Animals and the Environment in Turkish Culture: Ecocriticism and Transnational Literature

by Kim Fortuny

Overview

Landscape and animals have been fundamental elements of Turkish culture from the Ottomans to the present day. This book examines representations of and attitudes toward land and animals in selected Turkish literary texts and cultural contexts. Informed by global debates in ecocriticism, ecopoetics and animal studies, Kim Fortuny explores literary and arts activism, as well as environmental interventions in the Turkish cultural sphere in light of ongoing ecological degradation in Turkey. Writers from the Turkish canon such as Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar and Nâzim Hikmet are explored alongside American and English texts to reveal common transnational environmental and ecological concerns across these distinct literary cultures. Analysing works of Turkish literature within the emerging field of ecocriticism, this interdisciplinary work will be of interest to scholars of Turkish and comparative literature and animal studies and ecocriticism across the humanities.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781786726575
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	08/22/2019
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	200
File size:	504 KB

About the Author

Kim Fortuny is Associate Professor of English at Bogaziçi University in Istanbul, Turkey. Her previous books include American Writers in Istanbul: Melville, Twain, Hemingway, Dos Passos, Bowles, Algren, Baldwin, (Syracuse University Press, 2009) and Elizabeth Bishop: The Art of Travel (University Press of Colorado, 2003). She has published articles in peer-reviewed journals such as Middle Eastern Literatures, Journal of Turkish Literature, Textual Practice and Nineteenth-Century Contexts.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Acknowledgements

Introduction

Land:

Chapter One
Herman Melville's Near East Journal and Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar's Five Cities:Affinities of Culture, Nature, and Islamic Mysticism in Istanbul

Chapter Two
Nature's Place in Political Romanticism: Selected Poems by Nâzim Hikmet

Chapter Three
Resourcing Nature: Land Ethics, Poetics and “Things I Didn't Know I Loved” by Nâzim Hikmet

Animals:

Chapter Four
Islam, Westernization and Post-Humanist Place: The Case of the Istanbul Street Dog

Chapter Five
Ecopoetics, Dead Metaphors and Bird Migration: The Bosphorus Passage of the European White Stork

Chapter Six
The Benefits of Doubt: A Sea Turtle and the Ecological Sublime

Conclusion

Index

Editorial Reviews

"As a native English speaker who has spent much of her adult life living and working in Istanbul, Fortuny (Bogaziçi Univ., Turkey) is uniquely qualified to undertake this study. With undeniable passion for and expertise in literature, Fortuny offers an impressive account of the interstices between American and English literatures and late Ottoman and more contemporary Turkish literature and poetry, including works by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar, Nâzim Hikmet, and Orhan Pamuk. Fortuny's Turkish language skills are superb, and she imparts to her readers insight into important Turkish works that are not yet translated into English ... There is much to be appreciated here, but it is enhanced by a prior knowledge of English literature more generally and Turkish culture specifically ... Summing Up: Recommended. Researchers and faculty." - CHOICE

“A seminal and original work of meticulous scholarship, expertly organized and presented, and enhanced for academia … Animals and the Environment in Turkish Culture: Ecocriticism and Transnational Literature is an extraordinary and unreservedly recommended addition to college and university library collections.” — Midwest Book Review

From the Publisher