43 research outputs found
You Shall Speak My Language : In Defense of Linguistic Specificity and Rigorous Comparativism
No full textIn this article, the author proposes approaching the concept of untranslatability in a dialectical framework, recognizing both its theoretical and methodological benefits and constraints, particularly in the cultural and political contexts. After introducing the idea of rhetorical irony in translation in Kilito’s text, the author provides a critique of academic practice that inadvertently reproduces cultural hierarchies. The author then argues for the need to revisit the pitfalls of the idea of untranslatability in its critique of universal frameworks, which are essential to political struggles, particularly in non-Western context. Conversely, in the last part, the author demonstrates that the need to preserve cultural and linguistic specificity is a fundamental principle of comparative practice in order to avoid being frozen in a historical presentism without the immediate intellectual and historical context. This article makes the case for rigorous comparativism with linguistic expertise, deep cultural knowledge, and a keen sense of historical context. Adopting Kilito’s subject position as non-Western critic, and reverting his postulation, the author proposes: you want to say something about my literature, you shall (and can) speak my language
THE PERMANENT ‘MOUSAFIR’: MEMORY AND IDENTITY IN MARCEL COHEN’S IN SEARCH OF A LOST LADINO
No full textThis article focuses on French author Marcel Cohen’s In Search of Lost Ladino, written in Ladino published in 1985 in Madrid, and analyzes questions of memory and ethnic identity in the work with a deconstructive approach. Lost Ladino brings together questions of exile, multi-lingualism, minority status, assimilation and uprooting, while exploring Sephardic collective identity within its larger historical context, from the 1492 expulsion from Spain, to the rise and fall of Ottoman Empire and to contemporary France. Cohen’s central concern in writing Lost Ladino is to reconstruct the lost world of Sephardic community. He does so by using an almost inaccessible childhood language; by giving accounts of Sephardic customs and cultural history; by incorporating the heritage of Ladino poetry and songs, and by acts of recollection and imagination. By rereading the text through deconstructive analysis, this article argues that it offers more than a conventional diaspora narrative. Linguistic and textual gaps, slips, ambivalences and inconsistencies point to a central conflict in the narration, between imagining home as a securely enclosed and fixed entity and acknowledging its destabilized version grounded in the recognition that unity is transitory. The dialogic nature of the text challenges Cohen’s emphasis on loss and dissociation and uncovers its potential to imagine other configurations of belonging
Wasted Youth and Reunion in Death: Imperial Decline and Decadent Aesthetics in Fin-de-Siècle Ottoman Culture
No full textThe decadence question in the Ottoman Empire became a common ground for intellectual debates about language, translation, and authenticity at the turn of the century. It was part of the manifold translational processes among French, high Ottoman, and the rising Ottoman vernacular, as well as the unexpected circulations of literary movements and genres in the Ottoman literary field. The decadents and the conservative modernizers – who were all cosmopolitan author-translators – negotiated and transformed Eurocentric norms of literariness and, by using local forms, introduced new genres and styles into the emergent field of modern Ottoman-Turkish literature. This study discusses decadent aesthetics in relation to the burgeoning performance scene in Istanbul at the turn of the century. It analyses two domestic family dramas written by prominent authors of the time, Recaizade Mahmud Ekrem’s Vuslat (1874) and Muallim Naci’s Heder (1909), by recontextualizing them within the literary history of fin-de-siècle pessimism and decadent aesthetics. It revisits Ottoman literary historiography, which typically follows conservative views on decadence as degeneration and over-westernization, by discussing aesthetic decadence in Ottoman Turkish literature. It reorients Naci’s work within innovative currents and offers a uniquely nuanced reading of both Ekrem\u27s and Naci’s plays. Finally, this study introduces decadent performance of the late Ottoman Empire to global decadence studies, underlying its inner social, political and aesthetic dynamics
Beyond World Literature: Reading Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar Today [Special Issue]
No full textIn view of A.H. Tanpınar as the next Turkish author of world literature, and of his work as a national cultural product of exportation, the articles in this issue contextualize and critically examine such local and global appropriations. They do not make claims to authentic “local” literary categories or hold his work up to the global standards of readability; instead, in their variety and originality, they aspire to create an attentive and continuing dialogue that suggests a healthy future for Tanpınar studies. The article finally argues that in light of Tanpınar’s multiple and contradictory identities, a dialectical approach is necessary to understand his work
Turkey. Ottoman Tanzimat and the Decadence of Empire
No full textThis article considers late nineteenth-century Ottoman literature, concentrating specifically on the tension between the poetics of the avant-garde “New Literature” (1896–1901) and the poetics of conservative modernizers, spearheaded by the prominent Tanzimat author Ahmet Midhat. In calling for experimentation with traditional Ottoman poetic forms and a new mode of composition using an uncompromisingly elaborate style, the avant-gardists sought to capture the fin-de-siècle spirit in the Ottoman Empire, overwhelmed by the sense of decline and urgency for modernization. What unites the different decadent practices of the time is the objective to challenge the communicative language of systematic modernization by pursuing aesthetic autonomy. The conservative modernizers, politically committed to social and cultural reforms, attacked these authors for being decadent and excessively influenced by French literature, initiating what later came to be known as the “decadence controversy,” which became part of the larger historical question of modernization and westernization
Fascist state and freedom regarding Italian practice
No full textKulaksızoğlu Mercan, Nergis (Dogus Author)Faşizm ve özgürlük birlikte düşünülmesi neredeyse imkansız olan iki kavramdır. Faşist ideolojinin uygulama alanı olan faşist devlet, bireyi bir değer olarak kabul etmemesi ve bireysel özgürlükleri yadsıması sebebiyle günümüzün liberal özgürlük anlayışıyla bağdaşmaz niteliktedir. Bu incelemede faşist devletin dünya siyasi tarihindeki en önemli pratiklerinden biri olan İtalyan faşizmine odaklanılmıştır. Doğal Hukuk Doktrinine yönelik sert eleştiriler getiren sosyolojik okulun temsilcilerinden Leon Duguit'nin yaklaşımı ile faşizmin bireyselci görüşe yönelik eleştirileri karşılaştırmalı olarak incelenmiştir.Fascism and freedom are two concepts that almost impossible to get together. Because of disclaims person as moral and denies individual freedom. fascist state is inconsistent with contemporary liberal approach. This article focuses on Italian fascism which is the most important fascist practice in the world political history. Leon Duguit 's critique about natural law doctrin and fascism 'critique about individualism are comparatively analysed
Inorganic wastes in glaze recipes and their effects on microstructure
No full textThis work reports on recycling various amounts of inorganic wastes (scraps of glass packaging waste, key sawdust, copper slag, and pyrite ash) into artistic ceramic glazes. These waste materials were used in the range of 0.6-20% in artistic glaze compositions. Glazes were composed of a mixture of acidic (SiO2, B2O3), basic (Na2O, K2O, CaO, ZnO, PbO), and amphoteric (Al2O3, Cr2O3) oxides and formulated using the Seger method. These glaze compositions were applied over the surface of the porcelain body and fired at 1080 °C and characterized by field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) coupled with energy dispersive X-ray spectrometry (EDS). As a consequence, results showed that, different inorganic wastes could be used in artistic glaze compositions for the obtaining attractive colors and textures. © 2017 Australian Ceramic Society.Firat University Scientific Research Projects Management Unit: GSF2014BAP1This work was supported by the Çukurova University Scientific Research Projects Coordination Unit (Project No: GSF2014BAP1). The author gratefully acknowledges the Çukurova University Scientific Research Projects Coordination Unit and the contribution of authorities and staffs of Eti Bakır Kastamonu Küre Plant for providing copper slag and pyrite ash
Marginally subcritical dynamics explain enhanced stimulus discriminability under attention
No full textRecent experimental and theoretical work established the hypothesis that cortical neurons operate close to critical states which describe a phase transition from chaotic to ordered dynamics. Such states are suggested to optimize several aspects of neuronal information processing. However, although critical dynamics have been demonstrated in recordings of spontaneously active cortical neurons, little is known about how these dynamics are affected by task-dependent changes in neuronal activity when the cortex is engaged in stimulus processing.Here we explore this question in the context of cortical information processing modulated by selective visual attention. In particular, we focus on recent findings that local field potentials (LFPs) in macaque area V4 demonstrate an increase in gamma-band synchrony and a simultaneous enhancement of object representation with attention. We reproduce these results using a model of integrate-and-fire neurons where attention increases synchrony by enhancing the efficacy of recurrent interactions. In the phase space spanned by excitatory and inhibitory coupling strengths, we identify critical states and regions of enhanced discriminability. Furthermore, we quantify encoding capacity using information entropy.We find a rapid enhancement of stimulus discriminability with the emergence of synchrony in the network. Strikingly, only a narrow region in the phase space, at the transition from subcritical to supercritical dynamics, supports the experimentally observed discriminability increase. At the supercritical border of this transition region, information entropy decreases drastically as synchrony sets in. At the subcritical border, entropy is maximized under the assumption of a coarse observation scale. Our results suggest that cortical networks operate at such near-critical states, allowing minimal attentional modulations of network excitability to substantially augment stimulus representation in the LFPs
