A. Saracgil, Il maschio camaleonte. Struttture patriarcali nell'Impero ottomano e nella Turchia moderna, Bruno Mondadori, Milano 2001.
Cagatay S., Islam, Secularism and Nationalism in Modern Turkey: Who is a Turk?, Routledge 2006.
Seyhan A., Tales of Crossed Destinies: the Modern Turkish Novel in a Comparative Context, Modern Language Assn., 2008.
Dufft C., Turkish Literature and Cultural Memory: “Multiculturalism” as a Literary Theme After 1980, Harrasowitz, 2008.
A selection of novels.
Learning Objectives
To study the Muslim-Ottoman linguistic and literary structures in their Arabic-Persian and Turkish intertestuality; their transformations during the process of modernization and nation building during the XIXth and XXth centuries. Reading a number of selected novels the students will question the interconnections between the genesis of a Modern narrative in Turkish, the process of linguistic simplification and the formation of an idea of 'Turkishness' and of the Nation building.
Prerequisites
None.
Teaching Methods
A combination of lectures and seminars.
Further information
The course will take place in the first semester
Type of Assessment
The students are invited to present at least two papers on the questions treated during the course. The final exam consists in an oral test. The student is asked to answer to open questions, beginning from an argument of his/her choice, continuing with other questions formulated by the professor on the principal themes and questions treated in the program. In closing the student is asked to analyze, keeping in mind the specific argument of the course and using the appropriate analytical methodology, the samples of Turkish narrative in the given bibliography. For a successful exam it is necessary have written the requested papers and to show a sufficient level of preparation in all parts of the examination.
Oral exam in Italian aims to evaluate the following items:
- cultural knowledge (40/100)
-argumentation ability (40/100)
- original approach to the subject (20/100)
Course program
1. The main characteristics of the Court language and of the literature in the Ottoman Empire.
2. Modernization of the Ottoman Empire during the XIXth Century.
3. First novels in Turkish: Looking for the 'modern text' of the Ottoman Muslim Society.
4. National consciousness, imagining alterity.
5. Turkishness. A nationalist language and literature
6. Building the Republican Nation; Language and literature.
7. Republican literary canon and its contestations.