Situated between Europe and Asia, and surrounded by three seas, Turkey comprises a diverse environmental and cultural tapestry. Ecocriticism and Turkey is the first in-depth study to explore Turkish literary and cultural engagements with the environment. Ergin examines a wide range of ecocritical issues across four thematically organized chapters: “Sea,” “Climate,” “Routes,” and “Animals.” Each chapter addresses various dimensions of anthropogenic ecological change and highlights the role of literature in inspiring hope and action. The book takes readers on various journeys from the coasts of the Aegean Sea to the mountains of Eastern Anatolia. Ergin converses with both twentieth-century writers to shed new light on familiar texts and contemporary writers to capture emerging perspectives, including Rum, Laz, Kurdish, and Armenian voices in her discussion. The study is further enriched by an interdisciplinary inquiry that brings literature into dialogue with climate science, political history, underwater photography, folk music, and bio-art.
By:
Professor Meliz Ergin (Koç University Turkey)
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9781350125773
ISBN 10: 1350125776
Series: Environmental Cultures
Pages: 208
Publication Date: 08 August 2024
Audience:
College/higher education
,
Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Introduction 1: Sea Cultures i. The Turkish Mediterranean ii. Aegean Crossings: Bodies and Routes iii. The Marmara Sea and Island Cultures 2. Mountain Cultures from West to East i. Wanderlust: The Culture of Walking ii. Walking, Mountaineering and Ecotourism iii. Taking to the Mountains: Exile and Elegy 3. Land Degradation and Its Discontents i. Land Industries and Social Resistance ii. Vulnerable Lands: Earthquakes, Droughts, Fires 4. Of Humans and Animals i. Human-Animal Entanglements ii. Extinction, Mourning, Elegy iii. Zoopoetics and Conteporary Turkish Poetry Bibliography Index
Meliz Ergin is Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature at Koç University, Turkey. She is the author of The Ecopoetics of Engtanglement in Contemporary Turkish and American Literature (2017).
Reviews for Ecocriticism and Turkey
Taking Turkish literature, arts, music, underwater photography, and climate science as connective threads to weave afresh the tapestry of Turkey’s diverse terraqueous environments, Meliz Ergin takes us on an exciting journey. We travel discursively through the Aegean and Mediterranean seas, the Sea of Marmara, the Black Sea, and the mainland of Anatolia, and finally fold into Anatolian ecologies in multiple forms of wonder and curiosity. Gathering the rhythms of Anatolia’s eco-cultures and multispecies, Ergin’s book illuminates the region’s unique terraqueous geography, now haunted by socio-ecological troubles * Serpil Opperman, Professor of Environmental Humanities, Cappadocia University, Turkey *
