Exploring Turkish Cultures: Essays, Interviews and Reviews - Hardcover

Dr Laurence Raw

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1443826391 ISBN 13: 9781443826396

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010

Synopsis

This groundbreaking series of essays offers new insights into Turkish cultures both past and present. Moving beyond the traditional binaries of east/west, Islam/ secularism, or Europe/Asia, the book contains a variety of perspectives on contemporary Turkey, from actors, directors, critics and other major cultural figurs. The book tries to situate these opinions in context by looking on how such perspectives are employed in different cultural spheres - education, theatre, politics and the like. Exploring Turkish Cultures contains the first major interviews published in English with major figures, including actors Turkan Soray, Genco Erkal and Nesrin Kazankaya. Other figures interviewed include film directors Dervis Zaim and documentary filmmakers Ben Hopkins, Pelin Esmer and Ozgur Dogan. An extended interview with the author, translator and academic Talat Halman rounds off the interview section. Complementing these interviews are a series of essays on major Turkish films and theatrical productions, both past and present. Combining historical analysis, comment and evaluation from an author who has spent two decades living in Turkey, Exploring Turkish Cultures represents a major contribution to contemporary Turkish studies.

About this title

Review:

"At first sight the book is as eclectic as Turkey's arts scene. Interviews, reviews and essays are interspersed: inspect the crafting of this book too closely and all you can see are small squares of colour that seem to have no meaning. Step back to see the big picture and you can appreciate that each tile has been carefully placed into a mosaic that gives an integrated image. Worth particular attention are Raw's interviews with some key figures who have shaped the arts in Turkey. Some of these are groundbreaking, because they are the first time that interviews with big stars have appeared in English." - Marion James, Istanbul in Today's Zaman, March 2011

About the Author:

LAURENCE RAW teaches in the Department of English at Baskent University, Ankara, Turkey. His other books include studies of film adaptations of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry James, as well as a book of theatre criticism Impressions of the Turkish Stage (2009). He has published articles on Turkish film in Literature/ Film Quarterly and Screen. He also writes regular reviews of Turkish theatre productions for Theatreworld Internet Magazine and Theatre Journal.

About this edition

• Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1443826391
• ISBN 13: 9781443826396
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 410