İngiliz Dili ve Edebiyatı Yüksek Lisans Programı / English Language and Literature Master's Degree Program

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    Black Hole or Living Hall: Reconstructing Female Sexuality, Deconstructing Male Anxiety
    (İstanbul Kültür Üniversitesi, 2022) ÖMÜR, GİZEM SERDAR; Gillian M. E. Alban
    In this study, the main concern is to apply a reconstructive approach to reshape the image of female genitalia by restoring a primordial representation of women. To achieve this, I delve into multiple disciplines once amalgamated by androcentric forces that debilitated women, with an intent of reverting the same perception for the benefit of women by activating such primordial images of women. Instead of the priority given to death and destruction in defining and contemplating the meaning of life, as observed in the present phallocentric systems, this study provides a new understanding arising from female genitals from which life emerges and to which all living beings yearn to return as nostalgia and 'a belated wish' as Freud says. Concentrating on the representation of female sexuality in American cartoonist Charles Burns' graphic novel Black Hole, British writer Angela Carter's The Passion of New Eve and German writer Patrick Süskind's Perfume, this M.A. thesis employs several contemporary and interdisciplinary theories and methodologies to decode and recode the symbols, images, figures and metaphors attributed to women in cultural history. In this regard, placing the aforementioned literary works in their specific contexts and taking them under scrutiny in their attempt to cross the borders that western logocentrism dictates, this study suggests a thorough analysis of the distaff side, the underwritten part of history. This analysis is essential in that it aims to revive the repressed image of a Goddess figure, who 'creates the world by dancing', and asks for recognition by way of substitutions as they appear in the form of 'objet petit a', 'uncanny', 'abject', 'grotesque'; euphemistically called 'black hole' and 'black continent'. The sum of such concepts connotes monstrous, a non-human other in patriarchal discourse. However, such a view also assigns women to an in- between state of animate/inanimate, animal/human, female/male, defying the western binarised philosophy towards a nonbinary understanding. Therefore, this study concludes that the monstrosity attached to the female reproductive body through various ways, alongside the major anxiety that has governed the male economy for thousands of years, arises from a deathly attraction, as displayed by the keen analysis of the given three literary texts in the light of Irigaray's multiplicity and fluidity, fed by Cixous's aphorisms, supported by Kristeva's 'chora' and Ettinger's 'matrixial', manifested in Eisler's prehistoric Goddess figurines and Creed's 'monstrous feminine'.
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    Colonized Black Women's Bodies Resisting Oppression in Morrison's Beloved and Walker's Possessing the Secret of Joy
    (İstanbul Kültür Üniversitesi, 2023) ÖZTÜRK, MAKBULE; Gillian Mary Elizabeth Alban
    This study investigates the marginalization and violation of black female bodies within the oppressive power mechanisms of the colonial and patriarchal ideologies in Toni Morrison's Beloved (1987) and Alice Walker's Possessing the Secret of Joy (1992). Resistance of the oppressed bodies of female characters is scrutinized through a comparative analysis. Postcolonial and black feminist/womanist points of view along with a feminist understanding of the so-called subordination of black female bodies are applied in a deconstructive method. The colonial and patriarchal ideologies are put under scrutiny to show that these two ideologies resemble each other in terms of their hegemonic structures highlighting the dichotomized thinking inherent in the western understanding which leads to the so-called subordination of black women. Logocentrism of the colonial system and phallocentrism of the black patriarchal perspective locating black women in the "inferior other" position of the binarized thinking is demystified. For this end, Michel Foucault's idea of power and knowledge; remarks of bell hooks, Angela Davis and Audre Lorde on the state of black female bodies in the sexist-racist systems along with Morrison's concept of Africanism are referred to deconstruct the binarized thinking. Additionally, the womanist discourse of Toni Morrison and Alice Walker; and feminist perspectives of Hélène Cixous and Luce Irigaray's theories of repression of the female body are visited to undo the discourse of the power. This study problematizes the colonizing mentality prevailing in American society through the analysis of Toni Morrison's Beloved and shows that the same colonizing manner is mirrored in the fictional Olinkan tribe in Alice Walker's Possessing the Secret of Joy. The female characters in both novels carry the traces of the brutal treatment on their bodies but strike the reader as defying characters to the manipulations of the oppressive systems through resorting to violence as a means of resistance, thereby moving from the state of passivity to activity by taking control of their lives.
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    From Genocide to Genesis: Psychoanalytic Exploration of Evil in Martin Amis' Time's Arrow: Or the Nature of the Offence
    (İstanbul Kültür Üniversitesi, 2023) BİLGİLİ, HİLAL; Gillian Mary Elizabeth Alban
    This thesis explores how Nazi perpetrators, notably doctors, committed heinous crimes during the Holocaust, delving into their psychological transformation. Faced with this self-inflicted crisis, perpetrators undergo a profound shift, splitting their personalities between committing atrocities and wearing a facade of humanity. Using literary texts, this thesis aims to understand this dual nature, shedding light on the psychological processes behind their actions. Martin Amis' novel, Time's Arrow, employs a unique narrative technique, recounting the life of a Nazi doctor in reverse chronology, from death to birth. This technique unravels a history of evil, deconstructs the evil self, reinterprets historical events, and exposes the protagonist's relentless attempts to distance from his heinous deeds. This study focuses on the transformation of the Nazi doctors, the lingering effects of perpetration on them, and especially how the technique of reverse narration portrays and, in a way, decodes the Holocaust. With this study, I aim to shed light on the paradoxical nature of the offense and the complex psyche of the Nazi perpetrator, portrayed in Martin Amis' Time's Arrow, through a psychoanalytic approach and nuanced analysis of the novel. By utilizing Robert Jay Lifton's socio-historical context from Nazi Doctors, along with the key concepts provided by Sigmund Freud, Jacques Lacan, and Julia Kristeva, this study examines the concepts of doubling, defamiliarization, psychic numbing, abjection, maternal womb, and female presence and life and death instinct to offer insight into the disturbing nature of the perpetrator's response to the Holocaust crisis and his lack of moral responsibility.