Literary Constructions of Illness in Women's Fiction in Turkish, 1912-1994
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Bodies of Exception: Literary Constructions of Illness in Women's Fiction in Turkish, 1912-1994 A thesis submitted to The University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities 2017 ŞİMA B. PARKER SCHOOL OF ARTS, LANGUAGES AND CULTURES Table of Contents List of Illustrations…………………………………………………………………….…3 Abstract……………………………….……………………….……………………..….4 Declaration………………………..………………………..……………………………5 Copyright Statement……………………………….…...……………………………….6 Acknowledgements………………………………………………..….………………....7 Note on the Translations…………………………………………………………………9 Epigraph…………………………………………………………………………………10 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………..…11 Chapter One: Untouchable Bodies of the Nation: Health and Illness in the Construction of the Ideal Citizen in Early Republican Turkey………………….……………………….36 1. Figuring the Ideal Citizen: the Myth of the Great Turk..................................44 2. Bodies of Exception: Threshold of Nation.....................................................54 3. Disciplining Populations: Healthy and Sporty Bodies of the Nation…….....64 4. Conclusion......................................................................................................68 Chapter Two: The Formation of the ‘Ideal’ Woman in the Canonized Works of Halide Edib Adıvar ..............................................................................................................................70 1. Self as the Embodiment of Nation..................................................................74 2. Handan’s Body as the Threshold of Ottoman Nationalism.............................83 3. Naturalism.......................................................................................................92 4. Debates on Naturalism in the Ottoman Empire..............................................94 5. From Degenerate Sara to the Fit Body of Lale: Saving the Soul……………99 6. Conclusion......................................................................................................110 Chapter Three: The Melodramatization of Bodies: Illness in the Early Republican Turkish Melodramas of Kerime Nadir……………………………………………..……………111 1. Melodramatic Mode and Melodrama……………………………………….115 2. Melodramatic Mode and Melodrama in the Early Republican Fiction in Turkey……………………………………………………………………….119 3. Masculinity as a Crisis in the Moral Order: Almost a Man, But Not Quite...122 4. Hıçkırık: The Recreation of the Masculine Moral Occult…………………...129 5. Posta Güvercini: Hypermasculinity……………………...…………………..137 6. Conclusion……………………………………………...…………………....147 Chapter Four: Illness and Metamorphosis: Resistant Bodies in the Cold War.................149 1. From Docile Bodies of the Nation to Resistant Bodies of Individuals: Transformation in Cold War Turkey...............................................................151 2. Resisting through Skin: Becoming in Tezer Özlu’s Çocukluğun Soğuk Geceleri...........................................................................................................162 3. Doing a Juju Dance in the Face of X-Ray: Sevim Burak’s ‘Afrika Dansı’ as a Text of Modernist Resistance……………………..…………………………179 4. ‘I-am, I-am, I-am’ - In the Void of a Lost/Found I………………………….192 5. Conclusion.......................................................................................................200 Conclusion.........................................................................................................................201 Bibliography......................................................................................................................209 Word count: 87.996 2 List of Illustrations Zeki Faik İzler, ‘İnkılap Yolunda’…………………………………………………28 Illustration from ‘Ankara Construit’, La Turquie Kemaliste……………………….50 Illustration from ‘Ankara Construit’, La Turquie Kemaliste……………………….50 Illustration from ‘Ankara Construit’, La Turquie Kemaliste……………………….50 Illustration from ‘Reitsport’, La Turquie Kemaliste…………….………………….52 Illustration from ‘Sports’, La Turquie Kemaliste…………….…………………….52 Illustration from ‘Der tag der Jugend in der Türkei’, La Turquie Kemaliste………68 Illustration from ‘Le Visage Turc’, La Turquie Kemaliste…………………………68 3 Abstract The present thesis examines ideological and discursive constructions of physiological, neurological and psychological diseases in women writers’ fiction in Turkish in relation to the nation-building project of Turkey in the twentieth century. While the Turkish nation- building project deployed biopolitics to regulate population, this research has focused on bodies of exception and their potential to undermine the normative discourse on healthy bodies of ideal ‘citizens’. Taking my cue from Giorgio Agamben’s theorization of the figure of homo sacer and the state of exception, I have explored whether sick bodies of women are situated in the state of exception. For this research, I have selected texts across the twentieth century - from the Balkan Wars in 1912 as a significant cornerstone that signalled the fall of the Ottoman Empire to the end of the Cold War during which the relationship between citizens’ bodies and the state has drastically changed due to three coup d’etats and violence among civil groups of left and right. Since gender occupied a central role in the heteronormative definitions of what an ideal citizen’s body should look like and what was expected of it, I have specifically focused on women writers and their fiction on female characters’ illnesses in a number of genres. The analysis provided focuses on Halide Edib’s national romances Handan, Ateşten Gömlek (The Shirt of Fire), Mev’ut Hüküm (The Promised Verdict) and Tatarcık; Kerime Nadir’s melodramas Hıçkırık (Sobbing) and Posta Güvercini (Carrier Pigeon/Dove); modernist works of the Cold War period Tezer Özlü’s Çocukluğun Soğuk Geceleri (Cold Nights of Childhood) and Sevim Burak’s ‘Afrika Dansı’ (African Dance), and post-Cold War short stories by Aslı Erdoğan ‘Yitik Gözün Boşluğunda’ (In the Void of a Lost Eye) and ‘Tahta Kuşlar’ (Wooden Birds). In order to present a detailed portrait of the central place of health in the nation-building project of Turkey, my first chapter presents a historical analysis of the official state discourse through speeches and publications by the members of the parliament and prominent health officials of the first half of the century. Here, I argue that the Turkish nation-building project set out to define every individual body as an asset to the well-being of the nation, thereby gave every citizen a biological responsibility with remarks like ‘You need to protect your health in order to be a good citizen’. My second chapter focuses on Halide Edib Adıvar’s national romances, approaching her oeuvre as a bridge that reflects the change in the normative definitions of ideal woman. It is my argument that the change in Adıvar’s use of illness in her novels is representative of the approach towards illness in the modern Turkish republic with her later works replacing the sickly heroines with healthy ones. Similarly, in my third chapter I focus on Kerime Nadir’s melodramas and approach her novels as texts where the wounded masculinity caused by the lost Ottoman Empire is healed and saved by the sacrifice of the heroines. As the heroines devote their life energies to heal and raise the heroes, they gradually lose their health only to be replaced by their healthy and sturdy daughters or younger companions. In my final chapter, I focus on modernist works produced during and shortly after the Cold War, and discuss the change in the function of the sick bodies. In these works, writers embrace the images of sick bodies as tools of resistance to authoritarian regimes. It is in this period, the docile bodies of the previous works are charged with resistance and their borders are shattered. With the state applying torture and violence on citizens’ bodies, sick bodies turn into weapons and become revolutionary. 4 Declaration No portion of the work referred to in this thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning. 5 Copyright Statement i. The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to this thesis) owns certain copyright or related rights in it (the “Copyright”) and s/he has given The University of Manchester certain rights to use such Copyright, including for administrative purposes. ii. Copies of this thesis, either in full or in extracts and whether in hard or electronic copy, may be made only in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) and regulations issued under it or, where appropriate, in accordance with licensing agreements which the University has from time to time. This page must form part of any such copies made. iii. The ownership of certain Copyright, patents, designs, trade marks and other intellectual property (the “Intellectual Property”) and any reproductions of copyright works in the thesis, for example graphs and tables (“Reproductions”), which may be described in this thesis, may not be owned by the author and may be owned by third parties. Such Intellectual Property and Reproductions cannot and must not be made available for use without the prior written permission of the owner(s) of the relevant Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions. iv. 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