Papers by Nasir F Butt
English Studies in India: A Refereed Journal of English Literature and Language, 2017
Literature has always been a tool to disseminate certain ideologies or to destabilise some of the... more Literature has always been a tool to disseminate certain ideologies or to destabilise some of them. Writers, especially of fictional narratives, play an important part in shaping collective conscious and presenting “facts” through fictional narrative that appeal to the readers more than any other philosophical or political books. Pamuk’s novels blend history and fiction to resist deliberate forgetting of history and collective identity in the Turkish context. They attempt to re-interpret Turkish national history which otherwise has been deliberately forgotten or altered by the modern Westernised elite to create subjects according to their own political ideologies. The paper attempts to analyse Pamuk’s novel The Black Book in terms of collective and cultural memory. The paper argues that Pamuk’s novel, through various fictionalised sites of memory, reconfigures the forgotten past in an attempt to resist the post-Republic homogenization of Turkish identity at the cost of history, diversity and Ottoman cultural identity. The paper draws on the concepts of collective memory, cultural memory and sites of memory theorized by Maurice Halbwachs, Jan Assmann and Pierre Nora respectively, followed by a detailed analysis of the novel.
Keywords: Collective Memory, Cultural Memory, History, Orham Pamuk, Sites of Memory Turkey
International Journal of English Language, Literature in Humanities (IJELLH), 2017
This paper focuses on Orhan Pamuk’s novel, The White Castle, exploring the tropes of
‘ambivalenc... more This paper focuses on Orhan Pamuk’s novel, The White Castle, exploring the tropes of
‘ambivalence’ in the East-West discourse in Turkish culture. The paper analyses the novel against the backdrop of the East-West discourse drawing on Bhabha’s concept of mimicry, liminality and ambivalence. The novel, which is in the form of a centuries old manuscript of Ottoman Turkey proves helpful in understanding the clash of European and Ottoman culture and the result emanating therefrom. The novel also sheds light on the how Pamuk draws a contrast and comparison of the late Twentieth Century Istanbul with that of the Seventeenth Century Anatolia tracking the roots of the East-West relationship through centuries. The paper therefore discusses in detail the effect of the complex relationship between the Anatolian and the European cultures. It discusses the love and hatred between Turkish and the Western cultures that has been prevalent in the region since ages, the resultant of which is deducted in this paper as “ambivalence” in the Turkish culture and identity.
Political, Racial, Communal and Gender violence is one of the major subjects in the fields of lit... more Political, Racial, Communal and Gender violence is one of the major subjects in the fields of literature as well as other fields of humanities and social sciences. This has resulted after the breakdown of world peace and order after the two Great Wars. Although violence has been there in the human society from the very beginning of the creation, but violence has been taken as a subject of concern by many poets, philosophers and researchers in both literature and other humanities' subjects after the breakdown of empires and emancipation of colonized nations worldwide. One feels the irony in the fact that freedom of nations has not brought forth a respite from the incidents and cults of tyranny and victimization for so long. Even after her freedom of from the colonial shackles, India along with her young neighbouring countries have for many political, communal and regional reasons been engaging and dealing with violence in many ways. Violence has inspired many a book that has either come from those who loathe it, or from who justify it, or from those who are caught in it as victims.
—In today's world, when no nation or culture can remain isolated and pure, it is imperative to ex... more —In today's world, when no nation or culture can remain isolated and pure, it is imperative to expand the concentric circles of belonging to the global level. Cosmopolitanism, as Nussbaum believes means to expand one's allegiance from local, ethnic and expand it from national through international. This is the possible way to hormonise the world under one " global village. " The paper analyses three novels of Orhan Pamuk—The White Castle, Snow and The Silent House—through the perspective of " cosmopolitanism " as propagated by Martha C Nussbaum. The paper works on the proposition that Orhan Pamuk deals with the cultural tropes that zero down to the cosmopolitan worldview as a solution to the conflicts and chaos in the Turkish Post-Kemalist socio-political scenario. Pamuk's characters are complex, representing different concentric circles of allegiance and ideologies, yet there are many characters in his novels who are embodiment of international belongingness as well as rootedness in one's national identity. Turkish nationalism, as is evident from her modern history, is a matter of multiple ideologies, such as, Islamist nationalism, Left-wing nationalism, Extreme Right wing nationalism, Modernist nationalism and many other subnational identities and ideologies like Armenian and Kurdish ones. In this paper, it will be an andeavour to analyse the nationalism in Turkey and trace out the 'international' and 'cosmopolitan' to see how far Pamuk's novels take such ideas that contest against one another; and how far does Pamuk make his characters to " imagine others " that would expand their imaginations to " humanity at large " as propounded by the thinkers right from the Stoic philosophy of the ancient Greeks through the enlightenment thinkers to the modern ones like Nussbaum and others.
Conference Presentations by Nasir F Butt
DAKAM Studies in Humanities Humanities , 2021
Orhan Pamuk in his novel The Black Book narrates the metamorphosis of Ottoman Memory into dilapid... more Orhan Pamuk in his novel The Black Book narrates the metamorphosis of Ottoman Memory into dilapidated “sites of memory” through the post-Ottoman era of the new Republic which was marked with tumultuous
and dramatic shifts in terms of collective memory and collective amnesia. Pamuk in his novels as well as in his prose pieces is more concerned with the lost Turkish identity which has been merely preserved in some artifacts, archives, classical monuments, and shapes of Nastaliq script which was once the medium of articulation and representation in the erstwhile Ottoman Empire. Pamuk’s The Black Book is therefore a mnemonic “re-representation” of a culture that has lately been pushed into deliberate amnesia; however, fragmented parts of Turkish cultural memory have been used and revived by the political elite through different eras of their rule after the birth of the new Republic. The Black Book searches for the lost Turkish identity through “shapes of letters” carved into the faces of common westernized Turks and their pictures in magazines and newspapers—a kind of hurufi spiritual quest for identity. The novel through the character of a lovelorn lawyer Galip takes us to a detour of archives, mystic dervish scripts, historical tracts, among other sites of memory, while searching for his lost wife and her mysterious columnist cousin Celal. This search leads to a larger revelation of the lost Turkish memory and identity “crystallized” in the ruins. This paper proposes to present a detailed analysis and explanation as to how Orhan Pamuk sees Turkish memory and identity embedded in the ruins and sediments of the Bosphorus, the mannequins, images and artifacts which the novel The Black Book presents through metaphorical imagery in a metafictional narration of a quest within a quest. The present paper will analyse: Why the writers like Pamuk feel a need to go for a “rerepresentation” of a culture that had a glorious past—what has happened to the glory?; How Pamuk’s novel narrativises the Turkish identity lost in the forlorn ruins and dried straits; What literary strategies the novel uses for the quest of cultural memory and collective identity to counter the imposed collective memory and amnesia; What the re-imagining of the lost memory and history has to offer to address the conundrum of Turkish identity in the modern globalised world.
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Papers by Nasir F Butt
Keywords: Collective Memory, Cultural Memory, History, Orham Pamuk, Sites of Memory Turkey
‘ambivalence’ in the East-West discourse in Turkish culture. The paper analyses the novel against the backdrop of the East-West discourse drawing on Bhabha’s concept of mimicry, liminality and ambivalence. The novel, which is in the form of a centuries old manuscript of Ottoman Turkey proves helpful in understanding the clash of European and Ottoman culture and the result emanating therefrom. The novel also sheds light on the how Pamuk draws a contrast and comparison of the late Twentieth Century Istanbul with that of the Seventeenth Century Anatolia tracking the roots of the East-West relationship through centuries. The paper therefore discusses in detail the effect of the complex relationship between the Anatolian and the European cultures. It discusses the love and hatred between Turkish and the Western cultures that has been prevalent in the region since ages, the resultant of which is deducted in this paper as “ambivalence” in the Turkish culture and identity.
Conference Presentations by Nasir F Butt
and dramatic shifts in terms of collective memory and collective amnesia. Pamuk in his novels as well as in his prose pieces is more concerned with the lost Turkish identity which has been merely preserved in some artifacts, archives, classical monuments, and shapes of Nastaliq script which was once the medium of articulation and representation in the erstwhile Ottoman Empire. Pamuk’s The Black Book is therefore a mnemonic “re-representation” of a culture that has lately been pushed into deliberate amnesia; however, fragmented parts of Turkish cultural memory have been used and revived by the political elite through different eras of their rule after the birth of the new Republic. The Black Book searches for the lost Turkish identity through “shapes of letters” carved into the faces of common westernized Turks and their pictures in magazines and newspapers—a kind of hurufi spiritual quest for identity. The novel through the character of a lovelorn lawyer Galip takes us to a detour of archives, mystic dervish scripts, historical tracts, among other sites of memory, while searching for his lost wife and her mysterious columnist cousin Celal. This search leads to a larger revelation of the lost Turkish memory and identity “crystallized” in the ruins. This paper proposes to present a detailed analysis and explanation as to how Orhan Pamuk sees Turkish memory and identity embedded in the ruins and sediments of the Bosphorus, the mannequins, images and artifacts which the novel The Black Book presents through metaphorical imagery in a metafictional narration of a quest within a quest. The present paper will analyse: Why the writers like Pamuk feel a need to go for a “rerepresentation” of a culture that had a glorious past—what has happened to the glory?; How Pamuk’s novel narrativises the Turkish identity lost in the forlorn ruins and dried straits; What literary strategies the novel uses for the quest of cultural memory and collective identity to counter the imposed collective memory and amnesia; What the re-imagining of the lost memory and history has to offer to address the conundrum of Turkish identity in the modern globalised world.
Keywords: Collective Memory, Cultural Memory, History, Orham Pamuk, Sites of Memory Turkey
‘ambivalence’ in the East-West discourse in Turkish culture. The paper analyses the novel against the backdrop of the East-West discourse drawing on Bhabha’s concept of mimicry, liminality and ambivalence. The novel, which is in the form of a centuries old manuscript of Ottoman Turkey proves helpful in understanding the clash of European and Ottoman culture and the result emanating therefrom. The novel also sheds light on the how Pamuk draws a contrast and comparison of the late Twentieth Century Istanbul with that of the Seventeenth Century Anatolia tracking the roots of the East-West relationship through centuries. The paper therefore discusses in detail the effect of the complex relationship between the Anatolian and the European cultures. It discusses the love and hatred between Turkish and the Western cultures that has been prevalent in the region since ages, the resultant of which is deducted in this paper as “ambivalence” in the Turkish culture and identity.
and dramatic shifts in terms of collective memory and collective amnesia. Pamuk in his novels as well as in his prose pieces is more concerned with the lost Turkish identity which has been merely preserved in some artifacts, archives, classical monuments, and shapes of Nastaliq script which was once the medium of articulation and representation in the erstwhile Ottoman Empire. Pamuk’s The Black Book is therefore a mnemonic “re-representation” of a culture that has lately been pushed into deliberate amnesia; however, fragmented parts of Turkish cultural memory have been used and revived by the political elite through different eras of their rule after the birth of the new Republic. The Black Book searches for the lost Turkish identity through “shapes of letters” carved into the faces of common westernized Turks and their pictures in magazines and newspapers—a kind of hurufi spiritual quest for identity. The novel through the character of a lovelorn lawyer Galip takes us to a detour of archives, mystic dervish scripts, historical tracts, among other sites of memory, while searching for his lost wife and her mysterious columnist cousin Celal. This search leads to a larger revelation of the lost Turkish memory and identity “crystallized” in the ruins. This paper proposes to present a detailed analysis and explanation as to how Orhan Pamuk sees Turkish memory and identity embedded in the ruins and sediments of the Bosphorus, the mannequins, images and artifacts which the novel The Black Book presents through metaphorical imagery in a metafictional narration of a quest within a quest. The present paper will analyse: Why the writers like Pamuk feel a need to go for a “rerepresentation” of a culture that had a glorious past—what has happened to the glory?; How Pamuk’s novel narrativises the Turkish identity lost in the forlorn ruins and dried straits; What literary strategies the novel uses for the quest of cultural memory and collective identity to counter the imposed collective memory and amnesia; What the re-imagining of the lost memory and history has to offer to address the conundrum of Turkish identity in the modern globalised world.