Lilo Linke a ’Spirit of Insubordination’ Autobiography As Emancipatory Pedagogy : a Turkish Case Study
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ORBIT-OnlineRepository ofBirkbeckInstitutionalTheses Enabling Open Access to Birkbeck’s Research Degree output Lilo Linke a ’Spirit of insubordination’ autobiography as emancipatory pedagogy : a Turkish case study https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/40177/ Version: Full Version Citation: Ogurla, Anita Judith (2016) Lilo Linke a ’Spirit of insubordina- tion’ autobiography as emancipatory pedagogy : a Turkish case study. [Thesis] (Unpublished) c 2020 The Author(s) All material available through ORBIT is protected by intellectual property law, including copy- right law. Any use made of the contents should comply with the relevant law. Deposit Guide Contact: email Lilo Linke: A ‘Spirit of Insubordination’ Autobiography as Emancipatory Pedagogy; A Turkish Case Study Anita Judith Ogurlu Humanities & Cultural Studies Birkbeck College, University of London Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, February 2016 I hereby declare that the thesis is my own work. Anita Judith Ogurlu 16 February 2016 2 Abstract This thesis examines the life and work of a little-known interwar period German writer Lilo Linke. Documenting individual and social evolution across three continents, her self-reflexive and autobiographical narratives are like conversations with readers in the hope of facilitating progressive change. With little tertiary education, as a self-fashioned practitioner prior to the emergence of cultural studies, Linke’s everyday experiences constitute ‘experiential learning’ (John Dewey). Rejecting her Nazi-leaning family, through ‘fortunate encounter[s]’ (Goethe) she became critical of Weimar and cultivated hope by imagining and working to become a better person, what Ernst Bloch called Vor-Schein. Linke’s ‘instinct of workmanship’, ‘parental bent’ and ‘idle curiosity’ was grounded in her inherent ‘spirit of insubordination’, terms borrowed from Thorstein Veblen. Experiences and writing these experiences up resembles Paulo Freire’s pedagogy ‘word=work=praxis’. Devoid of scientific or colonial gaze, she learned a new way of seeing, what Goethe called ‘tender empiricism’. I argue Linke’s praxis is an emancipatory pedagogy that worked toward betterment of the self and ‘common man’ (Veblen). This interdisciplinary research revisits a question Veblen broadly investigated regarding individual and social evolution at the turn of the twentieth century. My primary question asks; how did Lilo Linke evolve from a ‘self-regarding’ individual to ‘other-regarding’ person to work for the betterment of the whole? The thesis comprises two parts. Part I interprets Linke’s evolution evoking the Bildungsroman (Goethe). Using Veblen’s cumulative causation methodology, I explore German ‘native-bias’ by juxtaposing it to Linke’s ‘spirit of insubordination.’ Part II selects Linke’s authorship (1937) on the modern Turkish Republic in its Étatist era and addresses my secondary question; how did Linke’s praxis reflect in her narratives on Turkey? I suggest there are strong parallels between Linke’s ‘experiential learning’ and ‘spirit of insubordination’ within Turkey, in that, they both worked for betterment of the whole under exceedingly trying circumstances. 3 Contents Acknowledgements 5 Abbreviations 6 Chapter 1: Introduction 7 Part I: Who is Lilo Linke? Chapter 2 Embracing Life: From Hunger to Hope 36 Chapter 3 ‘Fortunate Encounter[s]’: A Chance to Learn 61 Chapter 4 ‘Spirit of Insubordination’: An Emancipatory Praxis 87 Part II: What Did She Write? Chapter 5 Empire to Republic: A Journey Across Civilization 114 Chapter 6 ‘Idle Curiosity’: The Turkish Case 140 Chapter 7 ‘Instinct of Workmanship’: The Turkish Case 166 Chapter 8 ‘Parental Bent’: The Turkish Case 191 Chapter 9 In Lieu of a Conclusion: Learning from Lilo 215 Appendix She Who Laughed 227 Bibliography 232 4 Acknowledgements Before all, I would like to thank my supervisor Esther Leslie for her utmost patience and diligence in supporting me throughout this four-year adventure to bring Lilo Linke out of the shadows and into the light. I am forever grateful that Esther introduced me to Goethe (a self-declared Spinozan) and his method of ‘tender empiricism’ not only as a new way of seeing but also as a science for life. I extend sincere thanks to my viva examiners İştar Gözaydın, Çiğdem Esin and Caroline Knowles. Although not involved in my thesis project, I send a message of appreciation to my former professors at Istanbul Bilgi University, whose lectures I vividly recall, when I decided to return to academic life as a mature student in 2005. Also former students in my Visual Culture lectures forever gave me encouragement and support in allowing me to learn from them, as hopefully they learned a little from me. Our reciprocal exchange was an inspirational experience I will forever cherish. I also forever thank my mother and father who without their loving support, I could have never managed to undertake this project. Their tireless and selfless labor on the land in an isolated, rural community gave me a chance to experience a relatively ‘Live and Let Live’ way of life that has shaped my sense of being, in that, I will forever have the ability to know the rural and urban pattern. Our Norwegian, Icelandic, German and Ukrainian Canadian neighbors helped link me to Thorstein Veblen in another time and space. In loving memory, I wish to thank Michael and Muriel Ivanochko and Anne Romaniuk for giving me some idea that there was a higher goal to be reached through education. I also extend my gratitude to Bob and Liz Ivanochko who kept this spirit alive in the next generation in our family. I hope Diane will read this work one day and share it with her children, such that they will appreciate, value and respect other cultures’ dignity and learn that, others too, want to live in peace; ‘Live and Let Live’. It is not enough to read a book about a place. One must go and live it! On the journeys I took in search of Lilo’s trace, I thank those who helped me along the way in Ecuador, Germany and France. In London, Andreas and Eric made my stay in their home, a home, and allowed me to sense their German culture. Thank you to an old university friend who coached me. Thank you to the Turks in London who allowed me to sense their Turkish roots with British branches. Thank you to my Turkish neighbors in Istanbul who fed me in times of great duress while writing up this thesis. I am forever grateful to several key ‘fortunate encounters’ that put me on an evolutionary journey to embrace love and knowledge as a means of hope out of the darkness. And finally, I want to thank the people of Turkey, who through infinite encounters shared with them, taught me and continue to teach me the Turkish pattern, another culture and another way of seeing and being; our ‘difference in sameness’. Thank you for your love, patience and endless ‘spirit of insubordination’. 5 Abbreviations Works AA Andean Adventure AD Allah Dethroned: A Journey Through Modern Turkey CAV Cancel All Vows JN1 Journey From the North, vol. 1 RD Restless Days: A German Girl’s Autobiography SCT Social Changes in Turkey TWE Tale Without End WIF Wo ist Fred? 6 —Chapter 1— Introduction But in fact men are good and virtuous because of three things. These are nature, habit or training, reason. —Aristotle, The Politics (1962: 284) I believe that the social sciences can be reinvigorated by the careful application of Darwinian principles. —Geoffrey Hodgson (2006: 109) This thesis researches the life and authorship of a little-known interwar period German writer and progenitor of social justice Lilo Linke (1906-1963). With little tertiary education, as a self-fashioned practitioner prior to the emergence of cultural studies, Linke’s experiences and writing up these experiences constitute learning by doing. When read in totality, her rich oeuvre touches on themes such as economy, politics, media, war, hunger, emotion, revolution, evolution, resistance, inflation, labor, dress, consumerism, industrialization, the environment, health care, family, gender and religion, across the three continents she journeyed; Europe, Asia and Latin America. The study places her in each cultural and sociological context she lived and experienced to understand better the forces that acted upon her. I propose Linke might have evolved from a ‘self-regarding’ individual to ‘other-regarding’ person, in the way Thorstein Veblen posed humans have an instinct to work for common good of the whole. Her praxis, in the sense of Brazilian philosopher and pedagogue Paulo Freire (1970/1996), might be two-fold: (social) work with ‘common man’1 across cultures and word to enlighten and emancipate the reader, what I underscore in this thesis as, autobiography as emancipatory pedagogy. Little thorough scholarship exists on Linke. Karl Holl (1987) conducted an investigation of her life—briefly touching on some of her authorship—with the hope this might serve as material for a later biography on Linke. Sabine Wenhold, a student of Holl, in a 2011 journal article framed Linke an economic journalist with Gustav Stolper as her mentor. This followed with a master thesis positioning Linke as a ‘Neue 1 Veblen’s use of the term is not gender specific. 7 Frau’ drawing on Homi Bhabha’s notion of hybridity (Wenhold 2012). In 2006 Nicole Brunnhuber included Linke with writers Ernest Borneman, Robert Neumann, Ruth Feiner and George Tabori. Focusing on several of Linke’s European narratives she asserts that Linke turned a ‘vacuous space of exile into the venue in which to launch a literary career’ (2005: 161). In listing her oeuvre, Brunnhuber curiously left out her Turkish autobiography. While Brunnhuber called Linke an ‘everyday hero’, to which I agree, she missed the full potential of Linke’s oeuvre. Categorizing her an exile writer might be inadequate, in that, Linke rejected the term ‘exile’ probably for a similar reason Hannah Arendt rejected the term refugee.