasters or visitors to sites of murder or execution, linked by a common thread of visiting places of death. ANZAC soldiers, surrounded by bloodshed, were comforted with the belief that if they died, their compatriots in the future would come to pay

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homage in the way claimed by Australian soldier Hector Dinning some weeks before the evacuation: The day is far off (but it will come) when splendid mausoleums will be raised over these heroic dead. And one foresees the time when steamers will bear up the Aegean pilgrims come to honour at the resting places of friends and kindred, and to move over the charred battlefields of Turkey.10

Cited in the Anzac Book, a collection of writing and drawings by Australian soldiers at Gallipoli, this sort of battlefield pilgrimage redefined a spiritually motivated journey into a search of great moral and existential significance. Tony Walter has identified it further as a sort of “regulated emotional catharsis” through ritual in an attempt to provide a sense of “perspective if not closure on painful memories.”11 The Gallipoli-Çanakkale journey has thus a deep and intense personal meaning to the participants, enhanced by the grievance for the dead but also by their engagement, to some extent, in a journey of self-discovery. Being at Gallipoli on April 25 is almost a rite of passage for young Australians doing their “OE” (overseas experience). Now people remark on the numbers of young Turks present, for whom the last twenty years have been a time for much redefinition. One reason for this may be the result of visitors’ extreme adherence to their culture, history, and heritage. Generally, they come to see the place where their great nation-building stories took place. Further, the ANZAC Day celebrations have been changing from year to year. Currently, these celebrations have become more entertaining in nature, targeting younger generations in an attempt to transmit and share collective history. According to John Urry’s The Tourist Gaze (1990),12 where the visual has thus been given an overarching prominence, the tourist battlefield site and commemorations are dominated by a scopic regime that ostensibly seems to dictate much of the image and myth of the place associated with it. Different kinds of visitors to dark attractions view battlefield sites in different ways; in other words, their motivations can be found in different “tourist gazes,” like curiosity, novelty, remembrance, education, cultural heritage and identity, death and dying, location, artefacts, and exhibits, as well as a more polysensual tourist experience.13 However, in contrast to other dark tourism sites, the Gallipoli battlefield area cannot be reduced to a single “tourist gaze.” This is corroborated by the qualitative and quantitative surveys of international and local tourists visiting Gallipoli-Çanakkale during several summers by Australian researchers14 and Turkish tourism specialists aimed at determining the representativeness of the visitors. Sex, marital

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status, age criteria, level of education, and income level were not determined as being distinctive variances. Further results of these studies underline Urry’s interpretation of tourism in providing more evidence of the need for wider sensual involvement as one of the motivational drives to (re)visit a site. Mourning remembrances were determined as the most determining factors leading the Gallipoli-Çanakkale tourists to travel, and the pre-event data given by the Australian researchers also highlights the influence of previous visitors with regard to attendance at commemorative events. Therefore, information sources such as recommendations from previous attendees, the internet, knowledgeable travel agents and guides, and personal visiting experience play an important role in providing reasons for coming to Gallipoli. The results also indicate that this satisfactory experience is driven further by the ceremonial and experiential elements of the Gallipoli commemorations, such as the Dawn Service at Anzac Cove and the Lone Pine ceremony. It is unsurprising, then, that these drivers of determination align closely with the motivations of Turks, Australians, and New Zealanders in attending the commemorations at Gallipoli. Carol Winter, citing Catherine Gatewood and John Cameron,15 opines that, “many tourists had a deep emotional experience at the site, even though most had no family involvement, and had initially been motivated by historical interest.”16 The post-event findings in relation to the experiential and emotional elements of the ANZAC Day commemorations indicate that a similar transformative force may be at work in Gallipoli attendees finding the experience to be a life-changing one. Further multinational research, particularly of a qualitative nature,17 would provide more in-depth insights into the power of the Gallipoli-Çanakkale battlefield tourism experiences.

Management and segmenting the market of GallipoliÇanakkale commemorations The Australian Government provided $83.5 million over seven years to fund a program of initiatives to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the First World War and the ANZAC Centenary.18 This assists the community in honouring the service and sacrifice of Australians throughout the anniversary period from 2014 to 2018, focusing on the centenary of the landing of the first ANZACs at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915. Çanakkale Governor Güngör Azim Tuna declared that the Turkish side made efforts to match the desired tourism movement for the coming 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli Campaign with the creation of The Coordination Center, the executive committee, and working groups.19 The task of

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the Coordination Centre is also to get in touch with the private sector, civil society organisations, embassies abroad, Parliament, and the office of the Prime Minister for support concerning different service designs and different messages for customers. For example, the marketing strategy of the Gallipoli-Çanakkale battlefield takes into account the sensitivities of different types of visitors, tourists, and grieving pilgrims alike. This affects the promotional messages, nature and style of content, and the logistics of touring or visiting during formal and regular commemorations. It is estimated that up to forty thousand people from both sides of the Tasman are interested in attending ANZAC Day services in Gallipoli on April 25, 2015. As the ceremony site is a small, restricted area, surrounded by the sea and steep terrain,20 its maximum capacity is 10,500. This figure was agreed upon through close coordination between Turkey, Australia, and New Zealand. Of the 10,500 attendance passes, according to the allocation ratio of casualties suffered by both countries respectively, Australia received 8,000, New Zealand 2,000, and the remaining 500 were reserved for those from Turkey, official representatives from other countries involved in the conflict, and a small number of VIPs. Turkey has already returned 150 of its allocated passes in order for more Australians and New Zealanders to attend. Being well aware that even these figures fall short of the public demand in Australia and New Zealand, Turkish authorities have issued exceptional permissions for the holding of additional services on August 6, 2015 by Australia and August 8, 2015 by New Zealand. A Commonwealth and Ireland ceremony at the Helles Memorial will start the Commemorations at Cap Helles on April 24, 2015. There will be high-level UK Government representation as well as participation by the UK Armed Forces. Nations involved in the conflict, from both the Commonwealth and elsewhere, will be invited to attend the service with readings, prayers, and the laying of wreaths. ANZAC Day ceremonies/services will start with the customary Dawn Ceremony in the ANZAC Cove on April 25 to commemorate the half-light of dawn, one of the most favoured times for an attack during the campaign. It will be followed by a ceremonial remembrance at the British, French, and Turkish memorials, and then the Lone Pine Australian memorials will conclude at the Chunuk Bair New Zealand Memorial.

Conclusion The Gallipoli-Çanakkale Commemorations represent a unique example of a celebration that blends internationally recognised cultural and historical events, significant for the national remembrance and collective memory

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reinforcement. In visiting the site, the tourists—Turkish, Australians, and New Zealanders in particular—visit an actual battlefield, but the area also represents a time and place where their countries began. Courage and resourcefulness in the face of adversity, the importance of comradeship, and inventiveness are themes all adding to the sum of the idea of a nation. These people experience emotions about the dead at Gallipoli-Çanakkale, and they know, understand, and commemorate their deeds. Very few people have feelings of being simply battlefield tourists visiting a war site, at least in the sense of a dark-tourism attraction. Most tourists who visit Gallipoli are engaged in the idea of what their nation stands for in the modern world. In this, they are participating in and adding to the myth of Gallipoli. The Gallipoli-Çanakkale 2015 Commemorations will be ritualistic, deeply reverential, and a significant meaning-making structure within Australian, New Zealand, and Turkish societies. Its parades and pilgrimages will continue to dominate the popular media and subsequently the popular imagination via a system of symbolic memory shorthand and mythological emotive structures. Investigating how the communicative social and cultural determination of memory of the Gallipoli-Çanakkale Campaign operates through a specific sign system provides a fuller understanding of how cultural memory works in relation to the national imagination. The further historical events recede, the more “cultural memory” will come to operate more fully, where, according to Jan Assmann: “the past is not preserved as such but is cast in symbols … as they are continually illuminating a changing present. In the context of cultural memory, the distinction between myth and history vanishes. Not the past as such, as it is investigated and reconstructed by archaeologists and historians, counts for the cultural memory, but only the past as it is remembered.”21 Historical memory and the more mythical inflections of cultural memory need not be mutually hostile; they are assuredly interlocked in the Gallipoli-Çanakkale timeframe. Investigating different courses of reception of the story/legend by other nations involved in the Gallipoli campaign22 can enhance an understanding of Australian, New Zealand, and Turkish history in order to avoid a greater danger of any, “‘commemoration’ answering a present need rather than any fidelity to the past.”23

Notes 1

The first contentious concept of “dark tourism” was proposed by John Lennon and Malcolm Foley in Dark Tourism: The Attraction of Death and Disaster (2004). Dark tourism for them is the tourism industry relating to death, disaster, and atrocity as a kind of secular pilgrimage for the late twentieth and early twenty-

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first centuries. Dark tourism has become widely recognised as a form of tourism, with promotional websites like www.dark-tourism.org.uk and www.grieftourism.com. 2 Thanatourism, derived from the Ancient Greek word Thanatos for the personification of death, refers more specifically to violent death; it is used in fewer contexts than the terms “dark tourism” and “grief tourism.” The main draw to these locations is their historical value rather than their associations with death and suffering 3 R. Sharpley, and P. R. Stone, The Darker Side of Travel (Bristol: Channel View Publications, 2009), 11. 4 V. L. Smith, “War and its Attractions,” in Tourism, Crime, and International Security Issues, edited by A. Pizam, and Y. Mansfield (Chichester: John Wiley, 1996), 247–64, 248. 5 The total number of casualties has been an issue of debate according to different sources—approximately 252,000 or 52% of casualties for the British/French, while the Ottoman Turks suffered about 300,000 casualties or a rate of 60%. See, for example, L. A. Carlyon, Gallipoli (New York: Bantam Books, 2003), 645. 6 P. Slade, “Gallipoli Thanatourism: The Meaning of Anzac,” Annals of Tourism Research, 3 (4) (2003): 779–94, 780. 7 P. Kinross, Ataturk: The Rebirth of a Nation (London: Weidenfield & Nicolson, 1964). 8 For an Australian perspective see, for example, M. Lake, H. Reynolds, M. McKenna, and J. Damousi, What’s Wrong with Anzac? The Militarization of Australian History (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2010); R. Prior, Gallipoli: The End of the Myth (Sydney: UNSW Press, 2009). For the Turkish perspective see, for example, B. Uzuner, The Long White Cloud—Gallipoli, transl. P. Thornhill (Ariner, Istanbul: Everest, 2002); H. Basarin, V. Basarin, and K. Fewster, Gallipoli: The Turkish Story (Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, 2003); Osman Arslan’s comic book Düúmeyen Sancak. 57 Alay [The Flag that Doesn’t Go Down, The 57th Regiment] in a ten part series, O. Arslan, Düúmeyen Sancak. 57 Alay (Istanbul: Mavi Medya, 2006), and a film by T. Örnek, Gallipoli: The Frontline Experience (DVD, Ronin Films, 2005). For the international perspective see L. de Bernière, Birds Without Wings (London: Vintage, 2005). 9 The Joint Historical and Archaeological Survey (JHAS) of the Gallipoli peninsula, a tri-nation project between Turkey, Australia, and New Zealand, was conceived in 2005 and launched in October 2010. This is a collaboration between nations and disciplines, including historians, archaeologists, and spatial scientists from Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart Universitesi, the University of Melbourne, La Trobe University, the New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage, and the Australian Department of Veterans’ Affairs, who fund the undertaking. The project permit is held by Professor Mithat Atabay, a modern historian, whilst archaeologist Professor Antonio Sagona oversees the fieldwork. 10 C. E. W. Bean (ed.), The Anzac Book: Written and Collected in Gallipoli by the Men of Anzac (London: Cassell, 1916), 21. 11 T. Walter, “War Grave Pilgrimage,” in Pilgrimage in Popular Culture, edited by I. Reader & T. Walter, 63–91, 82–3 (Basingstoke: MacMillan, 1993).

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12

J. Urry, The Tourist Gaze (London: SAGE Publications Ltd, 1990). J. Urry, and J. Larsen, The Tourist Gaze 3.0. (London: SAGE Publications Ltd, 2012). 14 J. Hall, J., V. J. Basarin, and L. Lockstone-Binney, “Pre-and Post-trip Factors Influencing the Visitor Experience at a Battlefield Commemorative Event: Gallipoli, a Case Study,” Tourism Analysis 16 (2011): 419–29. 15 J. B. Gatewood, and C. M. Cameron, “Battlefield Pilgrims at Gettysburg National Military Park,” Ethnology 43 (3) (2004): 193–216. 16 C. Winter, “Tourism, Social Memory and the Great War,” Annals of Tourism Research 36 (4) (2009): 607–26, 617. 17 F. Cheal, and T.Griffin, “Pilgrims and Patriots: Australian Tourist Experiences at Gallipoli,” in International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research 7 (2013): 227–41. 18 http://www.budget.gov.au/2012-13/content/bp2/html/bp2_expense-23.htm. 19 http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/draw-to-determine-anzac-day-visitors.aspx? pageID=238&nid=44973. 20 There is no running water or power onsite, except for those in use for the services, and seating is not allocated and is limited at each site. Visitors can expect changeable weather conditions, particularly in the early hours before the Dawn Service, and would have to walk up to 10 km during the commemorative period, including up a steep hill on an uneven dirt track. Visitors often need to stand and queue for long periods at times for security screening and ticket validation to enter each commemorative site, as well as for the limited public amenities. The grassed areas do not have seats and visitors in these areas will be required to stand before and during the commemorative services. Some seats at each site will have limited or possibly no direct view of the commemorative services unless projected on large screens. Limited medical support will be provided by local Turkish health authorities from the evening of April 24 to midday on April 25, 2015 from a clinic that is equipped for medical emergencies only. 21 J. Assmann, “Communicative and Cultural Memory,” Cultural Memories Knowledge and Space 4 (2011): 15–27, 14. 22 R. Hillman, “A Transnational Gallipoli?” Australian Humanities Review 51 (2011): 25–42. 23 A. Megill, Historical Knowledge, Historical Error: A Contemporary Guide to Practice (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007). 13

Bibliography Books and Films Arslan, O.,Düúmeyen Sancak. 57 Alay [The Flag that Doesn’t Go Down, The 57th Regiment]. Istanbul: Mavi Medya, 2006. Basarin, H., V. Basarin, and K. Fewster. Gallipoli: The Turkish Story, Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin, 2003.

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Bean, C. E. W. (ed.). The Anzac Book: Written and Collected in Gallipoli by the Men of Anzac. London: Cassell, 1916. Bernière de, L. Birds Without Wings. London: Vintage, 2005. Carlyon, L. A. Gallipoli. New York: Bantam Books, 2003. Erickson, E. Ordered to Die: A History of the Ottoman Army in the First World War. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Publishing, 2000. Holmes, R. (ed.). The Oxford Companion to Military History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Lake, M., H. Reynolds, M. McKenna, and J. Damousi. What’s Wrong with Anzac? The Militarization of Australian History. Sydney: UNSW Press, 2010. Lennon, J., and M. Foley. Dark Tourism: The Attraction of Death and Disaster. London: Continuum, 2000. Kinross, P. Ataturk: The Rebirth of a Nation, London: Weidenfield & Nicolson, 1964. Örnek, T. Gallipoli: The Frontline Experience. DVD, Ronin Films, 2005. O’Rourke, P. J. Holidays in Hell. London: Picador, 1988. Pelton, R. Y. The World’s Most Dangerous Places. London: Harper Resource, 5th edition, 2003. Pizam, A., and Y. Mansfield (eds.). Tourism, Crime and International Security Issues. Chichester: John Wiley, 1996. Prior, R. Gallipoli: The End of the Myth. Sydney: UNSW Press, 2009. Sharpley, R., and P. R. Stone. The Darker Side of Travel. Bristol: Channel View Publications, 2009. Skinner, J. (ed.). Writing the Dark Side of Travel. New York: Bergham Books, 2012. Urry, J. The Tourist Gaze. London: SAGE Publications Ltd, 1990. Urry, J., and J. Larsen. The Tourist Gaze 3.0. London: SAGE Publications Ltd, 2012. Uzuner, B. The Long White Cloud—Gallipoli, trans. P. Thornhill Ariner. Istanbul: Everest, 2002.

Articles Akyurt Kurnaz, H, H. Çeken, and B. Kilic. “Determination of Dark Tourism Participants’ Travel Motivations.” øúletme Araútrmalar Dergisi, Journal of Business Research-Türk 5 (2) (2013): 57–73. Assmann, J. “Communicative and Cultural Memory.” Cultural Memories Knowledge and Space 4 (2011): 15–27.

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Bushaway, R. “Name upon Name: The Great War and Remembrance.” In Myths of the English, edited by Roy Porter, 136–67. Cambridge: Polity Press, 1993. Cheal, F., and T. Griffin. “Pilgrims and Patriots: Australian Tourist Experiences at Gallipoli.” International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research 7 (2013): 227–41. Crompton, J. L., and S. L. McKay. “Motives of Visitors Attending Festival Events.” Annals of Tourism Research 24 (2) (1997): 425–39. Gatewood, J. B., and C. M. Cameron. “Battlefield Pilgrims at Gettysburg National Military Park.” Ethnology 43 (3) (2004): 193–216. Hall, J., V. J. Basarin, and L. Lockstone-Binney. “Pre- and Post-trip Factors Influencing the Visitor Experience at a Battlefield Commemorative Event: Gallipoli, a Case Study.” Tourism Analysis 16 (2011): 419– 29. Hillman, R. “A Transnational Gallipoli?” Australian Humanities Review 51 (2011): 25–42. Li, X. R., and J. F. Petrick. “A Review of Festival and Event Motivation Studies” Event Management 9 (2006): 239–45. Slade, P. “Gallipoli Thanatourism: The Meaning of Anzac.” Annals of Tourism Research 3 (4) (2003): 779–94. Smith, V. L. “War and its Attractions.” In Tourism, Crime, and International Security Issues, edited by Abraham Pizam, and Yoel Mansfield, 247–64. Chichester: John Wiley, 1996. Walter, T. “War Grave Pilgrimage.” In Pilgrimage in Popular Culture, edited by I. Reader, and T. Walter, 63–91. Basingstoke: MacMillan, 1993. Winter, C. “Tourism, Social Memory, and the Great War.” Annals of Tourism Research 36 (4) (2009): 607–26.

PART III: TRANSLATION

SELF-CENSORSHIP IN THE TURKISH TRANSLATION OF ALICE WALKER’S THE COLOR PURPLE BÜùRA UL HACETTEPE UNIVERSITY

Abstract: Since the translator is not independent of the religious, political, and socio-cultural norms in his/her society, finding adequate equivalences for taboo words such as slang and swear words in literary texts can put them under pressure. Thus, censorship of these taboo words by institutions, society, or sometimes by translators themselves is a high possibility. In the present work, the translation of taboo words in the Turkish translation of Alice Walker’s novel The Color Purple will be evaluated. The translation used is that of Arma÷an ølkin (Renklerden Moru 1984). For the evaluation of the strategies that are chosen while translating the taboo words, the norms that are proposed by Gideon Toury within the framework of descriptive translation studies will be adopted. Key words: literary translation, taboo words, self-censorship, Alice Walker, The Color Purple, norms, Gideon Toury, descriptive translation studies

Censorship can be defined as the restriction of one’s freedom of expression and communication, and the blocking of one’s right of acquiring information. According to Billiani, it is, “a coercive and forceful act that blocks, manipulates and controls cross-cultural interaction in various ways” (28). Individual censorship, which is self-censorship, is not an official censorship dictated by higher authority. Self-censorship has a correlative relationship with the social, cultural, and political norms of a given society at a given time. Self-censorship in translation tends to happen when the target culture has an uptight environment and the translator feels under pressure. Since the translation act is not independent of the target culture and its norms, it is inevitable that society’s norms and circumstances influence the translation process. This might lead to selfcensorship in some cases, and the reasons for this self-censorship can be seen in Gideon Toury’s Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond (1995). Toury posits that socio-cultural norms in a given society affect the translation process. Keeping this in mind, “Toury’s purpose is to put

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‘translations’ in focus within the field of translation studies instead of suggesting a target-oriented translation approach” (Yazc, 131, my translation). Naming this new study field Descriptive Translation Studies, Toury merges the concept of norms with translation studies and suggests three translational norms. These translational norms are applied to analyse the translation process and paved the way for the inclusion of norms of the target culture in a certain place and time. Toury indicates that, in order to create a more accurate analysis, translations should be evaluated according to three target-culture norms; initial norm, preliminary norms, and operational norms. The initial norm can be defined as a norm that involves two choices that govern the translation act. These choices are, in short, sourceorientedness and target-orientedness. If a translator follows a path that is governed mostly by the norms of the source culture and the source text, this leads to what Toury calls an adequate translation. On the other hand, if the target culture norms govern the translation process the final product will be an acceptable translation. These concepts of adequacy and acceptability comprise the initial norm. Usually, the initial norm is decided after the comparison and analysis of the source and the target text in order to acquire more accurate results. Secondly, preliminary norms can be given under two categories: translation policy and directness of translation. Translation policy deals with the decisions that are taken by the translator before the translation process. These decisions might refer to the choice of text types or the policy that is chosen according to the target group of the audience. Directness of translation, meanwhile, concerns itself with the source language from which the translation act is carried out, and whether there is an intermediate language or not. The third norms are operational and divide into two sub-categories. The first sub-category is matricial norms, and this includes the distribution of the source text (ST) into the target text (TT), textual segmentation, additions, omissions, and change of locations of some elements within the target text. The second sub-category is textual-linguistic norms that, “govern the selection of material to formulate the target text in, or replace the original textual and linguistic material with” (Toury, 59), which means they directly deal with the textual choices within the target text. These norms are widely used in translation studies for describing and enlightening the translator’s choices during the translation process. The approach allows us to discuss the translator’s choice and the socio-cultural norms that govern a given society. No social activity, let alone the translation act, is independent of the socio-cultural norms of society. Thus,

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Self-Censorship in the Turkish Translation of The Color Purple

Toury’s norms provide a useful framework within which to analyse the 1984 Turkish translation of The Color Purple. The Color Purple is an epistolary novel written by Alice Walker in 1982. It is a very controversial novel that caused many debates when it was first published. Its depiction of black male characters and its sexual elements, such as rape and lesbianism, caused a whirlwind of arguments in the literary establishment. The plot can be seen to have multiple elements that would be considered taboo in Turkish society. The novel’s protagonist is Celie, an uneducated African American girl who lives in rural Georgia with her sister Nettie and her parents. At the age of 14, she is raped by her father, who actually turns out to be her stepfather, but she doesn’t know this fact at that time. The reason behind this violent act is that Celie’s mother could no longer meet his sexual needs. Unaware of the terribleness of the situation and unable to understand “what is happening to her” (3), she gets pregnant and gives birth to twins. But she is forcefully separated from them by her father, and she doesn’t have any idea of their whereabouts. After a while her mother dies, and then she is sold to a man named Mr. – in exchange for a cow. He constantly abuses her sexually and physically. In addition to all of this cruelty, he separates Celie from her beloved sister Nettie. Nettie coincidentally meets the couple who adopted Celie’s children, and later goes as a missionary to Africa with them. One day, Mr. – brings his mistress Shug Avery home because she is sick, and he wants Celie to take care of her. Celie obeys silently, and then, eventually, falls in love with Shug. They become companions to each other both sexually and emotionally. Shug helps Celie find out about Nettie’s letters, which were sent from Africa. When Celie finds out the fact that Mr. – was hiding her letters from Nettie, she finally finds the courage to leave Mr. –, again with the help of Shug. Celie moves in to Shug’s house first and starts her own business of pant-making, which is a first step to becoming an independent woman. Years later she finds out that the man whom she believed to be her father was actually her stepfather and that her children are not the results of incest. After the death of this evil stepfather, Celie inherits the house of her real parents, which had been occupied by the stepfather for years. In the end, Celie is reunited with her sister and children who come back from Africa. Mr. –, whose real name is Albert, becomes kind towards the people around him, especially to Celie. Celie starts to live with her loved ones including her sister, Shug, and her children, and she and Albert become friends. The storyline, it can be seen, is a busy one, and the many taboo elements, used as they are by Walker to challenge the existing gender, sexual-

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ity, and race perceptions in the society, are essential parts of it. Why the novel was chosen for translation into Turkish is open to speculation, but it may have something to do with the contemporary controversies surrounding it, or even the prestigious awards it had won. On the other hand, its depiction of African American people and racist white society was not a familiar context for the Turkish readership. Not surprisingly, the Turkish translation ran to only one edition, and it’s safe to say that the translation was never very popular. Since it is also important to look at the social, cultural, and political conditions of a society in which translation occurs, according to Toury’s approach the conditions of Turkey at the time of the translation are worth mentioning here. On September 12, 1980 the country went through a military coup that had transformative political consequences, but which also targeted “immorality” in society. Thus, The Color Purple and its Turkish translation Renklerden Moru will be analysed and further discussed within this framework. The initial norm, as defined by Toury, is a norm that deals with the translator’s decision between source- and target-orientedness. Adequacy and acceptability are the terms for describing these two categories. Adequacy can be used to define a source-oriented text, hence this text will be an adequate translation that is closer to source language and culture. Acceptability, on the contrary, defines a target-oriented text, and this text, that is closer to target language and culture, can be called an acceptable translation. Needless to say, all of the examples gathered from the two texts cannot be included in this study. Therefore, a couple of crucial examples will suffice: ST

TT

My mama dead (4)

Anam öldü (6)

Dear God (5)

Ey yaradan allahm (6)

She say she hate to leave our stepma, but she had to git out (18)

Anal÷mz yalnz brakmak istemezdim ama kaçmak zorundaydm diyor (17)

The two children be making mud pies on the edge of the creek (37)

Küçükler dereboyunda çamurdan köfte yapmaya giriúmiúler (33)

Mr. – drink all through Christmas (101)

Bizimki Noel boyunca hep kafaçekti (89)

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These excerpts from the source and target texts clearly indicate that the translator has chosen a target-oriented strategy, and this leads to an acceptable translation. Usages such as “analk” and “yaradan allahm” are very familiar usages for Turkish readers, especially within the context of village characters. It is inferred from these examples that the translator identified the protagonist in the source text with a Turkish village girl and created an acceptable translation within this context. Preliminary norms refer to the norms before the translation process. They are separated into two categories, as mentioned above: translation policy and directness of translation. As for translation policy, the TT translator Arma÷an ølkin translated The Color Purple into Turkish as Renklerden Moru in 1984, two years after the first publication of the novel. The Turkish translation was published by ønkilap Yaynevi, which is one of the most prestigious publishing houses in Turkey. The book was published in the “Bestseller Series” of the publishing house, and thus it is safe to say that the book was translated mainly because of its popularity overseas, especially in the United States. The second page of TT contains a statement that says “Orijinalad [Original name]: THE COLOR PURPLE,” clearly indicating that the translation was carried out from its original language, English, into Turkish. Thus, in terms of “directness of translation,” it is a direct translation because there is no intermediate language and the translator chose to translate it from its original language. Matricial norms govern the choices of extra-textual elements, such as the distribution of ST into TT. Moreover, these norms involve, “omissions, additions, changes of location and manipulation of textual segmentation” (Toury, 59). Under the guidance of this definition, ST’s and TT’s extra textual elements will be discussed. ST has 262 pages, whereas TT has 240. This 22-page difference can be explained by the difference in font size and the general layout, and also by textual omissions within the translation. An example of these omissions will be given in the next section. Dealing directly with the textual elements of the target text, textuallinguistic norms represent the most inclusive analysis carried out between two texts within the framework of norms. As a consequence, it is impossible to study all of the examples. In order to demonstrate the existing norms between ST and TT in our case, two examples will be given in this section, the first being:

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ST First he put his thing up gainst my hip and sort of wiggle it around. Then he grab hold my titties. Then he push his thing inside my pussy. (3)

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TT Önce orama burama sürtündü, sonra memelerimi mncklad. Sonra da yapaca÷n yapt. (5)

In this example, there is a depiction of a rape scene. The protagonist Celie is raped by the man whom she thinks is her father but later finds out is her stepfather, though this does not make the scene less traumatic. It is also a taboo situation that has a high potential for being censored. Considering the restrictive control in Turkey at that time (Evren, 1982), it is not surprising that this kind of taboo situation is self-censored by the translator. Due to the oppressive government, the translator must have chosen this on purpose, describing the situation in a covert way, not explicitly stating taboo words such as “pussy.” According to socio-cultural and political norms that governed the target culture at that time, the translator’s choice of self-censorship seems perfectly reasonable. The second example, again, describes a taboo situation: ST Us kiss and kiss till us can’t hardly kiss no more. Then us touch each other. I don’t know nothing bout it, I say to Shug. I don’t know much, she say. Then I feels something real soft and wet on my breast, feel like one of my little lost babies mouth. Way after while, I act like a little lost baby too. (103)

TT Bir öpüúmedir gitti. Sonunda öpüúecek halimiz kalmad. Ellerimizi birbirimize uzattk o zaman. Ben bu iúi hiç bilmem, dedim. Bende pek iyi bilmem dedi. Ama ö÷reniriz. (93)

This is the scene where the protagonist Celie and Shug Avery have a lesbian sexual encounter, and is, again, a taboo situation for the Turkish audience. The translator completely cuts the lesbian love-making, leaving just a hint of a sentence “Amaö÷reniriz,” which means “But we’ll learn.” The translator again chooses self-censorship. In this study, The Color Purple and its Turkish translation Renklerden Moru are studied within the framework of Descriptive Translation Studies.

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The translational norms suggested by Gideon Toury are adapted into the analysis of two texts. Within the scope of these translational norms, the existing self-censorship in the translations is elaborated and demonstrated with examples. Through the examples, it is concluded that the translation process is influenced by the norms that govern the society in a certain time and place. In some cases, these norms might cause self-censorship by the translator, and Renklerden Moru follows this pattern.

Works Cited 12 Eylül Darbesi. Vikipedi–ÖzgürAnsiklopedi, May 23, 2014. http://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_Eyl%C3%BCl. Billiani, F. “Censorship.” In Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies 2nd ed., edited by M. Baker, and G. Saldanha, 28–31. New York: Routledge, 2009. Erkazanci, H. “Language Planning in Turkey: a Source of Censorship on Translations.” In Translation and Censorship in Different Times and Landscapes, edited by T. Seruya, and M. Lin Moniz, 241–51. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008. Evren: Basn Hürdür, “Sansür Edilemez.” Milliyet 7 (1982). Harris, T. “On The Color Purple, Stereotypes, and Silence.” Black American Literature Forum 18 (4) (1984): 155–61. Toury, G. Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing, 1995. Walker, A. The Color Purple. London: Phoenix, 1982. —. Renklerden Moru. Trans. A. ølkin. østanbul: ønkilap Yaynevi, 1984. Yazc, M. Çeviribilimin Temel Kavramve Kuramlar. østanbul: Multilingual, 2005.

TRANSLATION STUDIES AS AN INTERDISCIPLINARY FIELD: TRANSLATION STUDIES AND LINGUISTICS AFTER THE PARADIGM SHIFT DUYGU SEYMENM, TUTKU ÖNCÜ AND OLUù BÜYÜKAöAOöLU YAùAR UNIVERSITY

Abstract: Once two different languages are present, interlingual and intercultural translation appears. Hence, the activity of translation, by its very nature, has always been in interaction with different fields. In this sense, when we evaluate the ties between Translation Studies and other disciplines, we see that the most intense interaction has been with Linguistics. The fact that both Translation Studies and Linguistics take “texts” as their research objects, and that both work with linguistic signs, is the reason behind this intense interaction. Although this interaction had mostly been based on the principles of linguistics, after the 1980s the onset of translation studies as an independent discipline transformed the nature of this interrelation. The paradigm shift, which triggered the evolving of translation studies into a scientific discipline, brought a new perspective to the field of translation and altered the nature of the relationship between these disciplines. The aim of this paper is to present how the interdisciplinary nature of translation has scientifically become apparent in terms of such key concepts as “translation definition” and “equivalence” through the analysis of a corpus that has been compiled of the sources produced before and after the paradigm shift. Key words: Translation Studies, linguistics, paradigm shift

The multicultural dimension of translation brings about interaction with different disciplines. The ambiguous borders of this interaction have caused difficulties for translation in determining itself. It is for this reason that translation studies was considered a subfield of linguistics. The interdisciplinary nature of translation, on the other hand, could become apparent only after the paradigm shift that took place in the second half of the

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twentieth century. In this framework, we will briefly mention the concept of paradigm as a scientific term in order to explain the relationship between “translation” and “interdisciplinarity.” Kuhn defines a scientific paradigm as, “universally recognized scientific achievements that, for a time, provide model problems and solutions for a community of practitioners” (65). When patterns of thoughts and practices proposed by the existing model fail to provide solutions to problems, new patterns of thoughts and approaches come into being, which form new practices. We can see that in translation studies, the paradigm shift caused a transition from a source-oriented approach to a targetoriented one. In this respect, apprehension of the sanctity of the source text, which is in fact an idea particular to philology, and the effort to seek the linguistic “equivalent” of the source text in the target culture, have been abandoned. Instead, target-oriented approaches have begun to be adopted, which emphasise cultural factors and communication situations. Accordingly, Eser states that transition from a prescriptive, static, subjective, and source-oriented approach to a descriptive, dynamic, objective, and target-oriented approach indicates the paradigm shift in the phenomenon of translation (13). With new perspectives regarding translation paradigms, new concepts of translation and translator have emerged. Language is a tool for translation and therefore relevant to all fields. The concept of language in translation can be described as stratified, and surrounds all fields in the source and target languages. At this very point of the process, translation studies intersects with linguistics, specifically with text linguistics. In addition, the effects created by the paradigm shift can be clearly observed during the process in which translation evolved into a scientific discipline in its own right. Having been founded in an environment1 where objectivity as a philosophic position prevailed, the perspective through which linguistics viewed translation was as a subfield of applied linguistics (Yazc, 75). This prescriptive approach of structural linguistics caused translation to be perceived as solely a linguistic, and therefore mechanical, transfer. In fact, as Kurultay states, linguistics later expanded its perspective with such new sub-fields as text linguistics, sociolinguistics, pragmatics, semantics, and semiotics. This enabled linguistics to consider multiple layers of the language in the communication process (“Çeviribilim Bir Uygulamal Dilbilim Midir?” 204). In this respect, the role of linguistics in drawing the boundaries of translation studies and in shaping translation theories cannot be denied (Yazc, 96). However, it was observed that linguistics, despite its wider spectrum, still failed to sufficiently explain the activity of translation, consisting of many variables such as culture, communication situa-

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tions, and specified goals. Kurultay puts forward the rationale behind why linguistics proves insufficient: “Linguistic study does not base itself on the communication situation, which comes out along with translation practice” (“Çeviribilim Bir Uygulamal Dilbilim Midir?” 204). With modern and functional approaches in translation studies after the paradigm shift, translation began to be accepted as a creative, communicational, and a purpose-oriented activity rather than just a mechanical transfer, and this paved the way for translation to be perceived as a scientific discipline. When we remember the narrow perspective prevailing during the period when translation was considered a subfield of applied linguistics, we see how the paradigm shift expanded these limits and enhanced our point of view on translation. Accordingly, we can spot how the transition from source-oriented to target-oriented view is reflected upon publications on translation. When we analyse works on translation published for academic purposes between the 1980s and 1990s in Turkey in terms of the concepts of translation definition and equivalence, we can say that they mostly present a normative and source-oriented approach to translation, as seen in Aysun Erden’s statements: The translator can translate a sentence from a language into another in an appropriate manner only after assessing the typical units and rules of the two languages separately and correctly. After that, the strict relations between the two languages must be analysed one by one and must be compared and interpreted. (243)

And, further: in order for the student to analyse sentence structures, decide on words, and convey the style of the author in the most appropriate manner to the target language, comparing self-translations with in-class examples provides opportunities to correct mistakes on various levels. (239)

Translation here is handled as a linguistic transfer from one language into the other, conveying the source text to the target text “correctly.” It is obvious that this normative and source-oriented approach is far more limited than the perspective of translation studies, which takes communication as its starting point and emphasises extra-textual elements such as cultural factors and context. As such, equivalence is defined as the “correct” transfer of the style of the author to the target language after analysing the linguistic structures of the two languages. In other words, seeking grammatical counterparts is reflected as the ideal way for a successful translation.

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The modern descriptive translation approach handles the concept of equivalence in a different manner. Due to the nature of translation, there is already a relation of equivalence between the source and target texts. This equivalence shows itself in various ways. Through descriptive studies, the degree and type of this equivalence can be determined based on the concept “norm” (Toury, 16–41). In øngilizce Çeviri Klavuzu2 by Ahmet Kocaman, Ziya Aksoy, and øsmail Boztaú, translation is defined as a problem of establishing a relationship of equivalence between the source and target languages (7). The concept of equivalence mentioned here is divided into three categories as “structural, semantic, and functional.” Structural equivalence can be explained as the effort to seek the exact counterpart of grammatical structures between two languages; semantic equivalence can be thought of as the transfer of meaning rather than the grammatical structure (e.g. a concept expressed in a single word can be expressed in a sentence in the target language); functional equivalence, on the other hand, can be identified as establishing the same function in the target text as in the source text. Here, even though semantic and functional equivalences are mentioned and can be regarded as representing a step beyond seeking the linguistic equivalences of words, this concept of function is handled as decontextualised and without purpose, and therefore is source-oriented. For example, the writers state that an academic text cannot be translated in a causal a style, which disregards an important aspect in the target-oriented approach—the expectations of the initiator (who requests the translation) and the target audience. However, the functionalist approach handles this in a converse manner. For instance, a medical text can be simplified in order for the addressee (e.g. the patient) to comprehend the message of the text easily. At the same time, the book is a “translation guide”; therefore, it proposes grammatical patterns for “correct” translation. Where patterns are present, there are rules and restrictions. However, translation is a stratified phenomenon, and due to its complexity any translation practice through some particular grammatical patterns will be limited and poor. Ylmaz Hasdemir, in Translation Methods (1984), deals with the practice of translation within the framework of particular patterns. Hasdemir gives the target-language equivalents based on linguistic requirements across the source language sentences and paragraphs. We can infer from the translation practices given that ensuring the “correct translation” means “finding out the correct grammatical pattern.” Although a specific definition of equivalence is not given, we can observe that translation practice is regarded as the transfer of linguistic units from one language into another under certain rules. However, as Kurultay underlines, setting out a pattern of equivalence by forming an equation like “certain structure

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in language A equals to a certain structure in language B” neglects the stratified, communicational, and subjective dimension of translation (“Çeviribilim Bir Uygulamal Dilbilim Midir?” 201). A similar study by Dorothy E. Irmak, titled øngilizce Bilimsel Metinleri Anlama ve Çeviri Klavuzu, was published in 1992. The study aims to analyse the linguistic structures of academic texts in order to make them understood and translated more easily. Irmak remarks in the Preface: “Translation is an operation that can be carried out by analysing linguistic structures in the source text.” In this framework, linguistic structures in the target text are seen as equivalents. It is obvious that this prescriptive, source-oriented approach that fails to go beyond the intralingual context cannot make the communicational and cultural aspects of translation transparent. Still, it is necessary to acknowledge that all these sourceoriented works, prepared under the influence of the dominant understanding of the relevant period and affected by the background and education of the authors, tried their best to come up with solutions to the translation problems. Again in the 1980s and 1990s, studies were produced signalling the transition from translation to translation studies. With his works “Okuma Uracil,” “Suzan Tosi,” and “Kediri: Diller in Dili,” Aksit Göktürk drew attention to the ambiguity and vagueness of the concept of equivalence, making way for its investigation and expanding the boundaries of translation definition and conditions as follows: The task of the translator is to translate texts rather than words and sentences one by one. This does not mean to reduce the importance of words and sentences. As a matter of fact, there are instances where a single word or a single sentence functions as a text. Still, a successful translation depends on deep familiarity with certain communicational aspects of the text to be translated. (Çeviri: Dillerin Dili, 17)3

Göktürk, who evaluates translation in terms of communication and function, studied concepts related to text types from the perspective of translation studies. In this sense, translation studies has apparent ties with textlinguistics rather than structural linguistics, and we see the prominence of communication as the starting point for translation. Another leading figure of translation studies, Iún Bengi Öner, introduces a descriptive translation approach through, for example, “Çeviri Bir Süreçtir, Ya Çeviribilim?” and “Çeviri Kuramlarn Düúünürken.” The descriptive approach has a vital role in the paradigm shift. It emphasises the fact that translation is practiced for the target reader, and in this context sees translation as an act that is target-oriented and shaped according to the purpose that translation

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serves. On the other hand, in 1989, in Çeviri Dersinde Yaplaúma, Uygulama Sorunlar–Yöntem Önerileri, Turgay Kurultay emphasised the stratified, complex nature of translation, transcending the dominant, sourceoriented and prescriptive approach of the time. In this sense, Kurultay describes translation and the concept of equivalence as follows: Each translation problem is a product of a specific communication situation, which occurs when two languages encounter. There is no absolute and permanent equivalence in the use of two languages in translation performance; equivalence remains particular in the last solution. Therefore, teaching translation cannot be regarded as comparing two languages with each other and handing out a list of equivalence. Translator training should reproduce the dynamism of the concept of equivalence. (16)

In this sense, Kurultay criticises the limited, prescriptive, and sourceoriented approach that prevailed in the 1980s and 1990s and influenced the works produced at that time. In the 2000s, when the new paradigm began to be adopted, the new perspective towards translation was reflected in Çeviriden Çeviribilime (by Sakine Eruz), Çeviribilimin Temel Kavram ve Kuramlar, (by Mine Yazc), Söylenceden Gerçekli÷e: Çeviribilim (by Ayúe Nihal Akbulut), and Çevirinin ABC'si (by ùehnaz Tahir Gürça÷lar). These are significant studies that have emphasised the target-oriented and functional approaches. The above-mentioned theories define translation as an activity that occurs upon the expectations of the target culture. The definition of translation is not limited to the relationship between the source and target texts. Translation is a communicational phenomenon that takes place when two different languages and cultures meet. It has a stratified feature, with social, cultural, and economic aspects. Namely, it is surrounded by extratextual factors. It is clear that the influence of the paradigm shift in translation studies is reflected in the content of works used for translation and translator training in Turkey. The point of view of the 1980s and 1990s, considering translation as linguistic equivalence, has changed into new approaches handling extra-textual factors such as multiculturalism, communication, context, and function in translation practice. When the phases that translation has been through are considered, we see that translation, by its very nature, can be handled within the framework of interdisciplinarity. However, this aspect of translation has become apparent after the paradigm shift and after translation studies began to be accepted as an independent discipline.

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Notes 1

After World War II, objectivity influenced scientific approaches, and subjectivity was completely discarded and neglected in every discipline (Göktürk 1989, 161– 6). Under these circumstances, Linguistics and its translational perspective were shaped. 2 In this analysis, the 13th edition published in 2000 has been used. Page numbers in quotations are in accordance with the relevant edition. However, evaluations have been made on the basis of the period when the first edition was published. 3 In the present analysis, the 7th edition of the book published in 2008 has been used. Page numbers in quotations are in accordance with the relevant edition. However, evaluations have been made on the basis of the period when the first edition was published.

Bibliography Akbulut, Ayúe Nihal. Söylenceden Gerçekli÷e. østanbul: Multilingual, 2004. Aksoy, Ziya, øsmail Boztaú, and Ahmet Kocaman. øngilizce Çeviri Klavuzu Guidebook for English Translation. 13th ed. Ankara: Hacettepe Taú, 2000. Bengi-Öner, Iún. Çeviri Bir Süreçtir...Ya Çeviribilim? østanbul: Sel Yaynclk, 1999. —. Çeviri Kuramlarn Düúünürken. østanbul: Sel Yaynclk, 2000. Erden, Aysu. “Bir Metnin Farkl Çevirmenlerce Yaplan Çevirilerinin Aslyla Karúlaútrlmas Çalúmalarnn øleri Düzeydeki Çeviri Derslerinde Görülen Önemi.” Hacettepe Üniversitesi Edebiyat Dergisi 5 (2) (1988): 270–99. Eruz, F. Sakine. Çeviribilim Çevriden Çeviribilime. østanbul: Multilingual, 2003. —. “Çeviride ve Çeviri E÷itiminde Koúut Metinler.” Doctoral Dissertation. østanbul Üniversitesi, 2000. —. Çokkültürlülük ve Çeviri. østanbul: Multilingual, 2010. Eruz, F. Sakine, and Filiz ùan (eds.). Çeviribilimden Kesitler-Turgay Kurultay’a Bir Arma÷an. østanbul: Multilingual, 2011. Eser, Oktay. Çeviri E÷itiminde Edinç Kavramnn De÷erlendirilmesi. Doctoral Dissertation. østanbul Üniversitesi, 2013. Göktürk, Akúit. Çeviri: Dillerin Dili. 7th ed. østanbul: YKY Yaynlar, 2008. Göktürk, Akúit. Okuma U÷raú. 3rd ed. østanbul: ønklap Yaynevi, 1988. —. Sözün Ötesi. østanbul: ønklap Yaynevi, 1989.

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Gürça÷lar, ùehnaz Tahir. Çevirinin ABC’si. 2nd ed. østanbul: Say Yaynlar, 2014. Hasdemir, Ylmaz. Translation Methods. 6th ed. øzmir: Serkan Matbaaclk, 1984. Irmak, Dorothy. øngilizce Bilimsel Metinleri Anlama ve Çeviri Klavuzu. 3rd ed. østanbul: Bilim Teknik Yaynevi, 1992. Karada÷, Ayúe Banu. “Disiplinleraras Etkileúim Ba÷lamnda DilbilimÇeviribilim øliúkisine Genel Bir Bakú.” Dilbilim 15 (2006): 251–62. Kuhn, Thomas S. Bilimsel Devrimlerin Yaps. 8th ed. østanbul: Krmz Yaynlar, 2008. Kurultay, Turgay. “Çeviri Dersinde Yaplaúma, Uygulama SorunlarYöntem Önerileri.” Doctoral Dissertation. østanbul Üniversitesi, 1989. Kurultay, Turgay. “Çeviribilim Bir Uygulamal Dilbilim Midir?” Metis Dergi 19 (2005): 200–9. Kurultay, Turgay, and ølknur Birkandan (eds.). Türkiyede Çeviri E÷itimi. østanbul: Sel Yaynclk, 1997. Toury, Gideon. “A Rationale for Descriptive Translation Studies.” In The Manipulation of Literature, edited by Teo Hermans, 16–411. Croom Helm: London & Sydney, 1985. Yazc, Mine. Çeviribilimde Araútrma: Disiplinleraraslktan Disiplinlerötesili÷e. østanbul: Multilingual, 2011. —. Çeviribilimin Temel Kavram ve Kuramlar. 2nd ed. østanbul: Multilingual, 2010. —. Yazl çeviri edinci. østanbul: Multilingual, 2007.

LINGUISTIC TURN AND TRANSLATION STUDIES: LE PETIT PRINCE AND THE DIARY OF A YOUNG GIRL TUöÇE ELIF TAùDAN ONDOKUZ MAYIS UNIVERSITY

Abstract: “Linguistic turn,” an ideational term widely used in historical and social sciences, literature, and translation studies in the early twentieth century, defines the concept of subjectivity in the utilisation of languages in various research fields. According to this methodological approach, historical and social facts as well as acquired knowledge cannot be alienated from the thoughts, beliefs and background knowledge of the writers and researchers carrying out studies in the above-mentioned fields. Thus, within the scope of this ideology, no objectivity can be mentioned in the studies in which language plays a major role in communicating necessary information. Since translation is an important means of communication and also a reflection of various researches in different languages, it can be assumed that the studies carried out in this field are influenced by the theory of “linguistic turn." As Lefevre and Bassnett, the leading theorists in translation studies, have stated in their own works, translation cannot show its full potential unless it can be combined with the cultural needs and beliefs of the target society. In this context, this paper will analyse the effect of this approach in the field of translation and discuss the impacts of linguistic turn on the translation process by focusing on the Turkish translation (by Yaúar Avunç) of Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupéry and the German translation (by Annaliese Schütz) of The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. This paper will also argue the validity of those translations in terms of two important concepts emphasised in translation theory: reliability and equivalence. Key words: Linguistic Turn, Translation Studies, subjectivity, Le Petit Prince, The Diary of a Young Girl.

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Various methodical and theoretical approaches have been suggested in many fields such as history, social sciences, natural sciences, philosophy, and translation studies so as to elaborate the nature and value of the studies in those areas. “Linguistic turn,” a popular approach that emerged in the early twentieth century, is one of those methodical concepts; it analyses the impact of both linguistics notions and of the language of different fields of social science. In the widest sense, “linguistic turn,” a term thought to have been first used by Rorty,1 suggests that the world we live in is not reflected by language but is formed by means of language (Ball, 740). This theory led several scholars to interpret real experiences and historical events in the light of this approach. Bo Stråth states that language played a crucial role in the formation of our history, especially in the French Revolution: “language did not simply reflect the revolutionary changes but rather was itself transformed in the process of making revolution” (26). Thomas Childers theorises that linguistic turn mostly focused on “intellectual and cultural history.” Childers also emphasises that the facts about “political history and political sociology” can be analysed in the context of this approach (383). When we take into account the nature of the theory and the interpretation of scholars of linguistic turn, we can say that this methodical approach comprises all social and scientific studies, since human language is an essential element in all researches and works. The theory of linguistic turn has been emphasised in various studies of notable scholars since the seventeenth century, even though it was not actually named as such. As is seen in the studies of philosophers of the twentieth century, for instance in Dewey2 and Rorty, the main objective of communication is not to give information about the facts in our lives; in fact, communication is a means in the creation of our intellectual world. As Dewey states, people of a society share common values, and common values and beliefs are formed by the use of the same language (4). Even before the emergence of this theory, Thomas Hobbes stated that people could change the world, direct other people, inform or misinform them, or impose their own truths on others just by using languages (Ball, 743). Hobbes also underlined that speech was the main feature that differentiated people from animals in terms of being rational and creating a questionable world (Ibid., 748). In that context, the term “questionable” constitutes the basis of the theory of linguistic turn, since this approach asserts that linguistic choices of authors such as words, structures, and grammatical rules are subjective concepts that cannot be alienated from personal views and the background information of authors.

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After the emergence of the theory of linguistic turn, the objectivity of historical texts and works started to be questioned and criticised. In a very short time, this stream of ideas became prevalent in other areas such as social sciences and literary works. In the later period, the term “linguistic turn” started to appear in the works of scholars carrying out researches about translation studies. There are certain articles that analyse the concept of linguistic turn and translation studies in the same framework (for instance, Leung, Koskinen); however, those articles do not directly relate linguistic turn to translation studies; they basically focus on the impacts of culture rather than on the linguistic concepts. Therefore, they frequently refer to the theory of “cultural turn,” another methodical approach succeeding the theory of linguistic turn and analysing the effects of culture on social sciences, especially on translation studies. According to Susan Bassnett and André Lefevere, leading theorists working on translation studies and especially analysing the impacts of culture on the translation process, translators reform the original masterpiece in order to meet the cultural and ideological requirements of their societies (Bassnett, 3; Lefevere and Bassnett, 3). Indeed, it may be said that cultural turn is a branch of the theory of linguistic turn, since words are chosen to be used under the influence of the cultural and educational backgrounds of authors. For that reason, the cultural impacts on translation can be explained via studies determining the relationship between linguistic turn and translation studies. In the theory of linguistic turn, words give people the power and authority of orientating and leading the world. A similar influence is also observed in translation. As “creative artists” (Bassnett, 5), translators reshape and reconstitute the original masterpieces according to their cultures and educational backgrounds. Since translators are human beings who have their own characteristics and deficits, translations reflect their personal features to some extent. The human factor in translation is a striking point that was omitted for many years. The theory of linguistic turn has shed light on the above-mentioned factor and emphasised that personal preferences play a crucial role in the translation process. Within the framework of this approach, it can be stated that translators constitute a world of their own by using their own words, even though the sentences belong to someone else. This approach explains the reason why the translation of the first volume of Harry Potter by Mustafa Bayndr did not become popular in Turkish society. After this failure of the bestselling novel, the Harry Potter series was thought to be unsuitable for Turkish culture because of the many unfamiliar concepts. However, Ülkü Tamer subsequently created new concepts by combining the references to Turkish cul-

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ture with the meanings given in the original books, and this translation has become a great publishing success in the country. In this context, we can state that there is a strong relationship between linguistic turn and translation. It can also be said that the linguistic terms determine the success of translation works. However, it is necessary to highlight the limits of the relation between the theory of linguistic turn and the translation process. At this point, we have to answer several questions: “what are the limits of the liberty of choice given to translators in linguistic turn?” or “to which extent can a translator use his/her own preferences in the translation process?” In the translation process, there are no exact borders defining the freedom of translators. In the twentieth century, Susan Bassnett and André Lefevere put emphasis on the fact that translation was not a reflection of the original work and that it should show its potential in terms of creativity (Bassnett, 7). They advocated that translators should have freedom in determining their expressions in order to appeal to the target society (Bassnett, 9). On the other hand, in the same period, Antoine Berman, another leading theorist and translator, pointed out that translation should be faithful to the original masterpiece as much as possible; according to him, the aim of the translator is to transmit the message as it is given in the authentic work (36). It can be clearly observed that contradictory ideas have been introduced in the process of the determination of freedom in translation. In the present study, it is supported that translation should be in the middle of the above-mentioned two ideas. That means that translators should not have excessive liberty by which they would probably omit the substance of the original author and write their own work. On the other hand, translators should not cling to the authentic work strictly, because cultural and linguistic differences hinder the comprehension of the works translated by means of the word-for-word method. In order to reflect these problems of fidelity and freedom commonly encountered in the translation process, I analyse the translations of Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupéry and The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank. The story of Le Petit Prince mainly focuses on the interaction between a pilot who got lost in a desert and a prince from another planet called Asteroid B612. From the very beginning, the author wanted to illustrate an important reality—children live in a world unknown to adults, which forces the former to forget that world in the future. Although the book seems to be intended for children because of its pure language and imaginary concepts, in reality it carries influential social messages to adults by using philosophical references. The author also criticised, by means of implied references, the prejudices and stereotypes of adults and the discrimination

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imposed by them. Le Petit Prince was first translated into the Turkish in 1953 by Ahmet Muhip Dranas, and approximately 102 different translations have been published in Turkey since (Lise). However, two paragraphs have caused disputes among translators and critics in almost all Turkish translations of the book. In the fourth chapter, the author writes that the planet of the little prince was first discovered by a Turkish astronomer in 1909 (Exupéry, 18). Nevertheless, since his clothes were different from Europeans’, he couldn’t convince the International Astronomy Congress to accept his discovery. The author criticises a universal approach in which appearance has been considered to be more important than knowledge. At that point, he refers to Atatürk and the clothing reform; however, he preferred to use the term of “le dictateur” for Atatürk, and states that Atatürk forced the Turkish people to wear Western clothes under penalty of execution. Such a definition of the pioneer of Turkish people caused serious reactions in the society; therefore, translators and editors altered the context to a great extent (Neydim). Yaúar Avunç, who translated Le Petit Prince into Turkish in 2007, is one of the above-mentioned translators who decided to reflect the interests of Turkish society rather than the reality. He chose to use the word “leader” instead of dictator, under the influence of his cultural and historical background information (Avunç, 19). The translator preferred to keep the values and beliefs of Turkish people alive and changed a negative word into a positive one in translation. In other words, he decided to create an image of Atatürk accepted by the Turkish society, which may be interpreted as an intervention in the knowledge and preference of the author. Although such translation has been acknowledged by the society, the expressions in the book do not reflect the real identity and views of the author. Yaúar Avunç is not the only translator who reformulated the context of the book about Turkish society and culture; many other translators, namely Azra Erhat, Nihal Yenibo÷al, and Cemal Süreyya, preferred to replace the word “dictator” with other words, such as “leader” or “pioneer,” while Filiz Borak omitted the sentences about Atatürk and basically changed the structure of the paragraphs and the sentences (Neydim). The alterations in the book have been considered a violation of the rights of the author; therefore, the translation has been criticised by both translators and writers. As a response to those criticisms, Fatih Erdo÷an, author and owner of the Mavi Bulut Publishing Company that published the translation of Avunç, stated in an interview in Vatan newspaper that the author of Le Petit Prince actually did not insult Atatürk but criticised Europeans for their prejudices (Erdo÷an). However, he also added that the

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term “dictator” had negative implications in Turkish society, and that the translators working in his company decided to translate this word as “leader.” He emphasised that one of the translators in the company preferred to use the exact translation of the word; however, the company had to alter it to “leader” since so many reactions came from readers. A similar intervention was also observed in the German translation by Anneliese Schütz of The Diary of a Young Girl written by Anne Frank. The Diary of a Young Girl mainly consists of the letters written by Anne Frank to her imaginary friend “Kitty,” and those letters contain the sufferings, hope, and despair of eight Jews living in the Netherlands and hiding from the Germans during World War II (Lane, 269). Those eight war victims were sent to the concentration camps following the betrayal of a never-identified informer. After the death of Anne Frank, her diary was first published in 1947 in Dutch by the efforts of Otto Frank, her father and the only survivor of the eight. Apart from the “auto-edits” of Anne Frank, the context of her diary was also changed by her father before publication. The edited diary was translated into German by Anneliese Schütz, a journalist who also escaped from the Nazis in 1950. However, different and various alterations were also introduced into the book by the translator. Otto Frank associated those changes to the age of Schütz and her misunderstandings of Dutch expressions (Lefevere, 65). On the other hand, Anneliese Schülz intentionally changed certain parts in the book in order to adapt it into the target culture, which caused the misinterpretation of the thoughts of Jews about Nazis. As Lefevere discussed in his book Translation, Rewriting and the Manipulation of Literary Fame, Anneliese Schütz translated the Dutch sentence “er bestaat geen groter vijandschap op de wereld dan tussen Duitsers en Joden” [“there is no greater enmity in the world than between Germans and Jews”] as “eine grössere Feindschaft als zwischen diesen Deutschen und den Juden gibt es nicht auf der Welt!” [“There is no greater enmity in the world than between these Germans and Jews”] (66). In this way, the translator limited the reference to a certain group of Germans; therefore, she softened the negative feeling of Anne Frank against Germans. Lefevere also quotes the words of Anneliese Schütz about her translation and manipulation of the text: “A book you want to sell well in Germany … should not contain any insults directed at Germans” (66). For that purpose, the translator omitted the use of the adjective “fascist” for Germans. She also decided not to translate the word “Moffen,” an insult directed at Germans, and to paraphrase the word in a footnote, thereby eliminating the influence of the expression on the readers (68). The alterations of Anneliese Schütz are not limited to the political as-

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pects; Schütz also created an image of Anne Frank which is quite unlike the real character. As a 13-year-old child dreaming about being a writer, Anne Frank used extraordinary and creative words for the descriptions of events or objects. However, Anneliese Schütz decided to substitute her own choice of words in order to adapt the book to the context and the language determined by herself. Robert Faurisson focuses on the differences between Dutch and German texts of the diary of Anne Frank; he also emphasises that the German text can be seen as neither a “translation” nor an “adaptation,” since there were numerous changes, new entries, and omissions that manipulated the intention and thoughts of the original author. Indeed, the work of Anneliese Schütz is an extreme example in terms of the freedom of the translator. It is clearly seen in the analysed works that the choices of the translators became more prominent than the preferences of the authors of the original texts. These examples also demonstrate that linguistic preferences are influenced by political, cultural, and personal aspects in a society, which explains the role of the theory of linguistic turn in the translation process. As has been observed in the analyses of the above-mentioned translations, language not only transfers the messages of the authentic works into the translations, it also becomes a striking element of the translation process and takes control of the translations according to its functions. This argument proves the existence of a strong relationship between the theory of linguistic turn and translation studies; however, the determination of the limits of this relation needs more elaboration. As indicated in the theory of linguistic turn, language shapes the intellectual worlds of people; nevertheless this feature of language is mostly prominent in authentic works. Translations, due to their natures, are related to the original works to be translated; that means they should not go beyond the scope of the originals. When the target societies cannot understand the translation of foreign terms and ideas without paraphrasing, translators play the role of “creative artists” and adapt the context in compliance with the needs of the societies. However, translators are not allowed to change the messages or expressions that reflect the characteristics of the authors. In that case, the ideas or knowledge of the author will be disregarded by the target society, and only the words, thoughts, or expressions of the translator will be known to its people. Such an attitude is considered a violation not only of the rights of the author but also of the target readers. The readers should know the author with his/her own points of view, whether these views are negative or positive about their society. By changing the meanings in a work with more positive statements, translators also hide the real characters of the authors, for which they have neither right nor authorisation.

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In conclusion, translations are influenced both by the personal views of the translators and the prominent values in the target society. However, in the translation process, translators should know how to orientate those views and create a comprehensible translation that has not become disconnected from the original. In other words, translators should know that they are supposed to introduce the writer to the society by conveying his/her own ideas and points of views, and should not impose their own truths. Translators are responsible for creating comprehensible works that are as similar as possible to the original context. This means that the ideas mentioned in the original cannot be changed; only the expressions of those ideas in the target language may be altered in order to be understood by the target society. Translators may enrich their works by preferring effective words; however, the choices they make should not intervene in the intentions of the author. Additionally, translators should not be influenced by the manipulation of the target society, which may not appreciate the views of the author, and may apply moral and social pressure on translators. This imposition only leads the target audience to miss the real ideas and concepts of the author, since it cannot change his/her visions. For that reason, although the target society imposes great pressure on translators to reshape the authentic works according to its demands and views, translators should respect the choices of the author and protect the author’s original work. The absolute existence of the relationship between the theory of linguistic turn and translation studies cannot justify the excessive freedom used by translators. For that reason, translators should have limited freedom and use it in order to create acceptable and comprehensible translations in a literary sense, not to manipulate the original works.

Notes 1

Richard Rorty, American philosopher and pragmatist, emphasised the influence of linguistic concepts on philosophical ideas and works, and shared the views of certain philosophers or researchers in The Linguistic Turn: Essays in Philosophical Method. As a pragmatist, Rorty was influenced by the ideas of John Dewey; however, he interpreted the approaches advocated by Dewey in a quite different way. For more details about the philosophical views of Dewey and Rorty see Shusterman (391–413). 2 John Dewey was, “recognized by Rorty as a philosopher of culture,” since Dewey defended the idea that language was “a tool of tools” in the formation of culture. For more details about the views of Dewey on linguistic concepts, see Garrison (9).

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References Ball, Terence. “Hobbes’ Linguistic Turn.” Polity 17 (4) (1985): 739–60. Bassnett, Susan, and Lefevere, André. Constructing Cultures: Essays on Literary Translation. Clevedon: Cromwell Press, 1998. Bassnett, Susan. Translation Studies. New York: Methuen & Co., 2014. Berman, Antoine. The Experience of the Foreign: Culture and Translation in Romantic Germany. Trans. S. Heyvaert. New York: State University of New York Press, 1992. Childers, Thomas. “Political Sociology and the ‘Linguistic Turn’.” Central European History 22 (3/4), German Histories: Challenges in Theory, Practice, and Technique, 381–93. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Dewey, John. Democracy and Education. New York: Macmillan, 1916. Erdo÷an, Fatih. “Küçük Prens’te Atatürk’e Hakaret Yok; Avrupal’ya Eleútiri Var.” Interview by Seda Gür. Gazetevatan. August 10, 2005. Exupéry, Antoine de Saint. Küçük Prens. Trans. Yaúar Avunç. østanbul: Mavibulut Yaynclk, 2007. —. Le Petit Prince. Ebooks libres et gratuits, 2004. Faurisson, Robert. “Is the Diary of Anne Frank Genuine?” Institute for Historical Review, (n.d.). Frank, Anne. Das Tagebuch der Anne Frank. Trans. Anneliese Schütz. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1955. Garrison, Jim. “Dewey’s Philosophy and the Experience of Working: Labor, Tools, Language.” Synthes. 105 (1) (1995): 87–114. Koskinen, Kaisa. “Domestication, Foreignization and the Modulation Affect.” In Domestication and Foreignization in Translation Studies, edited by Hannu Kemppanen, Marja Jänis, and Alexandra Belikova, 13– 33. Berlin: Frank & Timme GmbH, 2012. Lane, Mary. “On Anne Frank.” The English Journal 45 (5) (1956): 269– 71. Lefevere, André. Translation, Rewriting, and the Manipulation of Literary Fame. London: Routledge, 1992. Leung, Matthew Wing-Kwong. “The Ideological Turn in Translation Studies.” In Translation Studies at the Interface of Disciplines, edited by João Ferreira Duarte, Alexandra Assis Rosa, and Terasa Seruya, 129– 44. Amsterdam: John Benjamins B.V., 2006. Lise, Yldray. “Türkçe’de Küçük Prens—Turkish Versions of Little Prince.” Yldray Lise Karalamalar. Wordpress, n.d. Neydim, Necdet. “Küçük Prens Çevirilerindeki Çevirmen Kararlar.” Çeviribilim. April 20, 2006.

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Rorty, Richard M. (ed.). The Linguistic Turn, Essays in Philosophical Method. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Rowling, Joanne K. Harry Potter ve Büyülü Taú. Trans. Mustafa Bayndr. Ankara: Dost Yaynevi, 1999. —. Harry Potter ve Felsefe Taú. Trans. Ülkü Tamer. østanbul: Yap Kredi Yaynlar, 2001. Russell, Tony, Allen Brizee, and Elizabeth Angeli. “MLA Formatting and Style Guide.” The Purdue OWL. Purdue U Writing Lab. September 5, 2012. https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resources/747/01/ Shusterman, Richard. “Pragmatism and Liberalism between Dewey and Rorty.” Political Theory 22 (3) (1994): 391–413. Stråth, Bo. “Ideology and History.” Journal of Political Ideologies. European University Institute. August 8, 2006.

GLOBALISED TRANSLATORS/TRANSLATHERS: FEMINIST TRANSLATION STUDIES IN THE CONTEXT OF GLOBALISATION MERIEM RAMDANI ABOUBEKR BELKAID UNIVERSITY OF TLEMCEN, ALGERIA

Abstract: Contemporary translation studies are keenly interested in cultural research, for translation reflects culture, changes in societies and ideologies. As a result, cultural translation studies gave birth to a new form of discipline named “feminist translation.” Women, regardless of time and geographical boundaries, have always been seeking equality. They have tried to spread their ideologies and prove their legitimacy in creativity, writing and thus in translation. Feminist translation is a subtle way through which translators and “translathers” (i.e. women translators) try to show men and women realities in society. Indeed, it gave birth to new techniques that help in “womanhandling” the text to be translated, the message to be transmitted, and information about the conditions of women around the world to be recorded. The discipline of feminist translation is a controversial contemporary issue reflecting language as a means of power, and the roles of men and women in media and the way they are represented in order to question whether a globalised feminist translation can be attained. Key words: feminism, feminist translation, translation, gender, globalisation, cultural studies, transnational feminism “The globalization of cultures means that we all live in ‘translated’ worlds.” —Sherry

Globalisation reflects nations’ needs for economic and cultural exchanges; it is a new vision that requires many tools and the most worthy one is translation, which helps break the language barrier, eases communication, and builds bridges between societies and cultures. Contemporary translation studies are highly interested in cultural considerations, for the translator not only transfers a meaning from one language into another, they most

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of all translate a culture and depict issues and changes in ethnicity, diversity, resemblances, gender issues, and the perpetually moving roles of men and women in world societies. As a result, feminist translation emerged in the context of cultural translation studies, and, among other variants in this field, acts with its very own characteristics to serve women’s rights and ideologies across the globe. In which context did feminist translation emerge? What are the driving forces behind feminist translation? How does it prove its legitimacy considering the ethics of translation about transparency and faithfulness? What are the new concepts and practices it involves? What critics do feminist globalised translators and “translathers” face? Can we consider a globalised feminist translation? Feminism, through history, cultures, and countries, has developed in different forms and witnessed many eras, whether concerned with the access of women to voting, education, and work, or seeking the liberation of women concerning their lives, bodies, choices, and opinions. All the movements of feminism aim at the emancipation of women through the respect of their rights and their capacities to be the equal of men in many fields. The second wave of feminism, to which feminist translation has been vital, has endowed both feminist writers and their translathers with the power and means to disregard authority. Indeed, during the 1970s and the 1980s, feminist writers (e.g. Nicole Brossard, France Théoret, Louky Bersianik, Lise Gauvin, and Hélène Cixous) were producing works that were highly experimental and whose aims were to attack, deconstruct, undermine, or simply pass by the conventional language they consider to be misogynist (Von Flotow, "Feminist Translation: Contexts, Practices and Theories"). Those writings have portrayed, in content as well as in form, women’s experiences, thinking, ideologies, and hardships, enabling feminist translation to give a new conception on the role of the translator and the translather. The conceptual triangle between gender, language, and translation has raised the interest of many researchers and translators who became pioneers in feminist translation studies. Barbara Godard, who created the term “womanhandling” in 1984, regards the interference of the translator on the text as undermining the patriarchy dominating the language. Carole Maier and Susanne Levine hijack the misogynist works of Latin American writers they were translating. Lori Chamberlain’s essay, “Gender and the Metaphorics of Translation,” systematically demonstrates how translation through history was defined using violence against women, and Louise Von Flotow’s articles from 1991 and 1998 deal with feminism in a globalised world. These researchers had political, social, and ethical motives.

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They aimed, through their activities, to dismantle the patriarchy that dominates languages, to make the feminine visible in language, and to demonstrate that, “translation practice is a political activity aimed at making language speak for women” (De Lotbinière-Harwood). They also aimed at reinforcing the woman’s position in society and encouraging her to assert her rights and impose herself through writing and rewriting. Unlike the traditional view of the translator, these translators and translathers created their own ethics and wanted to be recognised as purely writers and novelists. They rejected transparency and asked for their names to shine next to those of the source writers. Besides, the only fidelity they knew was in respect to their feminist ideologies. The global feminist translation project has been given legitimacy by the creation of Herstory (2006), and the revival of lost literary works of women writers and translators. Meanwhile, the main distinctive features of feminist translations lie in how to intervene in texts that are sometimes in contradiction with translators’ ideologies, are either offensive or discriminatory towards women, depict stereotypes about women, or simply espouse feminist ideologies. The practices they use are either traditional (supplementing, prefacing, footnoting) or purely feminist procedures (hijacking, neologisms, wordplays, fragmentation, and the graphic mode of representation). They womanhandle the source text in order to purvey women’s ideologies, backing up feminist authors or subverting authors they deem as unfair towards women. Feminist translation has raised legitimate criticism around the world. First, this kind of translation rarely takes into consideration the political as well as the cultural differences between women, and subsequently this idealistic translation becomes colonialist when used on texts of “third world” countries. In this respect: “The literature by a woman in Palestine begins to resemble, in the feel of its prose, something by a man in Taiwan” (Spivak). Second, these translations seem to be elitist, targeting as they do readers who can understand play-on-words and puns peculiar to some languages. And finally, feminist translators fall into the same scope as the male model of translating in the sense that they use subversion and violent procedures when hijacking and womanhandling. So, it is frequently asked: “Why is a masculinist interpretative model a betrayal while a feminist one is enriching?” (Arrojo) Like any other aspect of globalisation, the feminist translation that is supposed to defend the rights of women across the globe is blamed for being a form of cultural imperialism. A white Western model of feminism, for instance, is imposed upon women in non-Western contexts under the banner of sisterhood (Davis). These cultural notions of the West seem ra-

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ther odd and cannot be applied when considering different environments and contexts. The publication of Our Bodies, Ourselves, America’s best-selling book on women’s health, is a good example of global feminism or transnational feminism. This work about women sharing their personal experiences on pregnancy, childbirth, and sexuality in social and political contexts is a worldwide bestseller and has been translated and adapted into many languages. However, the translations were targeted for not respecting the characteristics peculiar to different groups of women around the world. Sexual matters, for one, had to be adapted to societies other than the Western. Consequently, the book was adapted in different languages thanks to globalised translators and translathers who, even under the constraints of the globalising publishing industry, tried to respect the context, the culture, and the needs of the target audience. In conclusion, recent years have witnessed a growing interest in feminist translation studies and the way it operates in the context of globalisation. These studies are the result of a new genre of literature that portrays the changing roles of men and women in society. Feminist translation has tried to cross the borders existing between women of different societies, and it sometimes gives surprising products using a subversive and nonconformist language. Feminists use translation as a form of expression even if they are aware that it can never fully express the source culture, and some elements are kept and transferred while others are left behind to leave the way open for elements of the target culture. This is what globalisation stands for—“an international integration.”

References Arrojo, R. “Feminist ‘Organismic’ Theories of Translation and their Contradictions.” TradTerm 2 (1995): 67–75. Davis, K. “Feminist Body/Politics as World Traveller.” European Journal of Women Studies 9 (3) (2002): 223–47. De Lotbinière-Harwood, S. “Preface” to Lise Gauvin's Letters from Another. Toronto: Toronto Women's Press, 1990. Delisle, J., and Woodsworth, J. “Les traducteurs dans l’histoire. International Federation of Translation.” Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1995. Godard, B. “Translating and Sexual Difference.” Resources for Feminist Research XIII (3) (1984). Sherry, S. Gender in Translation: Cultural Identity and the Politics of Transmission. London: Routledge, 1996.

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Spivak, C. G. “The Politics of Translation.” In Translation Studies Reader, edited by L. Venuti, 312–30. London: Routledge, 2000. Von Flotow, L. “Le Féminisme en Traduction.” Revenue PELIMSESTES Traduire la culture 11 (1998): 117–34. —. "Feminist Translation: Contexts, Practices and Theories." TTR: traduction, terminologie, redaction 4 (2) (1991).

A TENTATIVE RESEARCH MODEL OF TRANSDISCIPLINARITY MINE YAZICI ISTANBUL UNIVERSITY

Abstract: Translation studies originally emerged as interdisciplinary; however, recent functional orientations in translation theory may change its direction to transdisciplinary research. Undoubtedly, scientific studies cannot isolate themselves from new orientations in research. Accordingly, it can be claimed that transdisciplinary approaches open up new pathways in research and direct scholars to new destinations, which may even end up replacing the defining feature of translation studies, interdisciplinary, with transdisciplinary. The question here is in what way the departments of translation studies may adopt themselves to the new orientations in research, or what research strategy would best serve to this end. Accordingly, the main discussion in this paper is on why translation studies should turn its face towards transdisciplinary studies alongside the concerns over whether transdisciplinary research casts a shadow on the autonomy of the discipline. Bearing these issues in mind, I first compare the discerning features of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research: next, I discuss transdisciplinary approach in “research projects” and the position of translation studies as interdisciplinary; finally I develop a tentative research model to rationalise and exemplify transdisciplinary research in translation studies based on a tentative research model developed in a 2008 doctorate research techniques class. The ultimate aim of transdisciplinary research is to serve universal and humanitarian ends; accordingly, the model is designed in such a way as to justify transdisciplinary research in translation studies. Within this framework, it first identifies Turkey’s main communicative barriers in the EU harmonisation process; next, it decides on the corpus of the study as translations from foreign press, considering their role in international correspondence; after basing the corpus on a theoretical support, it determines the paradigms to disclose the impact of the foreign press on the EU harmonisation process for Turkey; finally, it deals with the issue of partners in conducting such a transdisciplinary research. Key words: interdisciplinarity, transdisciplinary, harmonisation, translation strategy, news translation

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Transdisciplinary approaches open up new pathways in research and direct scholars to new destinations, which may even end up replacing the defining feature of translation studies, interdisciplinary, with transdisciplinary. Accordingly, the main discussion in this paper is in what way translation studies as interdisciplinary can change its focus on transdisciplinary studies. For this purpose, I will first discuss translation studies as interdisciplinary from the perspective of transdisciplinary research. Next, I will distinguish interdisciplinary from transdisciplinary. Finally, I will submit a tentative research model to prove in what way translation studies can contribute to transdisciplinary research. Interdisciplinarity means the overt or covert interaction of disciplines to enrich and change their theoretical frameworks in the face of the complexity of questions (Klein, 40–8). However, transdisciplinarity means the overt interaction of disciplines for humanitarian ends (Yazc, 35–7). Accordingly, it can be claimed that both approaches are integrative, but their goals are different from each other. For example, the application of sociological methods in translation studies involves including external and internal control mechanisms circumscribing the translation activity as representing objects of study in research. These agents acting as control mechanisms can be listed as policy makers, publishing houses, proofreaders, and editors, etc. In other terms, sociological approaches, or interdisciplinary relations, help to expand the borders of the field, and consolidate the theoretical framework of the discipline. Translation activity lasting for a long time could be acknowledged as an academic discipline only after it extends its relations with other disciplines. Academic efforts based on obtaining data from comparable text analysis did not yield enough findings to theorise on. However, theory is the rationalisation of application; that is to say, a discipline may emerge and gain its autonomy only if it proves its functionality in the society. Interdisciplinary relations would consolidate its foundations by widening its perspective. So, we can claim that developing interdisciplinary relations in the foundation years contributes to the theoretical grounds of translation studies. In this way, researchers can include the external agents that direct the translation strategies followed by the translator. These relations with other disciplines help to disclose the different aspects of translation as a social institution as opposed to the past misconception that translation is a sedentary, amateurish job.

In vitro vs In vivo Transdisciplinary research arises from real-life affairs. Accordingly, researchers conduct in-vivo strategies in transdisciplinary studies. However,

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experimental studies, or research in humanities, are in vitro since they are based on human reasoning even if they are qualified as interdisciplinary, or multidisciplinary.

Potentiality No discipline may arise from multidisciplinary research. However, new disciplines may emerge from both interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches. For example, it is observed that those who once specialised in the field of translation studies have moved towards cultural studies in recent years.

Knowledge The common denominator in interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary studies is “knowledge.” That is to say, both interdisciplinary research and multidisciplinary research aim to generate knowledge contributing to the theoretical frameworks of their own fields of study. However, in transdisciplinary research the knowledge is used for pragmatic ends. For this reason, it requires understanding and empathy to provide the best service (Basarab, 150–2).

Cooperaton While transdisciplinary studies are conducted by a team or group of researchers, interdisciplinary study is conducted by a single researcher. For example, projects conducted by the European Union can be called transdisciplinary since they should involve partners uniting for the same cause.

Object-subject relations The ultimate aim of interdisciplinary research is to consolidate the theoretical foundations of the discipline. Accordingly, it concerns the object level. However, transdisciplinary research aims to provide a “service” to humankind. After eliciting the discerning features of transdisciplinary research, I designed a tentative transdisciplinary model that not only discloses types and stages of scientific research, but also bridges the gap between theory and practice. The stages are listed as follows:

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Shaping of a Tentative Research Model (1) Problematisation and deciding on the subject (2) Deciding on a theoretical framework of transdisciplinary to identify the objects of study (3) Identification of the object of study (4) Rationalisation of research material based on theoretical grounds (5) Deciding on the paradigms based on methodological and theoretical knowledge (6) Post-operative stage—setting up transdisciplinary relations (1) Problematisation This tentative model was shaped in a PhD research techniques class in 2008, in which we set out from the paradigms of translation studies. In this way, not only could we question the knowledge base of translation studies in terms of its concrete contribution to social ends, but we could also help the discipline to come out of its cocoon and revise its goals according to the new trends in research. For this purpose, students are asked what disrupts Turkey’s international relations in such a way as to hinder its development and integration with global markets, thereby adversely affecting the economic prosperity of the people. After the Turkish agenda was revised and discussed, the main issue was identified as full membership of Turkey in the European Union. At this stage there arises three problems, which are interrelated: first, the coverage of the subject; the second is its correlation with Translation Studies; the third is the object of study or the corpus. For the first problem I ask the students to narrow the subject down since its coverage is too large; for the latter, I ask for its correlation with translation studies so as to enable them to distinguish research strategies or scholarly research in dissertations from those in research projects. The discussion in the class helps them to set up a correlation with the transdisciplinary feature of research projects as opposed to the interdisciplinary approaches adopted in writing dissertations. Meanwhile, they discerned that they should have considered the subject in correlation with translation studies. This led them to discuss the corpus of the research in terms of its correlation with translations. Finally, they decided to focus on the corpus of research as EU Progress Reports and Turkish versions. This inevitably resulted in narrowing the subject down to “The EU Harmonisation Process of Turkey.”

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(2) Deciding on a theoretical framework to identify the objects of study There are two reasons why translations studies has to orientate towards transdisciplinary research. First, most of the research conducted in the field of translation studies is restricted to the individual studies and does not serve for social ends directly. Second, as an autonomous field of study, it set out from the hypothesis “translations are facts of the target culture” after the “cultural turn” in the 1980s. Hence, it is assumed that translations fulfil a function in the target culture. Such an approach would remind the researcher of their mission in research, or lead them to question the functionality of translations in the society. That is to say, today’s scholars in the field of translation studies are not satisfied with comparative studies based on the retrospective study of linguistic material. However, if the criterion of the research is identified as disclosing the “communicative function” of translations as cited in the Skopos theory by Hans Vermeer, the prospective ends of the research should be questioned. That is to say, the direction of research in translation studies has changed from the retrospective study of translations to the communicative and pragmatic function of them as facts of the target culture. This inevitably directs translation studies to transdisciplinary relations, since the underlying factor in the maintenance of communication is “understanding” or “understandability.” In Holz-Mantarri’s terms, translation as a purposeful act plays a key role in this new worldly formation called globalisation. Holz-Mantarri’s definition of translation as “message transmitter” without regard to the source, or target texts, uploads a new definition to the term “translation,” and opens up new pathways in international communication (Nord, 34–7). This method of theoretical approach ends in the formation of new sections concerning translation activity in state-run international institutions. For example, the translation coordination activities section in The Republic of Turkey, the Ministry for European Affairs, provides the institutional aspect of translation. This reverts the focus of scholarly studies to the institutional mechanism of translation activity and the role of agents taking place in control mechanisms. This does not involve the exclusion of linguistic material in research, but rather suggests the examination of the impact of control mechanisms on the translation process. Thereby, studying institutions dealing with translation becomes the researcher’s object of study together with the comparable analysis of linguistic material, (3) Identification of the object of study Since we identify “The EU Harmonisation Process of Turkey” as our subject of study from the perspective of translation studies, visiting the web

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page of The Republic of Turkey, the Ministry for European Affairs, helps us to identify not only our corpus as “The EU Progress Reports of Turkey,” but also to spot the communicative problems hindering the harmonisation process. Accordingly, we spotted two problems here: how to keep track of the harmonisation process, and how to correlate the object of study with the field of translation studies. The answer to the first question may be the study of the progress reports issued by the EU on Turkey since 1998, and spotting the criteria Turkey has failed to meet in full accession to the European Council (euractiv.com). After listing them in hierarchical order, they may be matched with the main titles and subtitles of the Copenhagen criteria that Turkey fails to meet: (1) Expanded political dialog and political criteria (1.1) Democracy and the rule of law (1.2) Human rights and respect for and protection of minorities (1.3) Regional issues and international obligations (2) Economic criteria (3.2.1) Existence of a functioning market economy (3.2.2) Competitive pressure and market economy (3) Ability to take on the obligations of membership Identifying the titles according to the Copenhagen criteria in a sequential order as they appeared in the progress reports on Turkey since 1998 will help us to identify obstacles or points of conflict in the harmonisation process of Turkey. The next question is related to the correlation of the translation studies with the process of harmonisation. In simple terms, the question is in what way we can conciliate the theoretical account of the EU with translation theory. The answer to the question will disclose the relationship between the harmonisation process and translation activity. (4) Rationalisation of research material based on theoretical grounds “Communicative Action Theory” as posed by Jürgen Habermas (1981), which laid down the foundations of the European Union, came to our help in basing our tentative research model on theoretical grounds. Accordingly, the underlying notion of Communicative Action theory is the “public sphere,” which denotes “the space of communication.” However, the space in Communicative Action Theory is used metaphorically, not in the sense of a place-based space as used in “Greek Agora” or market places in ancient times. On the contrary, it is a medium of social integration or an are-

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na for debate to provide social solidarity between European citizens. (Calhoun, 1–4). Accordingly, the public space as a medium of communication also concerns translation studies since it focuses on the notion of establishing the most efficient way of communication between diverse and distant languages as well as cultures. From this point of view, the communicative action theory does not seem to contradict the theoretical basis of translation studies in that it also originates from “action theory,” and assumes communication as a way of action in just the same way as in Skopos theory where translation is defined “as a subcategory of action theory” (Vermeer, 65). According to Vermeer, “translation is goal-oriented, carried out in such a way as the translator deems optimal under the prevailing conditions” (13). However, according to Habermas’s categorisation of action theory, Vermeer’s approach falls into the scope of “teleological action,” in that the actor or the translator makes a, "decision among alternative courses of action, with a view to the realization of an end, guided by maxims, and based on an interpretation of the situation" (Habermas, 85). What distinguishes the “teleological action” from “communicative action” is that teleological action is achievement-oriented while communicative action aims to provide a mutual understanding between the citizens of Europe (Bolton, 7–10). In the light of these remarks, a descriptive study conducted on the state-run institution called The Directorate General of Press and Information, may help us to disclose the underlying reasons for the misconceptions on Turkey prevailing among the members of the EU. Accordingly, the site of scientific excavation is determined as The Directorate General of Press and Information, which is affiliated to the office of the Prime Minister. It was founded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and aims to fulfil the following functions: (a) to contribute to the promotion policy of the state and the strategies implemented by the government on this matter; (b) to provide accurate and timely information to the public and relevant state authorities; (c) to ensure that government activities and services are effectively conveyed to the national and international public; (d) to maintain and organise relations with the domestic and foreign media and take effective measures to facilitate their working conditions and activities. Amongst the above-mentioned duties, especially items (c) and (d) concern translation studies in terms of providing optimal communication (byegm.gov.tr). However, neither the institutions in Turkey nor those in Europe consult the departments of translation studies since they assume them to be establishments or institutions responsible for raising translators for the market. This means that they overlook their guiding role in improving international communication.

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To prove its constructive role in international communication, Turkish versions of news under the section of “news from foreign press” on the webpage of The Directorate General of Press and Information provide us enough linguistic material to study (byegm.gov.tr). Initially, sorting out the news concerning the harmonisation process of Turkey and retrieving their originals in the foreign press will help to identify the comparable units of translation and form the corpus of the study from the perspective of translation studies. Narrowing the size of the corpus down to the comparison of titles may even prove more fruitful in terms of obtaining more accurate and systematic data. (5) Deciding on the paradigms based on methodological and theoretical knowledge After deciding on the corpus of the study, its aim is determined more exactly as developing better mutual understanding on the path to full EU membership through the foreign press. Since news items are the best tools in disclosing the normative and biased approaches in international affairs, the choice of news items as a subject of study is suitable to disclose public opinion on international issues. Moreover, what Gideon Toury (65) states regarding translation supports our claim, since news items are the best evidence to disclose the biased attitudes of both sides: Like any attempt to formulate a norm, they are partial and biased, and should therefore be treated with every possible circumspection; all the more so since—emanating as they do from interested parties—they are likely to lean toward propaganda and persuasion.

Since this research model is a tentative one and also serves for didactic ends, such constraints as time limitation and the coverage of the corpus are considered in shaping the direction of research. Accordingly, the corpus is narrowed down to the comparison of titles of the news issued in 2008. Initially, only the titles are compared retrospectively, and only the titles of news concerning Turkey’s harmonisation process are selected as comparable units of translation. Accordingly, the paradigms of the descriptive study are elicited as follows: (1) Bibliographical data The date and origin of the foreign news (the name of the journal). The date of the Turkish version (there is no need to repeat its origin since the website is stated above).

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(2) Language The language of the original (to see the diversity of the political approaches on full membership of Turkey). (3) The title of the Turkish version—the title of the original Spotting titles of the Turkish versions and matching them with their originals. (4) Categorisation of the news according to the issues stated in the EU 2008 Progress Report Matching data with the Copenhagen criteria to see what criterion Turkey has failed to fulfil (Yazc 182–8). (6) Spotting shifts and basing them on a theoretical framework Although the study of shifts concerns literary studies, it suits our ends to study shifts in a systematic way and to display the international (LeuvenZwart calls it interpersonal), ideational, and textual impact of shifts at story and discourse levels. Kitty M. Van Leuven-Zwart sets out from semantics and establishes the common denominator called “architranseme.” This denotes the certain aspects of descriptive meaning that transemes share. If both transemes share the same relations with architransemes, the relationship is called similar, which refers to “no shift.” If there are hyponymic relations in both transemes with respect to the architranseme, then the relationship is called “modification,” which means a “contrast” between the transemes. However, when one transeme displays a hyponymic relation to the architranseme, it is called “modulation,” which means while one transeme displays a similar relation with the architranseme, the other displays an aspect of disjunction in relation to the architranseme. Therefore, the relationship between both transemes is hyponymic. However, if there is no relationship we call it “mutation,” which means that there is no shift or correlation between the “transemes” with respect to the “architranseme.” Within the framework of this tentative study, if we explain the impact of relations, and take archytranseme as an unbiased term bearing descriptive meaning, the relations can be explained as follows: Synonymic relation, referring to full conciliation between the parties on a certain issue. Modulation, referring to disagreement on certain points due to cultural diversity or the national interests of the parties. Modification, meaning that there is a contrast or a conflict between the parties on a universal issue, and which therefore refers to “no conciliation.”

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Mutation, referring to “no relationship” between the transemes, which denotes a lack of interest or concern in international affairs on both sides since there is no correspondence or relationship between the transemes (Leuven-Zwart, 157–81). (7) Post-operative stage—setting up transdisciplinary relations It is only after the data is collected that the research team should contact scholars in other disciplines such as law, international affairs, mass media, etc. to conduct discourse analysis in their own field of study.

Conclusion Since the main aim of this tentative model is to develop a better understanding between nations for overcoming international issues through the media, scholars from the faculties of communication of media studies as well as those from the political sciences can conduct discourse analysis on data obtained from the originals and the translations of the news. Such a cooperative approach would help to disclose moot points in international correspondence as well as the origins of misunderstandings occurring in the international arena. Both the foreign and national press would thus find ways of maintaining international correspondence and of creating “public, cyberspace” to discuss obstacles hindering the full membership of Turkey in the European Union.

References Basarab, Nicolescu. “Differentiation and Integration of Worldviews: Dynamics of Dialogue Between Cultures in the XXI Century”. In International Readings on Theory, History and Philosophy of Culture 18, edited by Liubava Moreva, 139–52. Eidos, Sankt Petersburg, 2004. Bolton, Roger. Habermas’s Theory of Communication and The Theory of Social Capital. 2005. http://www.williams.edu/Economics/papers/Habermas.pdf. Calhoun, Craig. Habermas and the Public Sphere. Massachusetts: Institute of Technology, 1999. Charter of Transdisciplinarity adopted at the First World Congress of Transdisciplinarity, Convento da Arrábida, Portugal, November 2–6, 1994. http://ciret-transdisciplinarity.org/chart.php#en. Dahlgren, Peter. Television and the Public Sphere. London: Sage Publications, 1995.

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Habermas, Jürgen. Theory of Communicative Action vol. 1, trans. by Thomas McCarthy. Boston: Beacon Press, 1984. —. On the Pragmatics of Communication, ed. Maeva Cook. Massachusetts: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1998. Klein, T. Interdisciplinarity: History, Theory, and Practice. Detroit: Michigan: Wayne State University Press, 1990. Leuven-Zwart, Kitty, M. “Translation and Original: Similarities and Dissimilarities I.” Target 1 (2) (1989). Nord, Christiana. Translating as a Purposeful Activity. Manchester: St. Jerome, 1997. Vermeer, Hans. A Skopos Theory of Translation. Heidelberg: Text and Context, 1996. Toury, Gideon. Descriptive Studies and Beyond. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1995. Yazc, Mine. "Translation Studies: Autonomous Discipline versus Interdisciplinary." Quarterly Translation Watch 3 (4) (2007): 35–49. —. Çeviribilimde Araútrma. østanbul: Multilingual, 2011. —. "Translation Studies: Autonomous Discipline versus Interdisciplinary." Quarterly Translation Watch 3 (4) (2007): 35–49.

Electronic Resources http://www.euractiv.com.tr http://www.byegm.gov.tr/ http://basarab.nicolescu.perso.sfr.fr

PART IV: ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND TEACHING

THE IMPACT OF GLOBALISATION AND MULTILINGUALISM ON ENGLISHLANGUAGE TEACHING AND TEACHER DEVELOPMENT HAKAN DILMAN MALTEPE UNIVERSITY

Abstract: Since the end of the Cold War, the terms "globalisation" and "multilingualism" have been frequently used by intellectuals and experts from politics, industry, finance, banking, and education. For some scholars, multilingualism will be the norm for humankind, and globalisation is our destiny. There are various reasons for this, such as ongoing wars in the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, and poor and indecent living conditions in poorer countries. There are also the ever-growing requirements of multinational business and industrial circles, and the growing desire of the middle classes all around the world to travel and see new places. Further, struggles for political identity and freedom within the nation states force people to have multilingual characteristics. Due to all of these political, financial, industrial, and social concerns, English-language teaching, specifically in non-English environments, needs to renew both its methods and teacher development programmes within the perspective of English as a lingua franca. Key words: globalisation, multilingualism, English-language teaching, teacher development, language policy

The effects of globalisation have had a huge impact on every field of life, especially after the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Recent technological innovations and specifically the increasing use of the internet have almost decreased the importance of national borders. Nowadays, people are travelling around the globe more, and they can get information and knowledge quickly, and not only ordinary people and laymen but also experts from different circles are discussing the advantages and disadvantages of globalisation. Some say it is beneficial for the welfare of people on earth, but others say it is a threat for underdevel-

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oped or developing countries’ well-being and even their existence. In addition to all of this, a large group of people are against globalisation from a cultural perspective, and claim that it is forcing people to accept the American way of living. Marlina mentions Scholte’s four concepts of internationalisation, liberalisation, universalisation, and Westernisation that are regarded as an equivalent to the concept of globalisation (2). Dewey, in “English as a Lingua Franca and Globalization,” mentions three principal means of conceptualising globalisation as Hyperglobalism, Skepticism, and Transformationalism: For the Hyperglobalizer, globalization is the key defining force of the current epoch, an era where traditional nation states have given way to a global market economy in which most networks are transnational, and where globalization is driving a construction of a new economic, social, and political world orders, leading ultimately to greater overall homogeneity. The skeptics, on the other hand, maintain that the current level of interdependence has precedence in earlier periods of (usually imperially oriented) internalization. Their argument holds that national governments retain the power to regulate trade, commerce, and politics, and that any interdependence operates only at surface level. In contrast, transformationalists define the current epoch as a period of significant and rapid economic, social, and political change, where globalization is regarded as the driving force responsible for fundamental socio-political transformations. (Dewey, “English as a lingua franca,” 334).

There is no doubt that globalisation changes all our paradigms and forces us to develop and adapt to new, emerging paradigms that have an impact on our political, financial, industrial, educational, and cultural understanding. We also see the massive impact these paradigm shifts have on foreign-language teaching policies and on foreign-language teaching in different countries As Luke claims, “as the political economy changes in shape, character, and scope, there is a pressing need to reconsider the forces that are shaping education and language” (2). A White Paper issued by the European Union (EU) Commission on education and training in 1995 clearly states: Proficiency in several Community languages has become a precondition if citizens of the European Union are to benefit from the occupational and personal opportunities open to them in the border-free Single Market. This language proficiency must be backed up by the ability to adapt to working and living environments characterized by different cultures. (europa.eu)

In addition to the above-mentioned assessment on proficiency in several

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community languages, the White Paper also declares that: In line with the resolution of the Council of Education Ministers of 31 March 1995, it is becoming necessary for everyone, irrespective of training and education routes chosen, to be able to acquire and keep up their ability to communicate in at least two Community languages in addition to their mother tongue. (europa.eu)

Although there are still some difficulties in teaching even one foreign language to students in Turkey, as of the 2013–14 academic year, secondgrade students attending primary schools will have foreign language classes. Such a decree given by the Ministry of Education reflects a radical change in foreign-language teaching policy. These students will most likely be given the opportunity to learn a second foreign language during their school years. There is no doubt that Turkey has been trying to adapt itself to the resolution made by EU member countries. Whether it works or not mostly depends on other resolutions and practices that will back this foreign language teaching policy. It is believed that in the near future the establishment of TV channels broadcasting subtitled movies, increased use of the internet, and e-class activities will be put into practice in conjunction with schools in different countries. The goal is to create positive support and motivation, especially for young learners, and this will hopefully help them to cultivate a good attitude towards learning a foreign language. There is no doubt that English is the language of globalisation. There is a close link between globalisation and the spread of English. The English language possesses the characteristics of becoming a contact language among people who do not share a native language. Predominant users of English in the world today are either the members of “outer circle countries” or “expanding circle countries” as they are called by Kachru. More than 30 years ago, Crystal noted in How Language Works that, “over twothirds of the world’s scientists write in English, three quarters of the world’s emails are written in English, of all the information in the world’s electronic retrieval systems, 80% is stored in English” (358). Again according to Crystal, in English as a Global Language, “it is suggested that approximately one in four of the world’s population are now capable of communicating to a useful level in English” (69). Graddol in The Future of English mentions the interrelation between globalisation and English. He claims that, “as more countries have been rendered ‘open’ to global flows of finance, goods, knowledge and culture, so the influence of English has spread” (9). Graddol also argues in English Next that, “English is now redefining national and individual identities worldwide, shifting political fault lines,

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creating new global patterns of wealth and social exclusion, and suggesting new notions of human rights and responsibilities of citizenship” (12). In addition to the above-mentioned interrelation, Sharifian talks about a process that he calls the “glocalization” of English, and says that, “the globalization of English and its rapid use among communities of speakers around the world has led to the localization of the language and the development of many varieties of English” (2). These varieties of Englishes are mostly known as World Englishes. People from different countries interact with each other through one of these variations. Most of the ELF interactions happen between NS-NNS or NNS–NNS. These EFL interactions among people happen within various socio-cultural and lingua-cultural settings. The participants’ levels of competency may reflect variations depending on their lexical, structural, phonological, semantic, and pragmatic knowledge. In addition to such linguistic knowledge variations, participants’ awareness of cultural differences also has an impact on the quality of interactions among the users of ELF. Taking the above-mentioned items into consideration, ELF is a new paradigm that requires extensive renewal both in English language teaching programs in non-English environments, and in teacher development programs that are responsible for the training of non-native Englishlanguage speaking teachers. Dewey, in “English as a Lingua Franca: Heightened Variability and Theoretical Implications,” demonstrates the clear-cut differences existing between ELT and SLA paradigms and ELF paradigms (79). Under close examination, these differences in the ELF paradigm, especially in nonEnglish environments, force English language teaching programs to teach “intelligible English” to learners. In other words to increase awareness in cultural variations among the learners, to make learners familiar with the Englishes spoken in different parts of the world, not only from the perspective of phonology, but also from that of structure and lexicology. Under the influence of ELF, the terms “fluency” and “accuracy” must be redefined, and learners who are struggling to learn English in a non-English environment must be evaluated from the perspective of intelligibility, both in oral and written-language use. Among scholars, leading figures of business circles, and policy makers, there is a continuous discussion about the future of English and whether it will continue to be a lingua franca or another language or languages will gradually dethrone it. There is a great amount of economic, political, and military relations among the countries known as BRIC— Brazil, Russia, India, and China. These countries have an increasing economic influence, not only in their regions but also around the globe. China

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especially has a huge economic and industrial impact on African countries, and Chinese has becoming an attractive language for those living in that region. On the other hand, due to the increasing number of people speaking Spanish in both North and South America and many parts of the world, Spanish can claim the right to be approved as a lingua franca in future years. However, Graddol mentions in The Future of English that the Engco index tells us that Chinese, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, and Arabic may join English. French and other OECD languages (German, Japanese) are likely to decline in status compared with the present-day hierarchy (59). Bellers (in bigthink.com) notes that, “up to a billion people speak English in the world who are not English speakers to some level of proficiency. English is no simpler, no more complicated, no more accurate and no fuzzier than any other language in the world. Now English as a global language has had a run of less than 50 years really, so we’re in the early days yet and I don’t know what is going to happen in the future, but the one thing I’m sure of is that nothing lasts forever". Torres (in omniglot.com) believes that English will keep its characteristic as the lingua franca, though there are other strong languages that could be universal. Yet, they have a number of disadvantages when compared with English. English and English-speaking countries make up the world’s second largest native language, and because English is the official language in 70 countries, responsible for about 40% of the world’s total GNP, understood almost everywhere among scholars and educated people, and is the language of the media, cinema, TV, pop music, and the computer world, it will continue as a lingua franca. Clark says that, “English will maintain and grow its dominance, moving from ‘a marker of the elite’ to a basic skill needed for the entire workforce, in the same way that literacy has been transformed in the last two centuries from an elite privilege into a basic requirement for informed citizenship” (forbes.com). On the other hand, Hayes mentions that there is a general belief that success in English, right from school level, is a key factor in national competitiveness and is of paramount importance to national economies in a globalised world (47). Taking into consideration the above-mentioned assessment within the Turkish context, there is no doubt that the English language will continue to hold its dominant place and retain its leading position as the number one foreign language taught in Turkey. English language will maintain its position in Turkey because Turkey is frequently visited by international travellers. In addition to this, from an industrial, technological, and financial perspective, Turkey is a developing country. Not only are its industrial, technological, and construction/architectural capabilities expanding day by

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day, but so are its qualities in service sectors. Many local enterprisers are now making tremendous efforts to be global players in business circles through tendering contracts across the globe. Such economic requirements force all business sectors in Turkey to hire employees who are welleducated and fluent in a foreign language, especially English. Globalisation puts governments following monolingual policies like Turkey under pressure to transform themselves into multilingual and multicultural cultures. Depending on the impact of globalisation on political movements, this could also encourage and empower liberal and cultural rights and force change in form and character, especially in policies related to language and language teaching. The Turkish nation, which has multiethnic characteristics, has discussed the linguistic rights of cultural groups over the past 30 years, and recently the state has promulgated constitutional degrees related to the cultural and linguistic rights of ethnic groups. Governmental organisations developed language teaching programmes for these ethnic languages and also started to broadcast in these languages. In some institutions teachers are now trained to teach these ethnic languages to interested students. To conclude, the impact of globalisation and multilingualism, not only on the Turkish community but also in almost all non-English-speaking countries, is challenging traditional ways of teaching English. Due to increasing ELF dominance, foreign-language teacher development programs must cover new courses, furnishing student teachers with the subjects and skills related to multilingualism and multiculturalism. More specifically, student teachers attending English-language teaching programmes in nonEnglish environments must have intelligible English, be familiar with the pronunciation of Englishes spoken, have an idea of intelligibility, have the skills necessary to test and evaluate the learners’ intelligibility, have a deep knowledge of pronunciation, lexicology, and specifically the structures of Englishes, and be furnished with a deep understanding of multilingualism and multiculturalism.

References Crystal, David. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. —. English as a Global Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. —. How Language Works. London, Penguin Books, 2007. Dewey, Martin. “English as a Lingua Franca and Globalization: an Interconnected Perspective.” International Journal of Applied Linguistics

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17 (3) (2007): 332–54. —. “English as a Lingua Franca: Heightened Variability and Theoretical Implications.” In English as a Lingua Franca: Studies and Findings, edited by Anna Maurine, and Elian Route. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009. Ellis, Nick C. “Introduction to Part I, Acquisition.” In Handbook of Bilingualism, edited by Judith F. Kroll, and Annette M.B de Groot. London: Oxford University Press, 2005. Graddol, David. The Future of English. London: British Council, 1997. —. English Next. London: British Council, 2012. Hayes, David. “Planning for Success: Culture, Engagement and Power in English Language Education Innovation.” In Managing Change in English Language Teaching: Lessons from Experience, edited by C. Tribble. London: British Council, 2012. Kachru, B. Braj. The Alchemy of English. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1986. Luke, Allan, Carmen Luke, and Phil Graham. “Globalization, Corporatism, and Critical Language Education.” International Multilingual Research Journal 1 (1) (2007): 1–13. Marlina, Roby. “Globalization, Internationalisation, and Language Education: an Academic Program for Global Citizens.” Multilingual Education 3 (5) (2013) Sharifian, Farzad. “Globalisation and Developing Metacultural Competence in Learning English as an International Language.” Multilingual Education 3 (7) (2013). “globalization” www.en.wikipeida.org/wiki/globalization. “globalization” www.globalization101.org/what-is-globalization/. “globalization” www.businessdictionary.com/definition/globalization.html. “globalization” www.dictionary.reference.com/browse/globalization.html. www.forbes.com/sites/dorieclark/2012/10/26/english-the-language-ofglobal-business. www.omniglot.com/language/articles/enguilang.php. www.bigthink.com/video/how-long-will-the-global-dominance-of-theenglish-language-last. http://europa.eu/documents/comm/white_papers/pdf/com95_590_en.pdf.

ANALYSIS OF THE LEXICO-GRAMMATICAL ERRORS IN STUDENT ESSAYS: A CORPUS STUDY øSMAIL ÇAKIR AND BUSE DOöAR KAYADELEN ERCIYES UNIVERSITY

Abstract: This study is based on a micro-level writing corpus of fifty randomly selected essays of preparatory-class students of Erciyes University’s School of Foreign Languages in the exemption exam of May 2012. The students had completed a year-long course, comprising the beginner, elementary, pre-intermediate, and intermediate levels. Throughout the year, they had written four free-writing papers, two paragraphs, and four essays. In this corpus, we investigate two phenomena: (a) students’ most frequently used lexemes and phrase structures, and (b) students’ lexicogrammatical errors and the possible reasons for them. This study has attempted to identify students’ most frequently used linguistic items and their perspectives on English by examining the collocations of the word “English” in their essays. Additionally, lexico-grammatical mistakes frequency and possible reasons for them are investigated. The results show that most of the mistakes that would be specified as automatic stemmed from their interlanguage process and L1 transfer to L2. Key words: corpus, writing, interlanguage, foreign language teaching

Language learning is a composite of integrated skills. Although these skills seem to be taught one by one, in a real production process they are not used separately from each other. Writing lessons show skills integration explicitly, since while a student is writing they not only think in this language but also form an essay by using grammatical rules, effective vocabulary, and appropriate writing formats. However, after the writing process, teachers need to read, give feedback, and analyse mistakes. At this stage, there are many types of analyses, such as correcting each student’s paper, forming a common error analysis table and, with the application of technology to the education process, forming writing corpora. Thus, the corpus-based approach makes error analysis in writing more systematic, empirically reliable, qualitatively comprehensive, and descriptive.

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As Sinclair (2004) states: “A corpus is a collection of pieces of language text in electronic form, selected according to external criteria to represent, as far as possible, a language or language variety as a source of data for linguistic research.” On the grounds that it is a collection of pieces of a language, it reflects almost all of the registers of a language and expresses real language usage without linguistic intuitions by means of its quantitative methodology. In other words, a corpus, which tells us what the language is like, is a more reliable guide to language use than native speaker intuition. Corpus linguistics is the systematic study of phenomena using collections of authentic language use (Bowker and Pearson). Thus, it is not randomly/haphazardly done. In addition, if it represents authentic language use this means that it does not give information about intuition; instead, it gives us attested language use with naturally occurring data and actual language output. We can talk about why we chose the corpus by focusing on its three basic features: “representativeness, balance and sampling” (Biber). However, it is not easy to distinguish these features from each other because they are in a chain-like relationship. Representativeness is an essential feature of a corpus since it is the feature that typically distinguishes a corpus from an archive. Biber defines representativeness as follows: “Representativeness refers to the extent to which a sample includes the full range of variability in a population.” In short, on the basis of representativeness, our corpus should represent the population that we study with two factors: the range of genres included in a corpus (balance), and text chunks for each genre selected (sampling). Balance is one of the important features for ensuring representativeness of the whole corpus with four basic factors: the range of text categories included, a wide range of text categories, proportional sampling (we should select equal texts from the genres we use), and intended uses (the acceptable balance of a corpus is determined by its intended uses). In addition to these factors, we should keep in mind that the balance of a corpus is also determined on account of its type. If it is a static sample corpus, balance is more important than its size; however, when it is a monitor corpus, this situation is reversed. Sampling occurs in text chunks for each genre. A corpus is a sample when it is representative and balanced. That is why, in order to obtain a representative sample from a population, defining “SAMPLING UNIT” and “BOUNDARIES of POPULATION” is so important. Sample size can be full texts, text chunks, or text fragments. This is also determined on the basis of our corpus type.

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With all this basic infformation abou ut corpus, wee can summariise as follows: Fig. 1. Corpuus as a tool in EL LT

What Fig. 1 above showss is how to use a corpus as a tool in ling guistics. It is also possiible to see a coorpus as teach hing material iin ELT. With h the technological deevelopment inn language teeaching, corpuus-based mateerials can be seen in thhe classroomss. According to Reppen, EF FL/ESL studen nts generally use inteentionally maade-up storiess or texts for grammar strructure or specific voccabulary itemss. Neverthelesss, over time iit has been un nderstood that this doees not work inn real commun nication, and aafter the 1980 0s applied linguistics bbegan to lookk for more au uthentic materrials. This maarked the beginning oof the use of corpora in ELT. E Thus, thhe corpus, as a recent teaching toool, serves up real-life r and authentic a mateerials that can n be more effective in tteaching than made-up matterials (Maddaalene). Howev ver, while some teacheers accept theese materials and a use them effectively, others o are reluctant beccause the leveel of these maaterials is seenn as challengin ng due to its authenticcity. This ideaa is supported d by Varley inn an experimeent on the efficiency oof a corpus-baased approach h in the classrroom. This ex xperiment was appliedd to 15 EAL students, and the generallyy observed ad dvantages and disadvaantages of corrpus-based teeaching are suummarised in n Table 1 below.

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Table 1. Advantages and disadvantages of corpus-based teaching ADVANTAGES See the real language usages that cannot be found in traditional textbooks

DISADVANTAGES Not fully available to students

Use corpora like a dictionary for vocabulary and grammar usages

Showing a large amount of results for a single vocabulary item

Get a broader view of language, both written and spoken

As a result of this experiment, it is claimed that corpus-based learning improves students’ proficiency when the teachers adapt the corpus data to students’ levels to minimise the disadvantages. The stages and appropriate activities are listed in Table 2 below. Table 2. Adapting corpus data to students’ levels LEVELS Elementary

Intermediate

Upper-intermediate

Advanced

ACTIVITIES We can make verb-pairing, computer cloze test activity with the help of COLLOCATIONS We can apply contextual analysis and cloze tests with the help of a MODAL VERBS-based corpus We can use cloze tests for phrasal verbs with a PHRASAL VERBSbased corpus It is possible to use concordance analysis on idiomatic expressions. Also, for pragmatics we can get real-world dialogues for situation analysis

Mainly, there are two types of analysis in corpus studies: macro and micro-level. In macro-level analysis, general genre features like discourseoriented genre analysis are studied, while in micro-level analysis—the

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subject of the present paper—lexico-grammatical and phraseological features of students’ genres are studied (Hüttner). Although the first is directly related to corpus linguistics, we can integrate some genre analysis with ELT. For instance, market or restaurant genres can indicate linguistic items used in real-life conversations, and we can teach these instead of artificial conversations in course books. Additionally, there are a variety of different studies done as a micro-level analysis. One of them is the corpusbased research on idiom learning by Simpson and (2003). This study shows that when idioms are learned with the help of contextualisation in the corpus, they become more permanent. When we look at the other corpus-based studies, we generally come across “writing corpus” because it brings other linguistic studies together, such as the most frequently used words, phrases, diagrams, coordinators, and conjunctions. Nonetheless, as discussed by Reppen (2010) and Hüttner (2010), writing the corpus can be used for two different purposes: firstly, the corpus of native speakers’ papers for preparing authentic materials for students, and secondly, the corpus of non-native speakers’ papers for analysing common errors following the writing process and giving qualitative feedback to the students’ mistakes. The first can be applied in class in two ways: you can either have your students work on concordance lines on their own, or prepare materials with the help of these concordance lines. Therefore, writing the corpus, especially for non-native students, not only helps teachers mark objectively and prepare practices with lexico-grammatical patterns, but also helps students find their writing models. On this point, it is appropriate to refer to some writing corpus studies for different purposes. Zeping (2012), in “Effects of Lexical Input in Second Language Writing,” claims that one of the most important difficulties in writing in L2 is deficiency in vocabulary, and thus, rather than traditional vocabulary lists and matching exercises, the corpus-based approach can be a good alternative in two ways. In one way, teachers can analyse the most common words for a target semantic network, while in another way, students can be trained for using an online corpus to search words by themselves. As a result of this study, it is understood that using corpora by teachers or learners helps students improve their lexico-grammatical structures and directly triggers writing in both more qualitative and quantitative ways. Besides, Laufer and Waldman conducted a research called “Verb-Noun Collocations in Second Language Writing,” in which they look at the most frequently-used nouns in a native-speaker corpus and get the most frequently-used verb-noun collocation list with concordances of these nouns. They then compare the list to non-native students’ papers of the same age and language level. However, the results indicate that, even at the advanced level, the collocations in the

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lists do not overlap and non-native students continue to make mistakes due to their interlanguage. It was found that L1 influence was observed in about half of the wrong collocations of the students at every language level. On the other hand, Reppen (2010) questions the usage of a huge store of written or spoken texts. She asks how teachers choose the best or mostappropriate materials and focuses on the importance and necessity of evaluation of the materials with respect to language levels. After that, she comes up with an idea of “building your own corpora of your students’ papers,” which is supported by Kennedy. He claims that a corpus of texts produced by students is really important for ESL writing because it shows progress, the items achieved, and those which should be re-emphasised in class. Lastly, Espada-Gustilo researches general texts’ characteristics, lexical features, clause-level features, and grammatical features by forming her own corpus of freshman students. This particular study distinguishes the units used in different levels and points out freshman students’ general overused and underused linguistic features in L2. In light of these studies, the present paper sets out to answer a range of questions. What, for instance, are the most frequent lexico-grammatical mistakes of preparatory-class students at Erciyes University? Do preparatory-class students’ lexico-grammatical mistakes in the essays emerge from interlanguage? What are the most frequently-used phrasal structures or lexemes by preparatory-class students at Erciyes University?

Method The present micro-level corpus study focuses on preparatory-class students’ lexico-grammatical errors and their basis after a one-year languagelearning period that includes beginner, elementary, pre-intermediate, and intermediate levels’ needs. Also, in terms of writing, free-topic papers are written for four weeks; paragraph writing is taught and practiced for two weeks, and lastly, essay writing is taught and practiced with different essay types for almost four weeks. After collecting data and computerising them, the frame of this writing corpus becomes certain: Ɣ Ɣ

Population of our corpus: randomly selected 50 writing essays of prep-class students in the exemption exam of May 2012. Medium: testing office archive. Ɣ Balance: randomly selected papers from four different classes. Ɣ Sample size of our corpus: full texts of essays.

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Genre: opinion essay. The number of essays: 50.

Findings and Discussion This study mainly focuses on two sub-topics: (i) students’ most frequently-used lexemes and phrase structures, and; (ii) students’ lexicogrammatical errors and their possible reasons. The writing topic in this exemption exam is the same for all classes: “Do you think learning English is difficult?” It is for this reason that the frequently-used lexemes or phrases do not show the real and objective results. The most frequent four words are “English,” “learning,” “is,” and “difficult” respectively, in that order, and the others are generally about “learning, English, speaking, teaching, and thinking.” Except for this drawback, we can easily work on two topics: the most frequently used grammatical structures and conjunctions and collocations of the word “English” that show students’ feelings about English.

Most Frequently Used Grammatical Structures and Conjunctions As we can see in Fig. 2, among 1,031 different tokens the “Present Tense” is the most frequently used tense, with “BE (IS)” repeated 301 times and “DON’T” repeated 65 times. From this result, we can claim that they form nominal sentences more frequently than verbal ones. In addition to this, the most frequently used prepositions are “TO” (178), “IN” (79), and “OF” (75). Normally, we expect “in” to be the most frequent one, but, surprisingly, “to” is the most frequent due to the students’ over-usage of “to” with verbs. We can look at the examples in the 2nd part, “Error Analysis.” As expected, the most frequently used articles are “THE” and “A/AN.” Moreover, the coordinators “AND,” “BUT,” and “BECAUSE” are used more frequently than other coordinators or conjunctions:

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Fig. 2. Most frequently used grammatical structures and constructions

Collocations of the word “ENGLISH” After the most frequently used linguistic items, we can move on to the collocations of English. Even before looking at the collocations, we can easily understand the students’ points of view by first looking at the most frequent noun “ENGLISH,” second the most frequent verb “IS,” and lastly the most frequent adjective “DIFFICULT.” The message is really clear, I think: “English is difficult.” Collocations of learning English in order indicate nearly the same result:

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Learning English is difficult not enough boring very difficult very hard different not so difficult interesting easy These collocations give important clues about both the materials and teaching philosophy. Firstly, on the basis of Krashen’s “Affective Filter Hypothesis,” we should try to break the ice between the students and ourselves for a low affective filter, low stress, and high motivation. Moreover, we can try to use more interesting and attractive materials that appeal to their interests and needs.

Lexico-grammatical errors and analysis Almost all lexico-grammatical mistakes in students’ papers are based on interlanguage. With reference to the “Interlanguage Hypothesis” of Selinker, Tarone, and Hanzeli, L2 speakers form a medium language that has some grammatical and lexical features of both L1 and L2. This means that it is not totally L1 or L2, but is a made-up language created by L2 speakers to communicate easily in this process. Thus, making a mistake is normal, as it is an interlanguage continuum between L1 and L2. Meanwhile, making mistakes shows the development since there is a trial and error hypothesis testing mechanism in the learner’s mind. In this process, direct feedback or correction can make this mechanism lazy and form a handicap. Mistakes emerging from interlanguage are sometimes called “direct translation,” because there is a direct transfer from L1 to L2; that is, students transfer the syntactic or semantic properties of L1 to L2, as we can see from the following examples: (1) Why don’t learning English everybody? (the syntactic order is the same as Turkish except the newly learned auxiliary verb of present tense “don’t”; mixture of L1 and L2).

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(2) English is easy, but we want to see difficult. (is grammatically well done, but there is a lexical mistake “see,” because in Turkish we use the verb “görmek” for both physical and psychological actions. In English generally, there are different verbs for different senses. (3) Where are speaking listening? (Direct translation, but grammatically well-done in English). (4) Shape of learning (the same mistake as explained in example [2]). (5) Be two person (Direct translation: There is a grammatical mistake in number agreement, because in Turkish there is no number agreement like “ikiinsan” instead of “ikiinsanlar”). (6) Plus (Direct translation: it means “in addition”). (7) I don’t forget as easy as. (8) Can you please some speak? (9) Although since nine years seen English lessons, I don’t love it (Direct translation—as in the 1st example, he wrote only the newlylearned conjunction “although” correctly, while the rest of the sentence is thought in Turkish and written in the same sentence order of Turkish, word for word). Apart from these mistakes, it is possible to see the interlanguage effect and L1 transfer in other lexico-grammatical errors classified in the following.

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(a) Number agreement Fig. 3. Errors in number agreement

In the whole corpus, there are 15 matches for this type of mistake. The examples “two person, six country” in Fig. 3 above show that since there is no (obligatory) number agreement in Turkish, students negatively transfer this property of Turkish to English.

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(b) Preposition There are 12 matches. Generally, the students cannot understand the fine differences between prepositions, since in Turkish the same suffix can correspond to different prepositions in English like “odada” (in the room) and “okulda” (at school). For this reason, they try to learn by heart and normally they can forget, as we can see from the instances in Fig. 4. Fig. 4. Errors in the use of prepositions

From the figure, another interesting point is noted: “the usage of ‘for’ and ‘to’.” The students cannot differentiate them from each other as they have the same meaning, so they sometimes use both of them in gerund or infinitive, such as “for speak, for make.”

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(c) Subject-verb agreement Fig. 5. Errors in subject-verb agreement

In Turkish, we make the plurality or tense with the suffix on the verb; we do not have auxiliary verbs, which is why the students sometimes forget them, as in the 1st concordance line of Fig. 5 above. They forget the auxiliary verbs “am,” “is,” and “are” of the present continuous tense, or they make some mistakes on plurality such as in the 9th line: “My exam scores was ….”

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(d) Nominal-verbal sentences Fig. 6. Errors in nominal-verbal sentences

We can explain this mistake as an overgeneralisation. They learn the “TO BE” verb at first and form lots of sentences with the help of it, and begin to use it unconsciously, as a habit. After we begin to teach present tense or past tense, they tend to use it automatically due to overgeneralisation. There are 12 matches for this mistake in our corpus.

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(e) Gerund-infinitive: When we look at the frequency list, the verbs “like,” “want,” and “start” are frequently used, as are mixed gerundinfinitive verbs. For the verb “like” there are 10 matches, for “want” 11 matches, and for “start” only one match seen in this corpus. Fig. 7. Errors in the use of the gerund-infinitive

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(f) Coordinators The most frequently used coordinators are “and,” “but,” and “because.” However, students generally make mistakes in the usage of “because” and “but.” The main reason is the L1 fossilisation transfer to L2. In Turkish, people tend to begin sentences with “Çünkü” and “Fakat” insistently by forgetting that they normally combine two sentences. This fossilisation is directly transferred to English and there are 59 matches for “because” and 21 matches for “but,” as we can see in Figs 8 and 9 below. Figs. 8 & 9. Errors in the use of coordinators

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(g) Modal There are some problems, especially in “can,” “will,” “must,” and “should.” These mistakes come from the difference between Turkish and English syntactic structure as they mix tense with modal verbs. As we can see in Fig. 10 below, there are four matches for “can,” four for “will,” five for “must,” and eight for “should.” Fig. 10. Errors in the use of modal verbs

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(h) Plurality This type of mistake is not seen in regular nouns, but generally in irregular ones like “people-peoples” and “life-lifes” because of overgeneralisation, but are unlike the examples in section (d) above. It is seen in the process of L1-L2 transfer, though originating in regular-irregular difference in L2. Fig. 10. Errors in the use of the plural

(i) Spelling In this part, the students make two different types of error. The first is writing the first letters of countries and languages in a lower case, such as in “english,” “england,” and “America.” The second is the use of the letter “ø,” as in “ønternational,” “øn addition,” “øn consequently,” even though it is pronounced and occurs in their native language. (j) Collocation Even for ourselves as English teachers, it is sometimes hard to use all collocations perfectly because we are non-natives. Thus, it is normal for students to make mistakes in collocations because this knowledge is gained by experience in real communication. “Ride a bus,” “helper materials,” and “get speaking” are some of the mistakes made by students. (k) Borrowed Words As we know, there are lots of borrowed words in English. At first sight they can be good for the students to understand, but in writing, the most

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frequently mistyped words are cognates such as “paragraph-paragraph” (1 match), “pratic-practice” (1 match), “activite-activity” (1 match), “university-university” (2 matches) and lastly but most interestingly “grammergrammar” (16 matches). Fig. 12. Errors in the use of borrowed words

(l) Similar words Sometimes, some words can seem similar for the students, and they can mix them because they generally occur in the same semantic network. Examples of this would be: “as a reason-as a result,” “study-work” (study a job), “status-situation” (I’m in a bad status), “speak-talk” (I speak him), and “language-speech” (English’s a hard speech).

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(m) Articles We normally expect to be confronted with the misuse of the definite article “THE” since it is generally a nightmare for both students and teachers. There are seven matches for this type of mistake, and it is mostly concerning “overused THE” in the sentences that can be seen in Fig. 13 below. Fig. 13. Errors in the use of the definite article

Conclusion It is safe to say that an extensive corpus of common lexical and syntactic mistakes made by Turkish students in writing essays in English does not exist, and the present paper is meant to be the beginning of such a corpus. In further studies, possible solutions and suggestions for these mistakes can be studied and their effectiveness can be tested during writing courses. For example, non-existing forms in L1 but occurring in L2, like number agreement, can be taught explicitly. Additionally, “fossilized, especially grammatical, errors in L1” can be focussed on at first before teaching the same form in L2. Further, our students are generally in the overgeneralisation stage, so in listening and speaking lessons they should be exposed to more authentic material about commonly overgeneralised forms such as plurality to make them converge in language acquisition.

References Biber, D. “Representativeness in Corpus Design.” Journal of Literary and Linguistic Computing 8 (4) (1993).

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Bowker, L., and J. Pearson. Working with Specialized Language: A Practical Guide to Using Corpora, London and New York: Routledge, 2002. Espada-Gustilo, Leah. “Linguistic Features that Impact Essay Scores: a Corpus Linguistic Analysis of ESL Writing in Three Proficiency Levels.” 3L; Language, Linguistics and Literature, The Southeast Asian Journal of English Language Studies 17 (1) (2011): 55–64. Hüttner, Julia. “The Potential of Purpose-built Corpora in the Analysis of Student Academic Writing in English”. Journal of Writing Research 2 (2) (2010): 197–218. Karasawa, S. "Patterns of Elaboration and Inter-language Development: An Exploratory Corpus Analysis of College Student Essays.” 2003. http://Ucrel.lancs.ac.uk /publications/CL2003/papers/karasawa.pdf. Kennedy, Graeme D. An Introduction to Corpus Linguistics. Longman, 1998. Krashen, S. “The Input Hypothesis.” In Current Issues in Bilingual Education, edited by J. Altai. Washington, DC. Georgetown University Press, 1980. Laufer, B., and T. Waldman. “Verb-noun Collocations in Second Language Writing: a Corpus Analysis of Learners’ English.” Language Learning 61 (2) (2011): 647–72. Reppen, R. Using Corpora in the Language Classroom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Selinker, L., Tarone, E., and Hanzeli, V. “English for Academic and Technical Purposes.” Studies in Honour of Louis Trimble. Rowley, MA: Newbury House, 1981. Sinclair, J. Corpus Linguistics. London: Routledge (Taylor and Francis), 2004. Treble, C., and Jones, G. Concordances in the Classroom: A Resource Guide for Teachers. Houston, TX: Athelstan Publications, 1997. Tribble, C. “Small Corpora and Teaching Writing: Towards a Corpusinformed Pedagogy of Writing.” In Small Corpus Studies and ELT: Theory and Practice, edited by M. Ghadessy, A. Henry, and R. L. Roseberry, 381–408. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 2001. Zeping, H. “The Effects of Lexical Input in Second Language Writing: A Corpus-Informed Approach.” TESL Reporter 45 (1) (2012): 1–16. Zhang, J. “A Comprehensive Review of Studies on Second Language Writing.” HKBU Papers in Applied Language Studies 12 (2008). http://lc.hkbu.edu.hk/book/pdf/v12_05.pdf.

ENGLISH TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF FACTORS AFFECTING TEACHER MOTIVATION SENIYE VURAL ERCIYES UNIVERSITY

Abstract: Teacher motivation is of great importance in that it influences the effectiveness and efficiency of instruction and collaboration among teachers. With high levels of motivation, teachers’ pedagogical roles would be enhanced, leading to the effective attainment of educational objectives. This study aims to explore the extent to which instructors of English teaching at an intensive English teaching programme at university level are motivated to teach, the factors that motivate or demotivate them, and what the teachers themselves and the administrators could do to generate or maintain teachers’ motivation levels for a longer period of time. The study yields beneficial results in that it presents some factors that affect teacher motivation and some suggestions to generate and maintain it. Key words: teacher motivation, teacher perceptions, teacher burnout, motivational factors

Researchers in social psychology and education agree on the positive effects of motivation on academic success (Dörnyei 2000; Gardner 2001; Gardner and MacIntyre 1993; Shie 2003, in Yu 2005). More specifically, most educational psychologists regard motivation as one of the main determinants of second/foreign language achievement (Dörnyei 1994; Ehrman and Oxford 1995; Gardner 2001; Gardner & MacIntyre 1993; Maya 2007; Oxford and Shearin 1994; Tremblay and Gardner 1995). In line with this, a major shift in thinking took place in the 1990s, and researchers started to focus more on the motivational processes underlying classroom learning because they wanted to fill in the gap between motivational theories in educational psychology and language teaching (Dörnyei 2001). The starting point of this study is the claim that teacher motivation has a great impact on student motivation. In a study conducted by Vural (2007), university students enrolled in an intensive English program reported that teachers being willing to teach and the effort they demonstrate

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to teach affect student motivation to a great extent. In addition, Dörnyei (2001) claims that teachers’ levels of enthusiasm and commitment are important factors that affect students’ motivation to learn. However, despite the crucial influence of teacher motivation on student motivation, which in turn leads to academic success, generating teacher motivation is generally left totally to teachers themselves, and administrative units may fail to provide instructors with opportunities to motivate themselves. The scope of this study includes some vital points such as determining the teachers’ motivation levels, factors that motivate or demotivate the teachers, what could be done to generate teacher motivation, and the extent to which the level of teachers’ motivation changes compared to when they first started teaching as well as the reasons for this change. Numerous studies on student motivation examine the factors that motivated students to learn a second/foreign language (Gorham and Christophel 1992; Tagaki 2005), and others offer motivational strategies to generate or maintain student motivation (Cheng and Dörnyei 2007; Dörnyei 1994; Dörnyei & Csizér 1998; Oxford & Shearin 1994). However, teacher motivation has been a neglected area in second language acquisition/teaching research. Dörnyei (2001) argues that the term “motivation” is rather controversial, and researchers have been confronted with some challenges that have prevented a consensus in motivation research. However, despite all the controversies, most researchers agree that motivation “concerns the direction and magnitude of human behavior,” which refers to “the choice of a particular action, the persistence with it, and the effort expended on it” (Dörnyei 2001, 8). Therefore, motivation is related to why people choose to do a particular action, how long they will sustain the activity, and how hard they are going to work to perform the activity. Gardner (2001) supports Dörnyei’s argument that motivation refers to the driving force and states that motivation requires three elements: to expend persistent and consistent effort to learn the language, to be willing to achieve the goal expressing the desire to succeed in striving to achieve success, and enjoying the task and considering learning to be fun and enjoyable. Gardner argues that all three elements—effort, desire, and positive affect—are necessary for motivation, and that each element is insufficient for reflecting motivation on its own. This is also the case for teachers, because to be effective teachers one needs to be willing to teach, make an effort for better teaching, and consider teaching to be enjoyable. Dörnyei (2001) defines teaching as a profession whose energy is supplied from intrinsic motives, and states that there are some damaging elements that weaken and destroy the intrinsic character of teacher motivation. In this study, the re-

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searcher will investigate the damaging elements the participant teachers have faced. Ofoegbu (2004) defines teacher motivation as, “anything done to make teachers happy, satisfied, dedicated, and committed in such a way that they bring out their best in their places of work so that students, parents, and the society will greatly benefit from their services.” He further states that teacher motivation is related to teachers’ attitude to work and their desire to participate in the pedagogical processes within the school environment. Therefore, it could underlie their involvement or non-involvement in academic and non-academic activities operating in schools. Ofoegbu aimed to investigate whether teacher motivation would lead to classroom effectiveness and school improvement, and the results confirmed the assumption that teacher motivation enhances classroom effectiveness and improves schools. In addition, teachers who participated in this study reported that they were motivated if their salaries were paid regularly, if teaching and learning facilities were made available, if teachers were encouraged to attend sponsored conferences and workshops, and if they were provided with a conducive work environment. In addition, Barrs (2005) conducted a small-scale case study that attempted to identify the factors through which community organisations contribute to teachers’ motivation in rural Punjab, Pakistan, to analyse its impact on teachers’ performance and consider the implications for the quality of teaching. Teachers’ reported motivators are as follows: being paid on time, being provided with school needs, parents being educated, cooperation with the Village Education Committee to solve problems, good student attendance and discipline, the Committee understanding the purposes of education, teachers being respected by parents and students, regular meetings with the Community Organisation, teachers receiving training, the school using training that works (e.g. visual aids), and students being punctual. Moreover, in a study conducted in India, Ramachandran, Pal, Jain, and Shekar (2005) arrived at the conclusion that the following conditions or facilities demotivate teachers: low pay scales, irregularity of pay, the inability of the administration to release timely travel reimbursements and other payments, not being able to attend an in-service training program or poor quality of the training they are provided with, irregular attendance of students, absence of appreciation and encouragement, absence of community-school forums, high teacher-pupil ratio, teachers not belonging to the same area as the location of the school, non-teaching duties and responsibilities, the physical work environment, and pressures of the job (including the behaviour of superiors and colleagues). Teachers also reported a few

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factors that had a positive impact on their motivation, such as examination results, their ability to help students learn the expected lesson or master a skill, improvement in the physical facilities of schools, and access to better teaching-learning material. In addition, Dörnyei (2001, 161) claims that some factors such as the organisational climate of the institution and the teaching environment affect teacher motivation. Table 1 below presents some examples of such factors. Table 1. School-related factors that motivate teachers the school’s general climate and the existing school norms the class sizes, the school resources and facilities the standard activity structure within the institution collegial relations the definition of the teacher’s role by colleagues and authorities general expectations regarding student potential the school’s reward contingencies and feedback system the school’s leadership and decision-making structure The participants were 17 female teachers of English working in an intensive English programme of a Turkish state university. The participants were selected randomly, and the participation in the study was voluntary. The reason for having female participants only is partly because of the imbalanced male/female ratio of English teachers in the institution, and partly because of the voluntary nature of the participant selection process. Data were collected through questionnaires distributed to 17 teachers. The questionnaire was used in order to explore the participant teachers’ perceived motivation levels, their reported reasons for being motivated or demotivated to teach, the factors that affect their motivation positively and negatively, and how the level of their motivation changed since they first started teaching. The questionnaire was designed by the researcher making use of the cited articles in the literature, mainly of Barrs (2005), Ofoegbu (2004) and Ramachandran et al. (2005), and was in English to prevent any misunderstandings or confusions that might have occurred due to the mismatch of the terminology when translated into Turkish. It included both Likert-scale items and open-ended questions. In order to make sure that the items in the questionnaire were clear, understandable, and would not prejudice the teachers’ choices and responses, the questionnaire was piloted with 10 teachers from the same institution. The constructive feedback of the participants in the pilot study was taken into consideration in

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the process of rewording the items, adding new wording, modifying ambiguous wording, and deleting the items that were irrelevant to the purpose of the study. All the teachers who agreed to participate in the study gave their consent by signing the related part in the questionnaire. The reliability of the questionnaire was found to be .69 using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of internal consistency. Additionally, semi-structured interviews were conducted with two teachers in order to gain more in-depth data on their reasons for choosing teaching as a career and on the perceived factors affecting the increase or the decrease in their motivation levels, as well as to get their suggestions as to how they could increase their levels of motivation themselves. The teachers to be interviewed were identified according to the fluctuation in their motivation levels since they started teaching. One instructor who felt that she was more motivated than she used to be when she first started teaching, and another who felt herself to be less motivated, were interviewed. During the interview, the participants were encouraged to elaborate on the reasons for being motivated or demotivated and to offer their suggestions regarding ways to increase their own and their colleagues’ motivation levels. The results indicate that 82.3% of the teachers perceive themselves as motivated. Moreover, the answers to the first open-ended question—How would you describe your job satisfaction and motivation to teach in your institution?—also support this result. As an answer to this question, 58.8% of the instructors reported that they were motivated to teach English, whereas 23.5% of them considered their motivation levels as average. As Participant 12 reports, “my motivation is not very high, but not very low, either. For example, I am a part of the testing office in my institution. I try to do something good for my institution, and I am motivated to make the testing better.” Table 2 below displays the items in the questionnaire, the means and the standard deviations of each item, as well as the percentage of teachers who chose “4” or “5” in the scale: Table 2. The means, the standard deviations, and the percentages

Item 1

Item 2

Item Given your experience as a teacher, would you still make the same career choice again? What is your job satisfaction level?

M 4,06

SD ,966

% 70.6

3,94

,659

76.4

268 English Teachers’ Perceptions of Factors Affecting Teacher Motivation

Item 3 Item 4

Item 5

How motivated are you to teach English? How motivated were you when you first started to teach? To what extent, do you think, does a teacher’s motivation level affect his/her performance/success in the classroom?

4,06

,659

82.3

4,59

,712

88.2

4,88

,485

94.1

Note: M–Mean, SD–Standard Deviation, %-–Percentage of the subjects who chose “4” or “5.”

As the responses to the second research question reveal, which aimed to explore the factors that motivate the teachers, the teachers seem to be motivated by approximately the same factors. The top five motivators and the number of the teachers who included these items in the top five of their list are presented in Table 3 below. Table 3. The most motivating factors according to the instructors, and the number of instructors who included them at the top five of their list Item Positive work environment Your competence/capacity to teach effectively (professional satisfaction) Your desire for professional development (being a better teacher) Being provided with training to improve your skills Students’ success/improvement

N 16 15 13 11 10

An examination of the top five items in the rank orders of the teachers reveals that, in the participant teachers’ view, working in a positive environment is the most effective factor in generating teacher motivation, which is a finding supported by the answers to the open-ended question. In all, 41.1% of the teachers reported that working in a positive environment is a strong motivator. In addition, the teachers attach great importance to professional satisfaction and professional development, as either one or both of these two items were regarded by the participants as the most or the second most effective factor as a motivator. In all, 70.5% of the teachers included both of these items in the top five of their lists. However, an

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interesting result is that, although a great number of teachers ranked professional development and professional satisfaction as the most motivating factors, none of them mentioned professional development in the openended question, and only 23.5% stated in the open-ended question that their desire to be a good teacher or self-belief in success motivated them. The teachers’ responses to the fourth item in the list—being provided with training to improve their skills—also support their ranking of the previous two items, as teacher training is also a part of professional development. In all, 64.7% of the teachers regarded having the opportunity to be further trained as a strong motivator in their ranking. However, although the teachers appreciate the opportunities for teacher training, only 11.7% pointed out the importance of attending conferences or seminars while answering the open-ended question. Additionally, the extent to which the students learn, or, in other words, the students’ achievements, also motivates the teachers, as they consider this factor more motivating than some others on the list. This finding was supported in the open-ended question by 41.1% of the teachers. One teacher remarked: The students’ rising level of English motivates me the most as a teacher. For example, with my students we usually talk about the questions after the exam. When my students tell me about their correct answers, and when they say “we did these questions correctly because you taught us well,” I feel really happy. I think very few factors could motivate as this one. (Participant 16)

As stated above in the case of personal satisfaction and the desire for personal development, there is a mismatch between the teachers’ rankings and their responses to the open-ended question. The open-ended question, which aimed to find out the teachers’ own ideas regarding what motivates them apart from the ideas reported in the questionnaire, reveals that the teachers consider having motivated and eager students in the classroom and being appreciated and praised by the administration to be motivating, with percentages of 35.2% and 29.4%, respectively. The teachers are also largely of the same idea in terms of what factors decrease their levels of motivation. Table 4 below presents the items that they perceive as the most demotivating factors:

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Table 4. The most demotivating factors according to the instructors, and the number of instructors who included them in the top five of their lists Item Student behaviour inside/outside the classroom Teaching hours per week Non-teaching duties (administrative work) Inadequacy of in-service training/workshops/conferences Lesson preparation

N 17 16 13 10 9

Table 4 reveals that all teachers are demotivated by student behaviour inside and outside the classroom. In all, 94.1% of the teachers regarded negative student behaviour as the most or the second most demotivating factor, and they also emphasised this in their responses to the open-ended question. In all, 64.7% of them considered negative student behaviour— which is the most frequently uttered factor in the responses—as demotivating. In addition, the number of hours they teach per week, with a percentage of 94.1%, is almost as demotivating as negative student behaviour. Additionally, teachers were demotivated by the non-teaching duties, such as administrative work. Finally, in line with their willingness for professional development, they found the inadequacy of in-service training, workshops, or conferences demotivating. Interestingly, they did not point out any of the demotivating factors above in their responses to the openended question. Instead, 41.1% reported that their colleagues might be very demotivating, which is an item that was missing in the ranking list of items. For example, Participant 6, who has been a teacher for 10 years, complains that: When teachers first start teaching in the institution, they feel very energetic, and they have dreams and plans to teach English better … but after some time, they realise that there are a lot of teachers around doing nothing except their routine work, going to classes without any preparation or teaching in the class in the same way as the book presents without having any extra activities. Then, these new teachers lose their motivation and start to behave as the others. They have job satisfaction because they earn money, but no motivation (and they do not care).

The fourth research question aimed to get the participants’ suggestions as to what could be done to generate or maintain teacher motivation, with the help of the open-ended question. The suggestions of the participants are

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rather scattered, though there are some points that they agree on. For example, 35.2% of them suggest that the improvement of the teaching equipment would be effective in the increase of their motivation levels. In addition, as they stated in the ranking, being offered opportunities for inservice training or conferences/seminars would be motivating, in that “they would be a means of being aware of the most recent developments in the ELT field, which would in turn encourage other teachers for teacher development and to conduct research” (Participant 1). Another way to motivate the instructors could be getting positive feedback and appreciation from the administration, as raised by 29.4% of the instructors. As Participant 16 expresses, “most importantly, being fairly treated (not equally because some instructors work more, so deserve more).” Finally, 29.4% instructors made a general suggestion, stating that working in a positive environment, which, in fact, includes many of the items explained above, is a highly motivating factor. The fifth research question concerned whether the level of the participant instructors’ motivation changed when compared to the level it was when they first started teaching. In all, 58.8% of the instructors reported that the level of their motivation decreased since they started teaching, whereas only 11.7% thought that their motivation level increased. In addition, 23.5% thought that their motivation level had remained the same. The analysis of the data in the scale indicates that although 70.6% of the instructors were very motivated (they chose option “5” in the scale) when they first started teaching, only 23.5% still felt that they were very motivated. During the interview, one of the instructors stated that her level of motivation had decreased since she first started teaching, and the other maintained that she was more motivated now than she used to be. The analysis of the data in the scale indicates that the number of instructors who were motivated when they first started teaching decreased dramatically. The first interviewee, who was undecided (choosing “3” on the scale) about her motivation level when she first started teaching, reported that she was currently motivated (“4” on the scale); thus, her motivation level increased. When asked her reasons for becoming an English teacher, she stated that she had always wanted to be one. This is supported by her response (“5” on the scale) to the item “given your experience as a teacher, would you still make the same career choice again?” She thought that she was more motivated than she used to be because she was more knowledgeable and more aware of what she was doing, and thus felt that she contributed to the institution much more effectively. Therefore, professional satisfaction, which might be considered as intrinsic, motivated her.

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As for the second interviewee, who was very motivated (choosing “5” on the scale) when she first started teaching, but was then undecided (“3” on the scale), she reported that the attitude of the administration, the students, and her colleagues demotivated her a lot. Furthermore, according to her, what the instructors did was not appreciated in the institution, so she did not feel encouragement. Additionally, she reported to be unwilling to choose the same career if given another chance, which might explain the reason for her lower level of motivation. As for the suggestions of the interviewees regarding ways for the instructors to motivation themselves, both confessed that this is highly intrinsic. So as to motivate themselves, teachers should assign themselves a role in the institution and feel responsible for it. One of the interviewees suggested that her colleagues could conduct action research or enrol in a master’s program, which would make them feel that they were learning, which in turn would make them more motivated to teach. This study yielded interesting results. A significant finding is that, although 94.1% of the participant instructors believed that a teacher’s motivation level affects his/her performance or success in the classroom to a great extent (item 5)—as they chose option “5” on the scale—and although professional satisfaction was at the top of their rank orders, only four of them reported in the open-ended question that their wish to be a good teacher was an important factor affecting their motivation. The reason for this might be the order in the questionnaire: The open-ended questions preceded the ranking list in the questionnaire, so they might not have thought of professional development or satisfaction as a motivator, but ranked it highly when they saw it on the scale. Moreover, their suggestions for better-motivated teachers also included mostly external factors. This might indicate that they need to be extrinsically motivated. Additionally, the fact that all instructors consider negative student behaviour as a demotivating factor is also worth considering, though not surprising. The instructors spend a lot of time preparing and planning for lessons, and would like their students to respect their efforts and behave positively. The finding that the instructors found student motivation and achievement as motivating factors also supports this claim. Therefore, teacher motivation is a reflection of student motivation and success, and vice versa. Finally, the interview data reveal that age or degree achieved are unlikely to have an effect on teachers’ motivation levels, as both interviewees are approximately at the same age and both are MA graduates. The difference might be due to the intrinsic motivation the first interviewee feels, based on her positive attitude towards choosing the same career

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again (she chose “5,” whereas the other interviewee chose “2”). The results of the present study have many factors in common with previous studies. For example, in Ofoegbu (2004), Barrs (2005) and Ramachandran (2005), teachers reported that being trained motivates them, which is a finding that is supported by the present study. In addition, the participant teachers in the study conducted by Ramachandran (2005) stated that they are demotivated by the absence of appreciation and encouragement, which is also the case in the present study. At the same time, the results of this study indicate that there are a number of actions that can be taken by the administration with regard to generating teacher motivation in this context. The easiest of these is to appreciate the instructors’ success. Being paid their salary regularly and being provided with technological facilities may not be enough for teacher motivation; they undoubtedly need some affective support, such as praise and appreciation. Realising that the administrators are aware of what the instructors are doing and that they are happy with their success would make the instructors more eager to work and achieve more. Furthermore, although the administration cannot afford to motivate the instructors by reducing their teaching hours, there are some other ways to meet their needs in terms of motivation. For example, another suggestion by the instructors is support and encouragement to attend seminars, conferences, or in-service teacher training programs. Even if the institution does not have financial support either to sponsor the instructors for conferences or to invite prominent scholars to train them, this could encourage the instructors who have previously conducted research to share it with their colleagues. Therefore, even a small-scale institutional conference or workshop could be organised. One limitation of this study is the number of its participants. Due to the voluntary nature of the participant selection process, the number of participants was limited, which makes it difficult to generalise the results. Another limitation is that the study is summative. The incorporation of the formative aspect in the study, such as asking the instructors to keep daily/weekly journals and reflect on how motivated they were and what factors increased/decreased their levels of motivation in particular situations, would have yielded richer and more descriptive data. Keeping a record of the incidents or feelings would obviously reveal more reliable and detailed data with real occasions the instructors have experienced, as it might have been difficult for the participants to think in general or retrospectively while answering the questions in the questionnaire or the interview. In addition, interviewing the administrators of the program (the director and two assistant directors) to discover their perceptions on teacher motivation,

274 English Teachers’ Perceptions of Factors Affecting Teacher Motivation

and asking them to discuss the factors that were regarded as motivating by the instructors and ways to realise these suggestions would add another perspective to the study. In this study, classroom observations could not be conducted for two reasons: for one thing, motivation is an abstract concept that cannot be measured through observation, and for another, the actual teaching practices/performances were beyond the study scope. Nevertheless, some classes of the instructors could have been observed regularly, using an adapted version of the Attitude-Motivation Test Battery (AMTB) with a view to seeing how their levels of motivation affected their performances in the classroom, and how this affected the students’ motivation and participation. In this way, it would be easier to arrive at pedagogical implications and suggestions with sounder and more reliable data. However, as stated above, this would extend the scope of the study. In sum, with a high level of motivation, the instructors’ pedagogical roles would be enhanced, which would lead to the effective attainment of educational objectives. However, student motivation is an indispensable part of teacher motivation; therefore, it should also be maintained. Likewise, instructors’ actions to be better teachers could be adversely affected by the negative work environment or negative attitudes of colleagues. In short, teacher motivation is crucial for effectiveness and efficiency in instruction and collaboration among teachers. The research conducted regarding the effect of teacher behaviour on student motivation (Vural 2007) shows that students give very much importance to the teacher-student relationship, and they think that teachers have a crucial role in motivating the students. In addition, the results of this study indicate that teachers also give importance to students’ motivation and success. Taking the claim that teacher motivation is a mirror of student motivation, and vice versa, as a starting point, a study that compares student motivation level with teacher motivation level could be conducted in order to make classes more effective. Additionally, the motivation level of the teachers, measured by a tool such as AMTB mentioned above, could be compared with the progress their students make, comparing the results of the students at the beginning and end of the year. Obviously, teacher motivation is not the only factor that affects student progress, but it might be an indicator that should be taken into consideration in the teaching process.

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Oxford, R. L., and Shearin, J. “Language Learning Motivation: Expanding the Theoretical Framework.” The Modern Language Journal 78 (1994): 12–28. Ramachandran, V., Pal, M., Jain, S., and Shekar, S. “Teacher Motivation in India.” 2005. http://www.eruindia.org /files/teacher_motivation.pdf. Tagaki, A. “Motivating Japanese Students in the Language Classroom.” Proceedings of the University of Cambridge Second Postgraduate Conference in Language Research (2005): 96–103. Tremblay, P. F., and Gardner, R. C. “Expanding the motivation construct in language learning.” The Modern Language Journal 79 (1995): 505518. Yu, S. “The effects of games on the acquisition of some grammatical features of L2 German on students’ motivation and on classroom atmosphere.” Unpublished master’s thesis, Australian Catholic University, Fitzroy, Victoria, Australia. (2005) Vural. “Teachers’ and Students’ Perceptions of Teacher Motivational Behavior.” Unpublished Thesis. Bilkent University, Turkey, 2007.