Animals and the Environment in Turkish Culture: Ecocriticism and Transnational Literature

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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 Nzim 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.

Reviews

As a native English speaker who has spent much of her adult life living and working in Istanbul, Fortuny (Bogazii Univ., Turkey) is uniquely qualified to undertake this study. With undeniable passion for and expertise in literature, Fortuny offers an impressive account of the interstices between American and English literatures and late Ottoman and more contemporary Turkish literature and poetry, including works by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar, Nzim Hikmet, and Orhan Pamuk. Fortuny's Turkish language skills are superb, and she imparts to her readers insight into important Turkish works that are not yet translated into English ... There is much to be appreciated here, but it is enhanced by a prior knowledge of English literature more generally and Turkish culture specifically ... Summing Up: Recommended. Researchers and faculty. * CHOICE *
A seminal and original work of meticulous scholarship, expertly organized and presented, and enhanced for academia Animals and the Environment in Turkish Culture: Ecocriticism and Transnational Literature is an extraordinary and unreservedly recommended addition to college and university library collections. * Midwest Book Review *

Author Bio

Kim Fortuny is Associate Professor of English at Bogazii University in Istanbul, Turkey. Her previous books include American Writers in Istanbul: Melville, Twain, Hemingway, Dos Passos, Bowles, Algren, Baldwin, (Syracuse University Press, 2009) and Elizabeth Bishop: The Art of Travel (University Press of Colorado, 2003). She has published articles in peer-reviewed journals such as Middle Eastern Literatures, Journal of Turkish Literature, Textual Practice and Nineteenth-Century Contexts.