Turkish Ecocriticism

Turkish Ecocriticism: From Neolithic to Contemporary Timescapes explores the values, perceptions, and transformations of the environment, ecology, and nature in Turkish culture, literature, and the arts. Through these themes, it examines historical and contemporary environmentally engaged literary and cultural traditions in Turkey. The volume re-imagines Turkey in its geo-social and ecocultural narratives of multiple connections and complexities, in its multi-faceted webs of histories, and in its rich multispecies stories.

As we enter the second decade of the twenty-first century, environmental concerns dominate the media headlines, from rampant poverty in the developing world to nuclear accidents in industrialized nations. How did human civilization arrive at its current predicaments, and what can we do to temper our habits of mind and mitigate society’s environmentally (and socially) destructive behaviors? The field of ecocriticism (also sometimes called “environmental criticism”) attempts to grapple with such issues. A branch of literary and cultural studies that essentially began in North America in the 1970s, ecocriticism is currently one of the most quickly developing areas of environmental research and teaching. The Future of Ecocriticism: New Horizons brings together thirty-two of the latest articles in the field, including work by some of the leading scholars from around the world. Although ecocriticism has been particularly active in North America, Western Europe, and East Asia, important studies of traditional environmental thought, environmental communication strategies, and environmental aesthetics have begun to emerge in every region of this world. This new book, co-edited by three prominent Turkish scholars and a leading American ecocritic, offers a special cluster of Turkish ecocriticism, with a focus on environmental stories and ideas in this culture that bridges Europe and Asia. Another unique feature of The Future of Ecocriticism: New Horizons is the concluding dialogue among the four editors about the current state of the field.

This book foregrounds entanglement as a guiding concept in Derrida’s work and considers its implications and benefits for ecocritical thought. Ergin introduces the notion of "ecological text" to emphasize textuality as a form of entanglement that proves useful in thinking about ecological interdependence and uncertainty. She brings deconstruction into a dialogue with social ecology and new materialism, outlining entanglements in three strands of thought to demonstrate the relevance of this concept in theoretical terms. Ergin then investigates natural-social entanglements through a comparative analysis of the works of the American poet Juliana Spahr and the Turkish writer Latife Tekin. The book enriches our understanding of complicity and accountability by revealing the ecological network of material and discursive forces in which we are deeply embedded. It makes a significant contribution to current debates on ecocritical theory, comparative literature, and ecopoetics.

Situated between Europe and Asia, and surrounded by three seas, Turkey comprises a diverse environmental and cultural tapestry. Ecocriticism and Turkey is the first in-depth study to explore Turkish literary and cultural engagements with the environment. Ergin examines a wide range of ecocritical issues across four thematically organized chapters: “Sea,” “Climate,” “Routes,” and “Animals.” Each chapter addresses various dimensions of anthropogenic ecological change and highlights the role of literature in inspiring hope and action. The book takes readers on various journeys from the coasts of the Aegean Sea to the mountains of Eastern Anatolia. Ergin converses with both twentieth-century writers to shed new light on familiar texts and contemporary writers to capture emerging perspectives, including Rum, Laz, Kurdish, and Armenian voices in her discussion. The study is further enriched by an interdisciplinary inquiry that brings literature into dialogue with climate science, political history, underwater photography, folk music, and bio-art.

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.

Following Françoise d’Eaubonne’s creation of the term “ecofeminism” in 1974, scholars around the world have explored ways that the degradation of the environment and the subjugation of women are linked. In the nearly three decades since the publication of the classical work Ecofeminism by Maria Mies and Vandana Shiva in 1993, several collections have appeared that apply ecofeminism to literary criticism, also known as feminist ecocriticism. The most recent of these include anthologies that emphasize international perspectives, furthering the comparative task launched by Mies and Shiva. To date, however, there have been no books devoted to gaining a broad-based understanding of feminist ecocriticism in India, understood in its own terms. Our new volume Indian Feminist Ecocriticism offers a survey of literature as seen through an ecofeminist lens by Indian scholars, which places contemporary literary analysis through a sampling of its diverse languages and in the context of millennia-old mythic traditions of India.

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.

The landscape of Turkey, with its trees and animals inspires narratives of survival, struggle and escape. Animals, Plants, and Landscapes: An Ecology of Turkish Literature and Film, will be the first major study to offer fresh theoretical insight into this landscape, by offering a collection of analyses of key texts of Turkish literature and cinema. Through discussion of both classical and contemporary works, this volume, paves the way for the formation of a ecocritical canon in Turkish literature and the rise of certain themes that are unique to Turkish experience. Snakes, fishermen and fish who catch men, porcupines contemplating on human agency, dogs exiled on an island and men who put dogs to fights, goat herders and windy steppes of Anatolia are all agents in a territory that constantly shifts. The essays included in this volume demonstrate the ways in which the crystallized relations between human and non-human form, break, and transform.