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IDENTITY CRISIS AND MALE HYSTERIA IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY OTTOMAN NOVEL
Abstract by Ms. Meltem Safak On Session 302  (Gender and Representations)

On Sunday, November 17 at 1:30 pm

2019 Annual Meeting

Abstract
One of the primary aims of this study is to discuss whether fainting, depression, different kinds of physical illness, and attempts of suicide that occur intensively in the nineteenth century Turkish novels in Arabic script are symptoms and outcomes of hysteria. It also claims that hysteria occurs in male characters and writers of the novels, and this argument is opposed to the general belief all Ottoman writers also hold that hysteria can occur only in women. In addition, I also argue that socio-political changes and the modernization process of the Ottoman Empire and different approaches to novel writing have had influence on the occurrence of male hysteria. Illness and suicide are read as symptoms of hysteria that are frequently observed in male characters in these novels. I read these hysterical symptoms as resulting from a failure to cope with psychological, cultural and social problems men are confronted with in the emerging modern world. Finally, in order to discuss the topic from a wider perspective, I scrutinize Turkish novels in Armenian script, to see if hysterical male figures also appear in the same form in these novels. In this category, either the form of hysteria has changed, strengthened, or it has completely disappeared. In this respect, even though there is a time difference between Armeno-Turkish and Arabic Script-Turkish novels, the common traits of the nineteenth century novels will be considered and a comparative research will be conducted. Nam?k Kemal’s Intibah (Rebirth) (1876) and Hagop Vartanian’s Akabi Hikâyesi (The Story of Akabi) (1851) will be the primary literature of this study.
Discipline
Literature
Geographic Area
Ottoman Empire
Sub Area
Comparative