A History of German Turkish Connectivity
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Translation and the Experience of Modernity: A History of German Turkish Connectivity By Kristin Ann Dickinson A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature in the Graduate Division of the University of California, Berkeley Committee in charge: Professor Deniz Göktürk, Chair Professor Aslı Iğsız Professor Chenxi Tang Professor Karl Britto Professor Frank Bezner Summer 2015 Translation and the Experience of Modernity: A History of German Turkish Connectivity © 2015 by Kristin Ann Dickinson ABSTRACT Translation and the Experience of Modernity: A History of German Turkish Connectivity by Kristin Ann Dickinson Doctor of Philosophy in Comparative Literature University of California, Berkeley Professor Deniz Göktürk, Chair This dissertation traces the development of a German Turkish translational relationship from the first publication of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s West-östlicher Divan [1819, West-eastern Divan] to the speeches and events surrounding the 2008 Frankfurt Book Fair, Turkey in All Its Colors. While attending to the continued uneven circulation of texts in the global marketplace, I examine the crucial role translations—as well as literary texts that theorize translation—played throughout the history of German Turkish literary exchange. Informed by the centrality of large-scale translation movements to the cultural experience of modernity and the development of national literary cultures in both the German and Turkish contexts, my case studies nevertheless exhibit omnidirectional translation practices that exceed the realm of the national. They reveal the centrality of Ottoman literature and history to even highly canonical German authors such as Goethe, and exhibit a sense of agency on both sides of a German Turkish translational exchange that counters Ottoman perceptions of its literary belatedness vis-à-vis the “West.” The second part of this dissertation considers the significance of an extended German Turkish translational relationship for the contemporary field of Turkish German studies. In particular, I read Zafer Şenocak’s oft-cited call for an “extension of the concept of Germanness” in relation to his most recent novels written in Turkish. A move that demands translation into the German speaking realm from the outset, Şenocak’s “Turkish turn” shifts from a focus on (post)migrants’ relative ability to participate in a specifically German history to moments of real and imagined German Turkish contact across national lines. In successive chapters I read the abandoned Ottoman pavilion at the center of Köşk [2008, The Residence] —where the main character translates the poetry of Ingeborg Bachmann following the 1960 Turkish military coup—and the international stage provided by the Frankfurt Book Fair as key translational sites from which new modes of listening, speaking, and multidirectional st remembering are negotiated for Turkish German studies in the 21 century. 1 ~ for Leyla who was born with this dissertation, and inspired me every step of the way i TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Illustrations iv Acknowledgements vi Introduction: Translational Connectivity 1 Non-synchronous Histories of Translation 6 Unbounding Comparison? 10 Contemporary Translation Initiatives 14 Summary of Chapters 18 1. Entangled Histories of Translation 21 Translations with no “Original:” Reading Werther in Ottoman 23 Differentiating Late Ottoman Translation Movements 24 Translating Modern Subjectivity 25 The Werther Translations and the “Classics Debate” 28 Translation and Weltliteratur 31 The Ottoman Disorient in Goethe’s Divan 33 Ottoman Challenges to Orientalism 33 East-West Contemporaneity in Goethe’s Divan 37 The “Poet’s Land” as Translational Time-Space 38 Goethe’s Werkstattsplitter and the Ottoman Disorient 40 2. Complicating the Premise of Smooth Translatability 47 Situating Sabahattin Ali in a Transnational Context 50 “Translating the West”: Sabahattin Ali and the Translation Bureau 55 Identities in Crisis 60 “Engaging” in World Literature: “San Domingo’da bir Nişanlama” and Raif’s “German” Novel 65 Behind the Façade of Civilization 69 Civilized Encounters, Impure Mixtures 72 ii 3. Zafer Şenocak’s “Turkish Turn” 75 Translational Kinships, Multilingual Memory 77 Decentered Narration 79 Intervening in a History of Phonocentrism 84 “Literary Translation” as Cross-linguistic Remembrance 87 Translational Reversal in Kösk 90 “Opening Language” 91 The Letter Coup 96 Learning to Listen through Reversal 99 4. Staging Translation 105 Performances of Translatability in Orhan Pamuk’s Kar 107 A Swedish Precursor 109 Parodies of Un/translatability 114 The Silence of Snow Turkey in the Eye of Europe: The 2008 Frankfurt Book Fair 118 A Brief History of the Frankfurt Book Fair 118 Turkey in All Its Colors 121 Europe in the Eye of Turkey: In the Hotel Asia 124 Conclusion 128 Bibliography 131 iii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure One: Graph for TEDA Supports Languages 17 Figure Two: Madonna of the Harpies, by Andrea del Sarto (1517) 70 Figure Three: Snowflake Image from Orhan Pamuk’s Snow 116 Figure Three: 2008 Frankfurt Book Fair Logo - Turkey in All Its Colors 122 iv Note: This work contains many translations from Ottoman Turkish, modern Turkish, and German. When an English-language edition is not cited, the translation is my own. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation was made possible through the generous support of numerous institutions. I was fortunate to receive both a FLAS and an ARIT fellowship for intensive Turkish language study while at NYU. The Department of Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley supported my endeavors to pursue graduate coursework in Turkey at an early stage. A fellowship from the Institute of European Studies at UC Berkeley enabled me to conduct pre-dissertation research in Berlin and Cologne. And the initial stages of my dissertation research were conducted with the support of a multi-country International Dissertation Research Fellowship from the Social Science Research Council. My research for this dissertation has benefited in numerous ways from the critical insight of Deniz Göktürk. She has helped me to draw complex connections between the literary traditions and histories of translation I address, and her pioneering work in the fields of German and Turkish Studies has inspired me to pursue the interdisciplinary lines of thought I develop here. I am also grateful to Aslı Iğsız for taking me on as an advisee at an extremely busy time in her life. I have benefited greatly from our intellectual exchanges and her thoughtful comments on sections of this dissertation. David Gramling has also been an important interlocutor throughout this project; the numerous seminars, conferences, and projects he has organized have led me to reconsider the case studies in this dissertation from hitherto unexplored perspectives. My colleagues in the Department of Comparative Literature have seen me through the various stages of this project. I am thankful in particular to Karl Britto for helping me to pursue a “minor” literature as a “major” field of study, to Franz Bezner for chairing my exam committee, and to Erica Roberts for her ability to perform bureaucratic miracles. Many thanks also go to the members of my cohort, especially Jessica Crewe, Suzanne Scala, Sarah Chihaya, and Jessie Hock, for their engaging conversation and intellectual support. From my first visit to the Berkeley campus, Tony Kaes was instrumental in welcoming me to the German department, which quickly became a second home for me. The genesis for this dissertation could be traced back to the first graduate seminar I took at UC Berkeley on translation theory with Winfried Kudszus. I would also like to thank Chenxi Tang for helping me to develop the historical trajectory of my research. My involvement in the Multicultural Germany Project and TRANSIT also provided for many thoughtful intellectual exchanges. Paul Dobyrden and Kurt Beals, in particular, have been good friends and important interlocutors throughout the course of my research. I feel extremely lucky to have met Robin Ellis during my first week at UC Berkeley; she has influenced my research in countless ways as a fellow translator, intellectual collaborator, and dedicated friend. I am also indebted to Annika Orich for her honest and insightful comments on sections of this dissertation, her ability to always make me laugh, and her continued support of my research. vi I am grateful for the many professors at the University of Rochester who inspired me to pursue an academic career. I cannot thank Randall Halle enough for sending me to the University of Cologne, which changed my life in countless ways, and for being an important intellectual role model for me from the very beginning. His scholarship continues to inspire me and I have benefitted time and again from his thoughtful advice and friendship. Sibel Erol infected me early on with her contagious enthusiasm for Turkish literature. The classes I took with her at NYU changed the course of my graduate career and encouraged me to take an increasingly comparative approach in my research. My time at Boğaziçi Üniversitesi was also formative for the development of this dissertation. Many thanks go to Halim Kara for introducing me to the diverse Ottoman literature of the late 19th century, and for encouraging me to explore out of print materials. Yüce Aydoğan and Başak Özdoğan also helped me to formulate the questions that shaped my research for Chapter One, and I am grateful for their continued friendship and support over the years. I am also delighted to have met Kader Konuk in the final stages of this dissertation; her research has been instrumental to my own, and my participation in the colloquium she organized at the Universität Duisburg- Essen has led to many thoughtful, crossdisciplinary intellectual exchanges. I am extremely grateful for the continued support of my parents, Kathleen and Edward Dickinson, who gave me a pen and paper and encouraged me to write at a young age, and who always made me feel that I could accomplish anything I put my mind to. My daughter, Leyla, was born with this dissertation and grew together with it.