Family dramas and the limits of political subjectivity in post-1980 coup d’état novels

Official URL: https://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b2748985_(Table of contents)

This thesis aims to investigate how political subjectivity is represented and problematised in post-1980 Turkish coup d’état novels by analysing Latife Tekin’s Gece Dersleri (1986), Mine Söğüt’s Şahbaz’ın Harikulade Yılı 1979 (2007), Aslı Biçen’s Tehdit Mektupları (2011) and Ayfer Tunç’s Suzan Defter (2011). Although there is a general conviction that the Turkish novel is depoliticised after September 12, these four novels can be classified as political novels, for they try to understand the construction and limits of political subjectivity before and after the coup. Reflecting the general disillusionment with ideologies after 1980, these novels regard fantasy and desire as essential components of political subjectivity and critically engage with ideologies. In doing so, they subvert the belief that political subjectivity stems from rational choices or conscious engagement with politics. Meanwhile, by building the collective trauma of the 1980 coup d’état into family dramas, not only do they endeavour to represent collective trauma through personal stories, but also show the way the personal and the political are implicated in each other. In this regard, the incorporation of the family institution into the narrative enables these novelists not only to show how political subjectivity is rooted in the family, but also to reflect on the role of gendered power relations in the construction and limits of it. Hence these novels shed light upon the unsconscious of the political subject by examining political subjectivity within the context of the family institution.