Uncoupling Language and Religion

Laurent Mignon is Associate Professor of Turkish at the University of Oxford and a fellow of the Middle East Centre at Saint Antony’s College. His research interests range from minority literatures in late Ottoman Turkey to literary engagements with non-Abrahamic religions in a Turkish context.

• Table of ContentsPrefaceAcknowledgementsA Note on ConventionsIntroduction: In the Footsteps of Baha TevfikPart One: Rethinking Literature in Turkish1. The Revolution of the Letters2. The Roses of the Anatolian Garden3. The “Refuse and Ruins” of Literary History 4. Beyond Atala: Vartan Pasha, Zafer Hanım, and the Romantic Rebellion5. “La lengua ke se avla aki”: Jewish Literature in “the Language Spoken Here”Part Two: Challenging Orientalism6. Samuel Hirsch, Namık Kemal, and Orientalism7. Ali Kemal’s Forgotten Adventure in the Desert8. Nâzım Hikmet and the Demystification of the EastConclusion: To Do or Not to Do God: On Transgression, Literature and ReligionBibliography

“...Uncoupling Language and Religion is a welcome contribution to critical English language scholarship on Turkish literature. For Armenian studies, such a project’s value is as great as it is obvious... Mignon’s latest entry is a necessary, and emphatic, leap in that direction.”— Aram Ghoogasian, Princeton University, Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies“Mignon’s well-researched book is a substantial achievement. It opens new avenues for the evaluation of literatures written in Turkish in and outside Turkey. Uncoupling Language and Religion serves as a model for comparative analyses of national literatures, where canonized names often overshadow the contributions of marginalized literary figures across the globe.”—- Beyza Lorenz, University of California Los Angeles, Turkish Studies“Mignon’s “prose” is at the same time lucid and learned, rich and engrossing, attentive to details, yet not losing sight of the bigger picture – a remarkable achievement for a scholarly work…Mignon persistently digs the ground of the literary field to find buried treasures, original themes and subversive voices below the official façade of Turkish literary history.”— Petr Kučera (Mainz), Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde des Morgenlandes