Erdağ Göknar
Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk has gained international recognition for his innovative novels and his status as a dissident author. As such, he and his work have become symbols of intense cultural and political change as Istanbul and Turkey emerge into – and become legible in – the global arena. In tracing Pamuk’s transformation from national to global author, this course undertakes a journey of cultural translation from one national tradition to a “world republic of letters.” We will be reading the novels of the Nobel laureate as an introduction into the politics of world literature, and examining Pamuk’s role as an author who mediates between the Ottoman past, the Turkish national tradition and an international canon represented by the work of (and some film adaptations from) Borges, Kafka, Dostoevsky, Faulkner, Nabokov, Eco, and Rushdie. In the process, we will be asking larger questions about secularism, Islam, collective memory, and cultural practice.
