Writing and Sounding the City: Turkish-German Representations of Berlin by Ela Eylem Gezen A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Germanic Languages and Literatures) in The University of Michigan 2012 Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Vanessa Agnew, Co-Chair Associate Professor Kader Konuk, Co-Chair Associate Professor Kerstin Barndt Associate Professor Mark Clague Associate Professor Johannes von Moltke © Ela E. Gezen 2012 Anneme ve Babama ii Acknowledgements Writing this dissertation has been a long journey, which I could not have embarked on and endured without the support of many people and institutions. First I would like to thank my “Doktormütter” Kader Konuk and Vanessa Agnew. Their support, academic and emotional, has been unconditional, invaluable and indispensible. I tremendously benefited from and always admired their ability to identify points at which I needed a push in the right direction—to dig deeper, and to think bigger and further. I could not have done it without them. I am grateful to my committee members. Kerstin Barndt provided encouragement, and advice from the earliest stages to the very end. She has helped me out of dead ends when most needed. Johannes von Moltke was always available to discuss my ideas and work. The clarity and poignancy of his feedback never ceases to impress me. Mark Clague provided encouragement and guidance in listening to and discussing music together, which was greatly appreciated and integral to my analysis. My colleagues and friends at the University of Michigan have helped me to feel at home in Ann Arbor emotionally as well as intellectually. First and foremost, I would like to express my eternal gratitude to Seth “Sässi” Howes, my colleague and friend. His patience and generosity in reading, editing and discussing my work has always been unlimited. He has become the “Doktorpate” of my dissertation, and has been a trusted confidant from the very beginning. I also want to give thanks: to Andrew Ross for lending a critical eye and ear to my work and providing me with excuses to get out of the house, to Sara Jackson for making me laugh and listening when I needed it the most, to iii Andy Noverr and Mar Freire Hermida for taking care of me and my family with delicious meals and unlimited support, to Sun-Young Kim for being as radiant and gracious as her name promises, to Andrew Mills for his refreshing sarcasm, to Kalli Federhofer for always having an open door and ear, to Michael André, Ariana Orozco, and Simon Walsh for their helpfulness and input, to Hartmut Rastalsky whose support, patience, and guidance in my development as a teacher has been crucial, to Ilka Rasch for always making me look ahead, to Maria Canal and Mónica López Lerma for relaxing conversations and eventful evenings, to Manuel Chinchilla for long discussions which made everything else disappear, to Roberto Robles Valencia for being there from the beginning and opening the door to the Spanish Department, to Adile Esen for her unparalleled optimism, and to Ferdinand Kappes, without whom Ann Arbor has not been the same. I am grateful for the support and care of the staff in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures: thanks to Marga Schuhwerk-Hampel, Kate Ballentine, Jennifer White, Nancy Blasch, and Sheri Sytsema Geiger, who have made sure that I was fine beyond deadlines, visas, and bureaucracy. I am thankful to the German Studies Colloquium and to my colleagues in the German Department for providing a forum to discuss and share work—both mine and their own—at various stages in the writing process. I would like to thank the members of the Turkish-German Studies Group and the Interdisciplinary Music Forum for fostering cross-disciplinary conversations. Bloomington will always be a special place for me, where I met people whose friendships and intellectual support has been invaluable. I want to thank: Kemal Silay for pushing me to pursue what I was passionate about while convincing me that I could do it; iv Debora Hinderliter Ortloff for her kindness and her help in recognizing my goals; Berna Güneli for her unparalleled ability to motivate and encourage me; and Greg Volan for always welcoming me. In Germany I would like to thank my friends who made me realize that Berlin will always be a part of my life, in one way or the other: to Anne-Claire Kaufmann for always knowing what to say, to Isa Steiner for selflessly caring, to Ceylan Yıldırım for her limitless energy, to Anna Hecht for her ability to surprise me, to Miranti Sukanto for remaining close even with continents between us, and to Jens Kerkemeier for always making time. Thanks to Frau von Erwin—with whom I associate many places—for her contagious cheerfulness and inexhaustible helpfulness. I thank the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, the Center for European Studies, the International Institute and the Rackham Graduate School at the University of Michigan for generously funding my research. I am indebted to librarians Beau Case, Feyza Sayman, Jeffrey Pearson, and Charles Reynolds, for their resourcefulness and help in acquiring books, films, and music for my research and teaching. I also would like to thank the Inter Library Loan staff for providing easy access to seemingly unattainable texts. My thanks to Antje Pfeffer at the Archiv der Jugendkulturen, and Beate Rieple at the Domid for granting unlimited access to the archival material and their support. I would like to thank Martin Greve, Tahsin Incirci, and Orientation for making time to talk to me and answer my questions—in person and/or virtually. Anneme ve Babama bu güne kadar bana gösterdikleri sevgi ve destekleri için minnettarım. Sevgili Cemime her şeyi gülümseyince unutturabildiği için teşekkür v ediyorum: iyiki varsın! Estoulle moi agradecida ó meu home, Dio, a mellor persoa que coñezo. O seu cariño, comprensión e lucidez mantivéronme a flote e sensata. Estou na casa onde él esté. vi Table of Contents Dedication ii Acknowledgements iii Chapter I. Introduction: Transnationalizing German Culture 1 Transnational Berlin 5 German Cultural Studies: A Paradigm Shift 10 German Leitkultur and the Death of Multiculturalism 17 Labor Migration and the Public Sphere 23 Turkish-German Texts and Contexts 29 Textual Transcendence: Gérard Genette’s Transtextuality 31 Chapter Outline 34 II. ‘Gastarbeiter’ in Berlin: Writing and Singing Solidarity 38 Aras Ören: Chronicler of Berlin 42 Naunynstraße – Kreuzberg: Home of the Workers 55 Berlin: Setting and Addressee 65 The Soundtrack of Solidarity: Tahsin Incirci and the Türkische Arbeiterchor 66 Songs of Solidarity 70 Conclusion 79 III. Heimisches Berlin: Longing and Belonging 82 Being at Home and Abroad in the Turkish Context 89 The Musical Engagement with Gurbet 91 Experiencing Gurbet in Turkish-German Literature 95 Longing for the Future: Kemal Kurt and Islamic Force 97 Heimat in the Plural: Kemal Kurt and Literature 99 Sounding Nostalgia: Islamic Force and Gurbet 115 Conclusion 128 IV. East Meets West: Connecting Istanbul and Berlin 131 Staging Berlin: Emine Sevgi Özdamar 133 Sounds of the City 143 Oriental Soul in Berlin: Orientation 152 Listening to Orientation 154 Conclusion 162 Conclusion 164 Bibliography 173 vii Chapter I Introduction: Transnationalizing German Culture In the immediate aftermath of German reunification Reinhard Mey, a German Liedermacher from Berlin, recuperated his experience of the German capital in “Mein Berlin” (1990). Summarizing sixty years of Berlin history, he concludes: “Resistance and contradictions, reality and utopia. That was my Berlin.”1 In this song, Mey recalls the city’s abrupt political and social transformations and upheavals by identifying crucial points in the city’s history: the Berlin Blockade from 1948 to 1949, the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, student revolts and protests in 1967/1968, the fall of the Wall in 1989 and German reunification in 1990. As Mey’s use of the possessive pronoun “mein” indicates, his personal experience of key moments in the city’s past makes Berlin his own. Questions concerning belonging, the location of home, and the constitution of one’s own place have been definitive for Turkish-German writing and song. Born in Ankara in 1961, raised in Istanbul, and having spent decades in Munich and Berlin, the essayist, novelist, and poet Zafer Şenocak conceives of a plural constitution of Berlin as his home: “The city in which I lived the longest and which has shaped me the most, was Munich. My Ankara, my Istanbul and my Munich are now in Berlin…Every person has her own personal geography whose borders run very differently from those on a map. I would not have stayed in Berlin, if I had not been able to make this city habitable for my 1 “Widerstand und Widersprüche, Wirklichkeit und Utopien. Das war mein Berlin.” 1 memories.”2 Şenocak’s words recast the city as a personal space which carries with it memories of past places. This dissertation conducts a comparative analysis of Turkish- German literature and music, focusing on the representation of Berlin as a personal and plural space. Working at the intersection of literary criticism, cultural studies, and musicology, I examine how Berlin is imagined, experienced and remembered as a site of Turkish-German belonging in the literary works of Emine Sevgi Özdamar, Aras Ören, and Kemal Kurt, and in the music of Islamic Force, Tahsin Incirci, and Orientation. In their textual and musical mapping of Berlin, physical and ideological borders are shifted, transgressed, and blurred, allowing for the city to contain other places—of past and present—within it. This transformation of city space into a personal space provides the possibility for the organization and mapping of individual experiences and memories along spatial lines.