TURKEY’S INTERNAL OTHER: EMBODIMENTS OF TAŞRA IN THE WORKS OF ORHAN PAMUK, NURİ BİLGE CEYLAN, AND FATİH AKIN EVREN OZSELCUK A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY JOINT GRADUATE PROGRAM IN COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO May 2015 © Evren Ozselcuk, 2015 ABSTRACT In Turkey, the concept of taşra connotes much more than its immediate spatial meaning as those places outside of the city center(s). Its extensive circulation as a trope that indicates externality to modernity is inextricably linked to the specific configurations of the project of Turkish modernization. In this dissertation, I draw from the insights of postcolonial theory and psychoanalysis to develop a novel conceptualization of taşra, through which I interpret Turkey’s complicated relationship to modernity and its status within the new global order. I argue that a close analysis of the dominant discourses on taşra is revealing, for it constitutes one primary site where the predicaments and contradictions of Turkish modernization and national identity-constitution are played out, where collective anxieties around these issues continue to be projected and managed. In my analysis of these discourses, I adopt a deconstructive rather than a corrective approach: my objective is not to reveal what taşra “really” is but what work it is made to do. The contemporary cinematic and literary texts that I engage with in this study are the Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk’s memoir Istanbul: Memories and the City (2005), Turkish-German director Fatih Akın’s documentary Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul (2005) and three films by the pioneer of the new genre of taşra films in Turkey, Nuri Bilge Ceylan—namely Climates (2006), Three Monkeys (2008) and Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011). Through close readings of these texts, I illustrate how each complicates, affirms and/or expands received understandings of taşra that celebrate and/or denounce it as being culturally, spatially and temporally external to modernity. ii DEDICATION To my father Mehmet Erdinç Özselçuk (1936-2015) who waited enough to see me through. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The completion of this dissertation would not be possible if it were not for the continued support and encouragement of many people. My supervisor, Monique Tschofen, has been an amazing mentor. Frankly, I cannot find adequate words to describe her formative contributions, over many years, to my intellectual and professional development. I am inspired by her commitment to rigorous thinking and sharp analysis, by her ability to offer guidance and support with such incredible precision and promptness. Her sustained faith in my work, her care and generosity are true gifts for which I will continue to be grateful. I want to thank Sedef Arat-Koç not only for her thoughtful comments and careful interventions into the project, but also for the vigorous conversations I had with her about Turkish politics, films, TV shows, books and about life in general. I am thankful to Paul Antze for his insightful questions about the project at each and every committee meeting. Nima Naghibi extended her support during the early stages of the project. I also want to thank Angelica Fenner and Amila Buturovic for graciously agreeing to serve as members of my defense committee. Outside of my committee, I also would like to thank Jody Berland and Nalini Persram in whose seminars I first started to formulate the main ideas of this dissertation. I am grateful to Anne MacLennan for supporting my proposal for a senior seminar that drew from my dissertation research and for making it possible for me to teach it at York in 2012-2013. Special thanks to Diane Jenner and Stephanie Margetts who made sure, all through my M.A. and Ph.D. in the Communication and Culture Program at York, that no administrative question I had remained unresolved. iv I am indebted to my interlocutors Greg Flemming, Matt Flisfeder and Concetta Principe in the weekly reading group through 2008-2010. Sheila Koenig, Sarah Sharma, Craig Medows, Kara Peet and Paul Telford are friends and intellectual comrades who sustained me during my graduate studies and made life fulfilling and less difficult with their love, care, and ideas. I am thankful also to friends in Istanbul, especially to Seda Kalem, Enis Rıza, Ebru Şeremetli, Bahriye Kabadayı Dal, Nalân Sakızlı and İlker Ataç. My deepest thanks go to my confidant Erkan Erçel for his continuous collegiality and for cheering me on in my endeavors. I would also like to thank friends in my new home in Columbia, South Carolina: Susan Courtney, Bob Bohl, Rebecca Stern, Nina Levine, Catherine Keyser, Paul Famolari, Agnes Mueller and Nicholas Vazsonyi. My sister Ceren Özselçuk enriches my life with her intellectual dynamism and marvelous wit. I cannot thank her enough for all her intellectual, emotional and financial support that has kept me sane through my graduate studies. I am grateful to my parents İnci and Erdinç Özselçuk. They have shown much patience and understanding all along this long process. Finally, I want to express my immeasurable gratitude to Greg Forter without whose love, support and encouragement this dissertation would not have materialized. He listened without complaint to my ramblings and helped me find my way through knotted ideas. Each time my writing felt like closing down on itself, he led me towards whole new paths. Scrupulously, he read and commented on every page of every draft. But above all else, with his sheer presence in my life, he has imbued all experience with a touch of glory. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ii Dedication iii Acknowledgements iv Table of Contents vi Introduction 1 I. Concepts and Frameworks: Taşra from Modernization 13 to Globalization I.1. Taşra and Modernization 13 I.2. Between the Abject and the Authentic: 22 The Production of Taşra as Supplement in Modern Turkey I.3. The “internally-excluded”: Taşra as Supplement 31 in Global Capitalism II. Taşra, Belatedness and Melancholy in Orhan Pamuk’s Istanbul 40 II.1. Mourning and Melancholic Grieving: 51 A Theoretical Discussion II.2. Belatedness, Melancholy and the City as Taşra 62 II.3. Melancholic Speech and Sublimation in Istanbul 78 vi III. Taşra and the Failure of Liberal Hybridity 88 in Fatih Akın’s Crossing The Bridge III.1. From Hybridity to “Authenticity” 95 III.2. The Metaphor of the Bridge and Its Discontents 112 IV. Provincializing the Metropolitan Center: 124 Taşra in the Late Work of Nuri Bilge Ceylan IV.1. Climates: Taşra within the Subject 135 IV.2. Three Monkeys: Taşra within the City 155 IV.3. Once Upon a Time in Anatolia: Taşra and Modernity 170 IV.3.a. Sight and Smell 178 Afterword 190 Works Cited 196 vii INTRODUCTION It is difficult to think seriously about modern Turkey without invoking the concept of taşra. It has been the object of state policies and a domain of struggle for political power; it has intrigued numerous novelists, poets and filmmakers; it has been the explicit subject and/or the constitutive background of popular songs and hit TV series; it has served as a condescending shorthand to indicate a particular kind of cultural difference coded as unmodern or anti-modern. And yet, this oversaturated concept with conflicting significations has a relatively short history. It was only at the end of the nineteenth century that taşra, a term used to describe administrative regions outside the centers—a term that indicated provinces—started to connote much more than this immediate meaning. Notably, the term’s transformation coincides with the beginning of a process of reformation and modernization in the Ottoman Empire, which at the time was trying to resist the threat of European colonialism (Laçiner, 2005; Alkan, 2005). In this sense, the making of taşra is inextricably linked to the specific configuration of modernity and modernization in Turkey.1 It is precisely in this respect that a close analysis of the discourses on taşra is revealing, for it constitutes one primary site where dilemmas and predicaments of Turkish modernization and national identity-constitution are played out, where collective anxieties around these issues continue to be projected and managed. My dissertation is an extended reflection on contemporary cinematic and literary engagements with this concept. My primary texts are the Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk’s 1 Here is perhaps the place to note that the term “taşra” was not always equally central to defining the distinction between center and periphery. For earlier conceptions, see especially Hanioğlu (2008); Barkey (2008); Quataert (2000). 1 memoir Istanbul: Memories and the City (2005 [2003]), Turkish-German director Fatih Akın’s documentary Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul (2005) and three films by the pioneer of the new genre of taşra films in Turkey, Nuri Bilge Ceylan—namely Climates (2006), Three Monkeys (2008) and Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (2011). Through close readings of these texts, I illustrate how each complicates, affirms and/or expands received understandings of taşra that cherish and/or denounce it as being culturally, spatially and temporally external to modernity. This is a project that is inspired by and builds upon some recent intellectual deliberations in Turkey that take a poststructuralist approach to thinking about taşra. My reflections have been shaped particularly by the articles that appeared in 2005 in the edited volume Taşraya Bakmak (“Looking at Taşra”). Representing a variety