The workshop on “Representation of Women in Turkish Literature from Past to Present” organized by Istanbul Medeniyet University, Department of Turkish Language and Literature, was completed online on February 13, 2021. The The workshop which began with the opening speech by Prof. Dr. Muharrem DAYANÇ, Head of Turkish Language and Literature Department, was followed by a wide range of academicians and audience. In the workshop, female researchers from both our university and various universities presented a total of 10 papers.
The first session of the workshop, which was organized in two sessions was moderated by Asst. Dr. Betül ÖZBAY. Asst. Dr. Neşe IŞIK chaired the second session.
The workshop where the social roles, identities, representation and perception of women in Turkish literature and in the past were discussed started with Assoc. Dr. Erman GÖREN’s talk titled ‘’Aristophanes’in Kadın Mebuslar’ında Toplumsal Roller ve Cinsel Kimlikler” (Social Roles and Sexual Identities in Aristophanes’ Female Deputies). In his speech, Gören discussed the issue of “representation of women” in terms of social roles and gender identities in Aristophanes’s Female Deputies, one of the most important figures of Classical Athens theater. Following the speech, in her talk titled “Tarihin Çehresiz ve Dilsiz Kadınlarını Anlamak” (Understanding the Faceless and Mute Women of History), Assoc. Dr. Betül ÖZBAY briefly focused on matriarchy through gender roles, the history of women’s rights in different civilizations, the representation of women’s legal rights in Old Turkish legal documents, and Venus figurines found in Paleolithic times. With a literary review, Asst. Dr. Esma ŞAHİN ÖZTAŞ examined the attitudes and behaviors of poets towards women based on the relations of some poets with women in Latifi’s work in her talk titled “Latifî Tezkiresinden Şairlerin Kadınlarla Münasebetlerine Dair Anekdotlar” (Anecdotes About the Relationships of Poets with Women from Latifî Tezkire).Drawing attention to the importance of gender and women’s studies in determining the place of women in society and solving gender problems, Res. Asst. Dr. Pınar SEL, in her speech titled “Runik Harfli Metinlerde Kadına İlişkin Sözcükler Üzerinden Kadın Algısı” (Women’s Perception Through Words Related to Women in Runic-Letter Texts), evaluated the attitudes of the Ancient Turkish society on women through ancient texts. In the last speech of the first session, Assoc. Dr. Şehnaz BİÇER sought for clues about the place of women in society by evaluating the positions of the female figures in the talk titled “Doğu Tasvir-Resim Sanatında Kadın Figürlerinde Mekân ve Konum İlişkisi Üzerine Düşünceler” (Reflections on the Relationship between Space and Position in the Female Figures in Eastern Depiction-Painting).
As the first speaker of the second session, Asst. Dr. Neşe IŞIK, in her paper titled “Kültürel Bellekte Sözsüz İletişim, Motiflerin Dili: Türk Halı/Kilim Motiflerinde Mitolojik Semboller” (Nonverbal Communication in Cultural Memory, Language of Motifs: Mythological Symbols in Turkish Carpet/Kilim Motifs), reflected on the cultural memory, emotions and thoughts of the woman or women who weave Turkish carpets and kilims, one of our traditional handicrafts, which are of great importance among our movable material cultural values, in the motifs. and tried to analyze his thoughts. Following the speech,
In her paper titled “Panoramik Bir Bakışla Klasik Türk Şiirinde Kadın” (Woman in Classical Turkish Poetry with a Panoramic Look), Res. Asst. Dr. Süreyya PEKŞEN underlined that the negative image of women in classical Turkish poetry is deeply entrenched and emphasized that this image is reinforced as the number of scanned texts increases. Next, in her talk titled “Orhan Pamuk’un Romanlarında Kadınların Temsili” (The Representation of Women in Orhan Pamuk’s Novels), Asst. Dr. Funda GÜVEN discussed the representation of the female body by explaining the representation of women in the works of a male author reflecting the contemporary woman with the terms “blur” and “uncertainty” in post-modern terminology. In the paper titled “Türkçede Kadının Temsilinde Hayvan Metaforları’’ (Animal Metaphors in the Representation of Women in Turkish), Res. Asst. Dr. Fatma ÖZKAN KURT identified the animal names used in the conceptualization of women in Turkish and showed how these animals are used in the representation of women with their positive and negative (both physical and characteristic) aspects. At the same time, the effect of Turkish culture on gender was discussed through the identified conceptual metaphors. As the last speaker of the workshop, Res. Asst. Dr. Sezin Seda ALTUN focused on the representations of women in Sevgi Soysal’s novels and stories in her talk titled “Bir Karanlığın Tercümesi: Sevgi Soysal Yapıtlarında Kadınlık Durumları” (The Translation of a Darkness: Feminine Conditions in the Works of Sevgi Soysal) and examined the issue of femininity in the context of gender.
The workshop was ended with a Q&A and evaluation session. At the end of the workshop, the departmental members of the Turkish Language and Literature Department stated their aim to continue to contribute to academic studies on women with further events.
