Part of LSA Theme Semester, "Translation."

In this talk Murat Cankara will focus on three early Turkish novels in the Armenian script. These novels, written between 1851 and 1868 by Ottoman Armenians, have so far been ignored in Ottoman/Turkish literary historiography. In order to make a critique of historiography and to place these Armeno-Turkish novels into a historical and literary context, he will discuss: the issue of cultural encounter between Ottoman Armenians and Muslim/Turks with special emphasis on script and historiography of the late Ottoman Empire; an introduction to some basic features of Armeno-Turkish novels; and a literary comparison between these three novels and early Turkish novels written by Muslim/Turks with special emphasis on the appropriation of romanticism. Cankara will also give a brief overview on some major problems and theoretical tools for students of Armeno-Turkish.

Manoogian Foundation Post-doctoral Fellow Murat Cankara was born in Smyrna in 1976. He studied physics and mathematics for two years. After majoring in theory and history of theatre, Cankara received his PhD in Turkish literature from Bilkent University in 2011, with a
dissertation titled “Empire and Novel: Placing Armeno-Turkish Novels in Ottoman/Turkish Literary Historiography”. Cankara’s research
focuses on the novels written by Armenians in the Turkish language
using the Armenian script, specifically those from the second half of the nineteenth century. His areas of interest are the literary culture of the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century in which Armenians play a prominent role, cultural interactions between Ottoman Armenians and Muslim/Turks, the appropriation of Turkish by Armenians, and
the historiography of Ottoman/Turkish literature.

Co-sponsor: CMENAS.