Hollanda Araştırma Enstitüsü  -  Nederlands Instituut in Turkije

9 Jan 18:30

Lecture ‘Non-Istanbulites’ of Istanbul: The right to the city novels in Turkish literature from the 1960s to the present

N. Buket Cengiz (Kadir Has University)

NIT, Istanbul, Turkey

9 Jan 18:30

Photo source: eski.istanbulium.net

Are there novels in modern Turkish literature depicting immigrants in Istanbul in a way compatible with the philosophical idea of the right to the city? If so, through which themes and with the use of which stylistic features the idea of the right to the city is elaborated in these novels? In the presentation, it will be argued that such novels exist in the Turkish literary repertoire, and seven of them will be discussed in terms of the ways they elaborate the idea of the right to the city. Themes directly connected with the right to the city, as well as related themes such as immigrants’ process of adopting an urbanite identity, their survival strategies in the city and so forth will be reviewed reciprocally with the formal characteristics of the novels. These are all novels set in Istanbul, with protagonists who are rural to urban immigrants in this city. In this presentation which is in the area of literary and cultural studies, in the sphere of literary urban studies, it will be argued that these novels can be categorized as the right to the city novels in modern Turkish literature.