ABSTRACT

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.

chapter |10 pages

Introduction

Critical Perspectives on Ecocriticism, World Literature, and Pedagogies

part 1|72 pages

Anatolian Landscapes, History, Gender, and Trauma

chapter 1|34 pages

Once Upon a Time in Anatolia

The Enfolding–Unfolding Aesthetics of Confronting the Past in Turkey

chapter 2|38 pages

Grape Gatherers and Goat Herders

The Portrayal of Anatolian Village Women’s Interaction with the Natural Environment in Contemporary Turkish Film