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Papers by Duygu Oya Ula
Middle Eastern Literatures, 2022
ABSTRACT Murat Uyurkulak’s 2016 novel, Merhume, centers stories of queer, disabled and otherwise ... more ABSTRACT Murat Uyurkulak’s 2016 novel, Merhume, centers stories of queer, disabled and otherwise marginalized characters and embeds them within a real and imagined political history of Turkey. Through the narratives of Alper Kenan, a crime novelist with dwarfism, and Evren Tunga, a butch lesbian literary critic, Uyurkulak lays bare how national and familial belonging is predicated upon ableist, heterosexist and masculinist ideals of the Turkish nation state. In this article, I analyze how these characters’ lives are shaped by historical narratives of violence and masculinity, and argue that the ideals of masculinity and Turkish nationalism become inherited generational traumas that these disabled and queer characters must negotiate in order to survive. Drawing on scholars of queer and disability studies, I further argue how Uyurkulak himself replicates some of that sexist and ableist violence within the narrative and through his language, and dis-ables his characters by calling into question their narrative agency.
Middle Eastern Literatures, 2022
Murat Uyurkulak’s 2016 novel, Merhume, centers stories of queer, disabled and otherwise marginali... more Murat Uyurkulak’s 2016 novel, Merhume, centers stories of queer, disabled and otherwise marginalized characters and embeds them within a real and imagined political history of Turkey. Through the narratives of Alper Kenan, a crime novelist with dwarfism, and Evren Tunga, a butch lesbian literary critic, Uyurkulak lays bare how national and familial belonging is predicated upon ableist, heterosexist and masculinist ideals of the Turkish nation state. In this article, I analyze how these characters’ lives are shaped by historical narratives of violence and masculinity, and argue that the ideals of masculinity and Turkish nationalism become inherited generational traumas that these disabled and queer characters must negotiate in order to survive. Drawing on scholars of queer and disability studies, I further argue how Uyurkulak himself replicates some of that sexist and ableist violence within the narrative and through his language, and dis-ables his characters by calling into question their narrative agency.
GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies
Focusing on photographs by Nilbar Güreş, a visual and performance artist, this article analyzes h... more Focusing on photographs by Nilbar Güreş, a visual and performance artist, this article analyzes how her images deconstruct and reimagine the various identities of the Turkish nation and Western discourses of homosexuality at once. By depicting seemingly conventional women in traditional settings (such as the living room and the mosque) and imbuing them with a queer currency of desire, Güreş calls into question the stability of national and cultural narratives about these women’s lives as well as the stereotypes of an increasingly globalizing queer culture. Through close readings and cultural and political contextualization, the article positions her work vis-à-vis the tensions between global and local, rural and urban, traditional and marginal, and argues that her images form a visual archive of local queer aesthetics that positions itself in opposition to both national discourses of gender and sexuality in the contemporary Turkish context and Western-centric discourses of queerness.
GLQ, 2019
Focusing on photographs by Nilbar Güreş, a visual and performance artist, this article analyzes h... more Focusing on photographs by Nilbar Güreş, a visual and performance artist, this article analyzes how her images deconstruct and reimagine the various identities of the Turkish nation and Western discourses of homosexuality at once. By depicting seemingly conventional women in traditional settings (such as the living room and the mosque) and imbuing them with a queer currency of desire, Güreş calls into question the stability of national and cultural narratives about these women’s lives as well as the stereotypes of an increasingly globalizing queer culture. Through close readings and cultural and political contextualization, the article positions her work vis-à-vis the tensions between global and local, rural and urban, traditional and marginal, and argues that her images form a visual archive of local queer aesthetics that positions itself in opposition to both national discourses of gender and sexuality in the contemporary Turkish context and Western-centric discourses of queerness.
This thesis explores the intersection of orientalism with queer literature through an analysis of... more This thesis explores the intersection of orientalism with queer literature through an analysis of Andre Gide's The Immoralist, Thomas Mann's Death in Venice, and James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room. It pays particular attention to how the oriental locales and images are utilized in order to facilitate the sexual awakenings of the protagonists and how the oriental and the homosexual other are in fact managed and constructed by similar processes. To elaborate how the orientalist narrative plays a part in sexual identity formation, I look at three different novels that make use of oriental locales, characters or dynamics in vastly different ways and pay close attention to how these authors subvert the oriental binaries in order to make explicit the particular positionalities of their characters and queer identities at large.
Part of a larger project on queer cultural productions from Turkey, this paper focuses on visual ... more Part of a larger project on queer cultural productions from Turkey, this paper focuses on visual artist Nilbar Güreş's photography , which explores intimacies between women and their relationship to public space. Güreş's ambiguous yet erotically charged images challenge the heterosexist norms and assumptions of Turkish society and offer us glimpses of alternate narratives laden with a queer potential, whilst also contributing to the formation of a local queer aesthetics. By looking at these images, I interrogate not only the relationship between female homoerotic intimacy and the public space, but also analyze the way in which these works of art, through their depictions of queer intimacies, subvert state-sanctioned narratives of gender and sexuality. In Güreş's work, female homoerotic intimacy emerges as a way of complicating the heteronormative narratives of domesticity, and pushes its viewers to engage with their own assumptions regarding female intimacy.
Conference Presentations by Duygu Oya Ula
Talks by Duygu Oya Ula
Thesis Chapters by Duygu Oya Ula
Towards a Local Queer Aesthetics: Queer Cultural Productions from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia ... more Towards a Local Queer Aesthetics: Queer Cultural Productions from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Turkey examines how non-normative sexualities are depicted, formulated and negotiated outside of North America and Western Europe through an analysis of queer contemporary art, film and other cultural productions from the Western Balkans. I position these cultural productions both within their historical, political, cultural and religious contexts and within queer studies broadly defined, in order to make explicit the dynamics between nation states and sexual minorities, and between local and global discourses of gender and sexuality. Taking my close readings of individual cultural productions as a starting point, I contend that representations of non-normative sexualities are embroiled in local ethnic, political, religious and cultural dynamics, which shape the ways in which sexual minorities perform and negotiate their identities. I also argue that these cultural productions contri...
Dissertation, 2019
Towards a Local Queer Aesthetics: Queer Cultural Productions from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia ... more Towards a Local Queer Aesthetics: Queer Cultural Productions from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Turkey examines how non-normative sexualities are depicted, formulated and negotiated outside of North America and Western Europe through an analysis of queer contemporary art, film and other cultural productions from the Western Balkans. I position these cultural productions both within their historical, political, cultural and religious contexts and within queer studies broadly defined, in order to make explicit the dynamics between nation states and sexual minorities, and between local and global discourses of gender and sexuality. Taking my close readings of individual cultural productions as a starting point, I contend that representations of non-normative sexualities are embroiled in local ethnic, political, religious and cultural dynamics, which shape the ways in which sexual minorities perform and negotiate their identities. I also argue that these cultural productions contribute to the creation of a distinctly “local queer aesthetics,” which I propose as a new theoretical framework to disrupt the western-centric formulations of queerness that dominate queer theory.
Middle Eastern Literatures, 2022
ABSTRACT Murat Uyurkulak’s 2016 novel, Merhume, centers stories of queer, disabled and otherwise ... more ABSTRACT Murat Uyurkulak’s 2016 novel, Merhume, centers stories of queer, disabled and otherwise marginalized characters and embeds them within a real and imagined political history of Turkey. Through the narratives of Alper Kenan, a crime novelist with dwarfism, and Evren Tunga, a butch lesbian literary critic, Uyurkulak lays bare how national and familial belonging is predicated upon ableist, heterosexist and masculinist ideals of the Turkish nation state. In this article, I analyze how these characters’ lives are shaped by historical narratives of violence and masculinity, and argue that the ideals of masculinity and Turkish nationalism become inherited generational traumas that these disabled and queer characters must negotiate in order to survive. Drawing on scholars of queer and disability studies, I further argue how Uyurkulak himself replicates some of that sexist and ableist violence within the narrative and through his language, and dis-ables his characters by calling into question their narrative agency.
Middle Eastern Literatures, 2022
Murat Uyurkulak’s 2016 novel, Merhume, centers stories of queer, disabled and otherwise marginali... more Murat Uyurkulak’s 2016 novel, Merhume, centers stories of queer, disabled and otherwise marginalized characters and embeds them within a real and imagined political history of Turkey. Through the narratives of Alper Kenan, a crime novelist with dwarfism, and Evren Tunga, a butch lesbian literary critic, Uyurkulak lays bare how national and familial belonging is predicated upon ableist, heterosexist and masculinist ideals of the Turkish nation state. In this article, I analyze how these characters’ lives are shaped by historical narratives of violence and masculinity, and argue that the ideals of masculinity and Turkish nationalism become inherited generational traumas that these disabled and queer characters must negotiate in order to survive. Drawing on scholars of queer and disability studies, I further argue how Uyurkulak himself replicates some of that sexist and ableist violence within the narrative and through his language, and dis-ables his characters by calling into question their narrative agency.
GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies
Focusing on photographs by Nilbar Güreş, a visual and performance artist, this article analyzes h... more Focusing on photographs by Nilbar Güreş, a visual and performance artist, this article analyzes how her images deconstruct and reimagine the various identities of the Turkish nation and Western discourses of homosexuality at once. By depicting seemingly conventional women in traditional settings (such as the living room and the mosque) and imbuing them with a queer currency of desire, Güreş calls into question the stability of national and cultural narratives about these women’s lives as well as the stereotypes of an increasingly globalizing queer culture. Through close readings and cultural and political contextualization, the article positions her work vis-à-vis the tensions between global and local, rural and urban, traditional and marginal, and argues that her images form a visual archive of local queer aesthetics that positions itself in opposition to both national discourses of gender and sexuality in the contemporary Turkish context and Western-centric discourses of queerness.
GLQ, 2019
Focusing on photographs by Nilbar Güreş, a visual and performance artist, this article analyzes h... more Focusing on photographs by Nilbar Güreş, a visual and performance artist, this article analyzes how her images deconstruct and reimagine the various identities of the Turkish nation and Western discourses of homosexuality at once. By depicting seemingly conventional women in traditional settings (such as the living room and the mosque) and imbuing them with a queer currency of desire, Güreş calls into question the stability of national and cultural narratives about these women’s lives as well as the stereotypes of an increasingly globalizing queer culture. Through close readings and cultural and political contextualization, the article positions her work vis-à-vis the tensions between global and local, rural and urban, traditional and marginal, and argues that her images form a visual archive of local queer aesthetics that positions itself in opposition to both national discourses of gender and sexuality in the contemporary Turkish context and Western-centric discourses of queerness.
This thesis explores the intersection of orientalism with queer literature through an analysis of... more This thesis explores the intersection of orientalism with queer literature through an analysis of Andre Gide's The Immoralist, Thomas Mann's Death in Venice, and James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room. It pays particular attention to how the oriental locales and images are utilized in order to facilitate the sexual awakenings of the protagonists and how the oriental and the homosexual other are in fact managed and constructed by similar processes. To elaborate how the orientalist narrative plays a part in sexual identity formation, I look at three different novels that make use of oriental locales, characters or dynamics in vastly different ways and pay close attention to how these authors subvert the oriental binaries in order to make explicit the particular positionalities of their characters and queer identities at large.
Part of a larger project on queer cultural productions from Turkey, this paper focuses on visual ... more Part of a larger project on queer cultural productions from Turkey, this paper focuses on visual artist Nilbar Güreş's photography , which explores intimacies between women and their relationship to public space. Güreş's ambiguous yet erotically charged images challenge the heterosexist norms and assumptions of Turkish society and offer us glimpses of alternate narratives laden with a queer potential, whilst also contributing to the formation of a local queer aesthetics. By looking at these images, I interrogate not only the relationship between female homoerotic intimacy and the public space, but also analyze the way in which these works of art, through their depictions of queer intimacies, subvert state-sanctioned narratives of gender and sexuality. In Güreş's work, female homoerotic intimacy emerges as a way of complicating the heteronormative narratives of domesticity, and pushes its viewers to engage with their own assumptions regarding female intimacy.
Towards a Local Queer Aesthetics: Queer Cultural Productions from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia ... more Towards a Local Queer Aesthetics: Queer Cultural Productions from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Turkey examines how non-normative sexualities are depicted, formulated and negotiated outside of North America and Western Europe through an analysis of queer contemporary art, film and other cultural productions from the Western Balkans. I position these cultural productions both within their historical, political, cultural and religious contexts and within queer studies broadly defined, in order to make explicit the dynamics between nation states and sexual minorities, and between local and global discourses of gender and sexuality. Taking my close readings of individual cultural productions as a starting point, I contend that representations of non-normative sexualities are embroiled in local ethnic, political, religious and cultural dynamics, which shape the ways in which sexual minorities perform and negotiate their identities. I also argue that these cultural productions contri...
Dissertation, 2019
Towards a Local Queer Aesthetics: Queer Cultural Productions from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia ... more Towards a Local Queer Aesthetics: Queer Cultural Productions from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia and Turkey examines how non-normative sexualities are depicted, formulated and negotiated outside of North America and Western Europe through an analysis of queer contemporary art, film and other cultural productions from the Western Balkans. I position these cultural productions both within their historical, political, cultural and religious contexts and within queer studies broadly defined, in order to make explicit the dynamics between nation states and sexual minorities, and between local and global discourses of gender and sexuality. Taking my close readings of individual cultural productions as a starting point, I contend that representations of non-normative sexualities are embroiled in local ethnic, political, religious and cultural dynamics, which shape the ways in which sexual minorities perform and negotiate their identities. I also argue that these cultural productions contribute to the creation of a distinctly “local queer aesthetics,” which I propose as a new theoretical framework to disrupt the western-centric formulations of queerness that dominate queer theory.