Although often identified as a paradigmatic example of social amnesia, Turkey’s participation in the late modern proliferation of remembrance, reparation, and nostalgia has been both unprecedented and variable. On the one hand, the ascendancy and rule of the Justice and Development Party has challenged the foundations of Turkey’s modernization project and experimented with historical revival and Neo-Ottomanism. On the other, the global resurgence of memorial cultures has prompted the emergence of a dizzying array of alternative memories, making historical remembrance and interrogation into a cornerstone for emancipatory politics. Contemporary Turkish theatre is an ideal context in which to think through the complexities of this field: the rich array of theatre institutions and practices that have emerged during the twenty-first century have been in direct conversation with key debates on history and memory. This talk will focus on a select grouping of recent performances from Istanbul’s alternative theatre scene and identify a key memorial theme: Istanbul’s Jewish, Greek and Armenian communities. I suggest that alternative theatres have not only remembered and imagined Ottoman Istanbul’s cosmopolitan mixity, but they have been active agents in articulating the contemporary significance of its loss. I also argue that gender has played a central role in this articulation, and ask: Which identifications and affiliations are made possible by the emergence of this gendered memory? Which imaginaries and possibilities are foreclosed?
Chair: Ljiljana Radonić
Emine Fişek Türem is Research Associate in the Institute for Urban and Regional Research (ISR) at the Austrian Academy of Sciencesand and heads an ERC project on “Theatre and Gentrification in the European City” which she developed at the IKT". Link