Articles by Şafak Horzum
ANQ: A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes and Reviews, 2025
The first critic to pinpoint a Homeric echo in Lord Jim is Zdzisław Najder (260n1), the editor of... more The first critic to pinpoint a Homeric echo in Lord Jim is Zdzisław Najder (260n1), the editor of the Polish translation, who showcases Jim's "Homeric peal of laughter" (Conrad 195) in his conversation with Marlow after defeating Sherif Ali. Unlike Najder's unspecific reference to the Olympians' laughter (Homer, lines 1.595-601), Jean M. Szczypien's extensive analogies between the novel and the epic are supported by the connections between King Priam and Doramin, Achilles and Jim, and the ends of both works (Szczypien 51-72). Szczypien relates these analogies with Conrad's educational background in Poland and the vision of his father, Apollo Korzeniowski (1820-1869), and situates Jim's self-sacrifice in Romantic idealism and patriotism. Additionally, Alison E. Wheatley draws attention to Jim's epic journey in terms of his classic-to-modern self-transformation, from Odysseus to Ulysses (16-20). Nonetheless, all these critics miss an earlier allusion to Homer's Iliad: Captain Montague Brierly's suicide location, the Hector Bank, and Conrad's preference to name it after Hector of Troy. The Hector Bank has very limited records in British sailing history, as a few ships like the Recorder and the Egeria conducted failed searches to pinpoint this bank, and, thus, it was "removed from the Admiralty charts in 1885" (China,. Considering alternative hypotheses on the location of the bank, Hans van Marle and Pierre Lefranc make an extensive analysis of the topography and geography in the novel but reach no specific real-life referent for it (124-27). Then, this nautical naming, since Conrad is well-acknowledged for his uses of historically and geographically accurate places and events at sea, sometimes only with slight twists to appropriate them to his narratives, 1 seems to concisely allude to the classical epitome of manliness, Hector of Troy in The Iliad. Brierly, "the captain of the crack ship [Ossa] of the Blue Star line" and "one of the assessors" (Conrad 41) under the magistrate running the Patna inquiry, is known as the heroic double of the titular hero. This seaman, who "had never in his life made a mistake, never had an accident, never a mishap, never a check in his steady rise" and "seemed to be one of those lucky fellows who know nothing of indecision, much less of self-mistrust" (42), is the epitome of idealized manliness with all these qualities. Marlow's following account of Brierly can substantiate this interpretation: At thirty-two he had one of the best commands going in the Eastern trade-and, what's more, he thought a lot of what he had . . . . He had saved lives at sea, had rescued ships in distress, had a gold chronometer presented to him by the underwriters, and a pair of [silver-mounted] binoculars with a suitable inscription from some foreign Government, in commemoration of these services. (42)
English Studies, 2025
This article repositions fantasy fiction as a fertile site for posthumanist critique, concentrati... more This article repositions fantasy fiction as a fertile site for posthumanist critique, concentrating on Rowling's Harry Potter series (1997-2007). It introduces the "Pentacle of Posthumanist Fantasy," a five-step heuristic for reading fantastic nonhuman beings as ethical subjects. The model traces: (1) reversing anthropocentric perspective; (2) reinforcing non-binarism; (3) emphasising materiality; (4) employing a "from-within" perspective and (5) enabling the becoming-with journey. By close readings of fantastic creatures in the series, the article demonstrates how they contest wizarding legal taxonomies and cultivate interspecies solidarities. Drawing on theories by Haraway, Braidotti and Barad, it argues that fantasy's ontological fluidity fosters relational ethics and dissolves human/nonhuman hierarchies. The Harry Potter corpus emerges as a gateway to posthumanist education, with the Pentacle model adaptable to broader fantasy contexts. Ultimately, the study urges readers to embrace Haraway's "response-ability": a situated, imaginative commitment to co-becoming with the more-than-human planet in an era of ecological crisis.
Orbis Litterarum, 2025
Fantasy literature breaches the great divide between dualities, making marginalized and disempowe... more Fantasy literature breaches the great divide between dualities, making marginalized and disempowered nonhuman beings much more audible, visible, and intelligible. In fantasy, the human gets stripped of its so-called superiority and is guided to attain a more-than-human subjectivity at the end of the fantastic journey. In parallel with the character of fantasy fiction, critical posthumanism interrogates the notion of the human as the zenith of the universe, the reliance on and parameters of rationality, and the agential capabilities of subjects other than the human. Criticizing the liberal humanist notion of anthropocentric subjectivity as continuously structured in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, this article combines the discourses of the early example of fantasy fiction, Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726), and contemporary posthumanist theories. In this context, it positions Swift as a proto-posthumanist satirist and scrutinizes the Lilliputian praxes of hybridizing and nonhumanizing Gulliver in Travels. In this scrutiny, I claim that Gulliver experiences a systematic process of nonhumanization and his sense of humanness is undermined to the extent of transforming into a posthumanist subjectivity.
IDEAS: Journal of English Literary Studies, Oct 31, 2023
This article argues that The Libertine by Thomas Shadwell, one of the earliest examples of the Re... more This article argues that The Libertine by Thomas Shadwell, one of the earliest examples of the Restoration comedies, has one of the pioneering roles in portraying the philosophy of the time’s courtiers, libertinism. It is obviously seen in Shadwell’s play that the characteristics of libertinism are not given entirely truly in this Don Juan adaptation, but rather in an exaggerated and criminalised way. In this light, the paper will first discuss the playwright’s socio-political position during the upheaval of the Restoration of Charles II. Secondly, it will set out to explore the play’s position in terms of its exemplary nature in the genre of comedy of manners. Last but not least, libertinism and its characteristics will be analysed through their illustration in the play by means of male characters, particularly Don John, the protagonist.
Social Sciences Research Journal, 2023
It is uncommon to see women poets in the literary history of Britain since the literary circles h... more It is uncommon to see women poets in the literary history of Britain since the literary circles had the belief that women were incapable of writing poetry, the highest form of literary arts. In the nineteenth century when socio-political norms were predominantly defined according to one's sexuality, though, a woman poet, namely Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861), challenged this heteronormative mentality of poetics and began to question the validity of the reliance on the poetic forefathers' visions of poetic creativity. In this context, this paper first aims to discuss Barrett Browning's struggles in finding her voice by analysing her two significant poems "The Deserted Garden" (1838) and "The Lost Bower" (1844). Having shown the ways the poet asserts her understanding of female poetics, the study will attempt to analyse how she advances her subversion of poetic creativity and the figure associated with the poet, Pan the goatgod, by means of opening up the so-called mythical divinity's reputation and credibility into scrutiny. In this regard, this article takes Barrett Browning's Pan-poems "The Dead Pan" (1844), "A Reed" (1846) and "A Musical Instrument" (1860) for a critical understanding of the poet's suggestion to abandon this figure as the divine artist.
Ortaçağ Araştırmaları Dergisi, 2023
Bu makale, on dördüncü yüzyılın sonları ve on beşinci yüzyılın başlarında yaşamış ve bir kadın ya... more Bu makale, on dördüncü yüzyılın sonları ve on beşinci yüzyılın başlarında yaşamış ve bir kadın yazar olarak İngiliz yazınında ilk edebî eseri vermiş Norwichli Julian’ı (Julian of Norwich) ve Revelations of Divine Love (İlahi Aşkın Vahiyleri) eserini, Ortaçağ İngiliz toplumunun tefekkür ve kadın anlayışı çerçevesinde incelemektedir. Resmi eğitim almamış bir kadın olan Julian’ın Hıristiyanlık inancıyla bağdaşan görüleri aracılığıyla kaleme aldırdığı eserinin iki versiyonu bulunmakta olup her iki versiyon kıyaslandığında, yazarın zaman içerisinde değişen ve gelişen edebî üslubu ile karşılaşılmaktadır. Makalede, yazarın doğal ve sohbetvari üslubu, İngilizce edebiyatın ilk kadın yazarının, kendi dönemindeki erkek yazarlardan ayrıldığı nokta olarak tartışılmaktadır. Buna istinaden, Julian’ı Norwich’teki bir manastırda münzevi hayat sürmeye iten ve bir ruhban otoritesi olmasını sağlayan en önemli özellik, eserinde bahsettiği ilahi görüler içerisinde Hıristiyanlık inancındaki Tanrı–İsa birleşimini Ortaçağ’daki eril tasavvurlardan arındırması ve bu bileşik ilahi figürü yüce anne karakteri ile yeniden inşa etmesidir. Bu sebeple, bu çalışma, Norwichli Julian’ı İngilizcede eser vermiş ilk kadın yazar olarak tanıttıktan sonra, Revelations of Divine Love eserinde kullandığı üslubu ve bu eserindeki ilahi figürleri annelik teması altında kadın özelliklerle nasıl bezediğini irdeleyecek ve bu eserindeki biçemini çağdaşı olan erkek yazarların üslubuyla kıyaslayarak verecektir.
JOMOPS: Journal of Modernism and Postmodernism Studies, 2022
A. S. Byatt’s oeuvre instantiates many postmodern tropes, by dint of which her ... more A. S. Byatt’s oeuvre instantiates many postmodern tropes, by dint of which her underlying thematic messages find a better way of being imparted to the audience. Albeit deemed one of the critically little-attended works of Byatt, “The Chinese Lobster” from The Matisse Stories(1993) stands as an epitome of postmodern literature. This hard-to-interpret story offers its thematics, this study suggests, in the guise of numerous postmodern elements whose investigation enables one’s mastery of how and why Byatt aims at allying her thematic messages with an equal share of postmodernist discourse. In illustrating such postmodern elements, this paper’s arguments lean towards interpreting some salient postmodern features such as paradox, parody, irony, undecidability, and little and grand narratives in the story.
Translation Review, 2021
This bibliography, which covers English translations of literary works produced in Turkish—includ... more This bibliography, which covers English translations of literary works produced in Turkish—including the works penned by minorities living in Turkey—from 2004 to 2020, is a sequel to Saliha Paker and Melike Yılmaz’s bibliographic research published in the 2004 special issue “Turkish Literature and Its Translation” of Translation Review (vol. 68, no. 1). Paker and Yılmaz’s work, despite its comprehensive coverage from 1949 to 2004, leaves out the translations published in the latter half of the cut-off date, presumably due to the publication date of the issue. Therefore, the following chronological bibliography begins with the works that were not included in the previous study. Taking Paker and Yılmaz’s research as its basis, this bibliography includes literary genres common to world literatures, such as poetry, drama, novel, short story, as well as creative non-fiction such as travel literature and memoir. Other works of non-fiction and self-published works are not represented here.
SFRA Review, 2021
From ecto-parasites in the hair follicles to the microbiota in the gut flora, the human body is c... more From ecto-parasites in the hair follicles to the microbiota in the gut flora, the human body is composed of diverse nonhuman species, illustrating what symbiotic adaptation is, and which often goes unnoticed due to our limited perception. The entanglement of nonhuman matter "in everything bodies are, experience and do" pinpoints the difficulty of "putting" it "under the spotlight" (Macnaughton 31). If we are so imbued with nonhuman bodies around and within us, then how are we supposed to disentangle ourselves and understand their agency? The posthuman and material-ecocritical senses of agency might provide an answer to this question, which is crucial to our contemporary understanding of pandemics, especially considering how zoonotic diseases hold a pivotal place in the "geopolitical-biopolitical medical surveillance" (Wilbert 7) systems of the twenty-first-century global communities. Underscoring the constant reconfigurations among the human and nonhuman actors of such diseases, this paper takes disease-carrying agents as material-textual bodies with narrative capacities. In doing so, it relies on posthuman theories which deconstruct the dualistic worldview of Enlightenment humanism and offer a non-hierarchical ontology among planetary systems, things, and beings. We examine the complex and dynamic web of these agents in literary and mediatic works like Ndemic Creations' Plague Inc. (2012) and Plague Inc.: Evolved (2014), Steven Soderbergh's Contagion (2011), and Nicola Griffith's Ammonite (1992), portraying narrative capabilities of non/human beings as nonlinear assemblages of effect. These assemblages, we argue, enhance posthumanist understandings of ethical, ontological, and epistemological positions of (un)contaminated bodies that narrate themselves in myriad ways "through the mutual accommodation of. .. heterogeneous components" (DeLanda 144). Sometimes read as gods' "language of displeasure" (Wald 11), contagious diseases 'communicate:' they spread, and they speak, most often in ways that are "not possible for epidemiologists [without] the disembodied, all-knowing. .. gaze" (Dahiya 520n1). Such omniscience can only be available for the human in literary or media narratives, recalling Priscilla Wald's observation on the transgressive kings in The Iliad and Oedipus Rex, who must read the language of the plagues to decipher the wrath of the gods and correct their wrongdoings. Forcing the kings or the sinful population "to assume responsibility for their actions, " the plagues in Antiquity "illustrate[d] the relationship between the group and an anomalous individual" (Wald 11). Nonhuman narrative agency in the posthumanist sense, however, is not a direct translation of human intentionality, conveying literal or metaphorical messages, but explicates how communicable diseases confound our primary visions of ourselves as self-contained entities by making the porosity of our bodies palpable, exhibiting the agency of matter and the inextricability
Yirminci yüzyılın ikinci yarısından itibaren hızla ilerleyen ve 1990’lardan itibaren kendi başına... more Yirminci yüzyılın ikinci yarısından itibaren hızla ilerleyen ve 1990’lardan itibaren kendi başına disiplinlerarası bir alan olan erkek ve erkeklik çalışmaları, kuramsal açıdan pek çok öncü düşünürden faydalanmış olup kendine ait bilim insanlarının ortaya çıkmasını sağlamıştır. Böylece bu alan günümüzde erkeklerle ilgili pek çok sosyokültürel ve siyasal meseleyi mercek altına almayı başarmaktadır. Bu yazı, erkeklik sorunsalını kapsamlı olarak tek bir metinde bulmanın zorluğundan dolayı erkeklik kavramının sorunsallaşma sürecini Freud, Jung, Adler ve de Beauvoir’ın tartışmalarıyla ele almakta ve ardından günümüz erkek ve erkeklik çalışmalarının kapsamını eril tahakküm ve hegemonyacı erkeklik kavramları ile açıklamaktadır. Bu doğrultuda, erkek-kadın ve/ya erillik-dişillik gibi ilişkilendirmelere dayalı ikici düşünce yapısının zamanının sona erdiği alanın kuramcılarının savları ile açıklanmaktadır. Günümüzde Türkçe olarak erkek ve erkeklik çalışmaları ile ilgili detaylı bir kuramsal çalışma henüz bulunmadığından, bu yazı alanla ilgilenen araştırmacılar için bilgilendirici ve yönlendirici bir platform sunar.
It is contended that, by means of the changing economic power in the nineteenth-century society, ... more It is contended that, by means of the changing economic power in the nineteenth-century society, the middle classes prevailed over upper classes in Britain, and they hence established their concept of Victorian masculinity on the basis of imperialism. However, the last decade of the Victorian era witnessed the transformation of this imperial manliness that was primarily concerned with sentimental morality and later shaped by the capitalist economic interests into dandyism that was embellished with aesthetically affected codes of masculinity against the hypocrisy of the Victorian era. Therefore, this article first establishes the definition and characteristics of Victorian imperial masculinity in relation to the disciplines of gender, politics and medicine, and then delves into the concept and decade of decadence which was represented by Oscar Wilde, and his literary and critical works. Subsequently, the poetics of dandyism, as the new epitome of masculinity in this decade, is articulated with its philosophical foundations as Charles Pierre Baudelaire and Jules Amédée Barbey d’Aurevilly define. Having been affected from such philosophers, Oscar Wilde, as the artistic representation of dandiacal masculinity in Britain at the end of the nineteenth century, also presents dandy men in his plays like "Lady Windermere’s Fan" (1892). In this comedy, one can find various codes of a dandy’s masculine preoccupations and principles with a wide range of male characters. In keeping with these attitudes, the article will underline the fall of Victorian ideals in the formation of manliness and the rise of a further individualistic and artistic mode of masculinity.
Courtly love convention is a medieval European concept of ennobling love which helped the shaping... more Courtly love convention is a medieval European concept of ennobling love which helped the shaping of the society and in return which was shaped by the society during the Middle Ages. The concept has its roots in many traditions such as classical literature, Hispano-Arabic poetry and philosophy, Troubadour poetry, feudalism and Christianity. However, there are also writers who were critical and suspicious of courtly love convention. Sir Thomas Malory (c.1410-1471) presents a subtle criticism of the concept in his Le Morte Darthur (1485), the first collection that brings together all the Arthurian stories in English. One-third of this work consists of a controversial love story, the case of Tristan and Isolde. Therefore, Malory’s different treatment of the courtly love tradition and the Tristan story will be illustrated with the critical information on the Celtic sources of the legend and a comparative method to other significant characters involved in the courtly love in this work.
Books by Şafak Horzum
Posthuman Pathogenesis: Contagion in Literature, Arts, and Media, 2023
This multi-vocal assemblage of literary and cultural responses to contagions provides insights in... more This multi-vocal assemblage of literary and cultural responses to contagions provides insights into the companionship of posthumanities, environmental humanities, and medical humanities to shed light on how we deal with complex issues like communicable diseases in contemporary times. Examining imaginary and real contagions, ranging from Jeep and SHEVA to plague, HIV/ AIDS, and COVID-19, Posthuman Pathogenesis discusses the inextricable links between nature and culture, matter and meaning-making practices, and the human and the nonhuman. Dissecting pathogenic nonhuman bodies in their interactions with their human counterparts and the environment, the authors of this volume raise their diverse voices with two primary aims: to analyse how contagions trigger a drive to survival, and chaotic, liberating, and captivating impulses, and to focus on the viral interpolations in socio-political and environmental systems as a meeting point of science, technology, and fiction, blending social reality and myth. Following the premises of the post-qualitative turn and presenting a differentiated experience of contagion, this 'rhizomatic' compilation thus offers a non-hierarchised array of essays, composed of a multiplicity of genders, geographies, and generations.
Book Chapters by Şafak Horzum
Posthümanist Tasarım Yaklaşımları, 2024
Bu kitabın basım, yayım ve satış hakları Anadolu Üniversitesine aittir. "Uzaktan Öğretim" tekniği... more Bu kitabın basım, yayım ve satış hakları Anadolu Üniversitesine aittir. "Uzaktan Öğretim" tekniğine uygun olarak hazırlanan bu kitabın bütün hakları saklıdır. İlgili kuruluştan izin almadan kitabın tümü ya da bölümleri mekanik, elektronik, fotokopi, manyetik kayıt veya başka şekillerde çoğaltılamaz, basılamaz ve dağıtılamaz.
Posthümanist Tasarım Yaklaşımları, 2024
Bu kitabın basım, yayım ve satış hakları Anadolu Üniversitesine aittir. "Uzaktan Öğretim" tekniği... more Bu kitabın basım, yayım ve satış hakları Anadolu Üniversitesine aittir. "Uzaktan Öğretim" tekniğine uygun olarak hazırlanan bu kitabın bütün hakları saklıdır. İlgili kuruluştan izin almadan kitabın tümü ya da bölümleri mekanik, elektronik, fotokopi, manyetik kayıt veya başka şekillerde çoğaltılamaz, basılamaz ve dağıtılamaz.
Beşerî Bilimlerin 50 Rengi: Çevreci, Dijital, Medikal ve Posthüman Sesler, Aug 2023
Kapadokya Üniversitesi tarafından yayımlanan basılı, elektronik veya diğer formatlardaki bilimsel... more Kapadokya Üniversitesi tarafından yayımlanan basılı, elektronik veya diğer formatlardaki bilimsel yayınlar, sempozyum bildirileri ve ders içeriklerine ait bütün haklar Kapadokya Üniversitesine aittir. Tanıtım amacıyla kaynak gösterilerek yapılacak kısa alıntılar dışında, Kapadokya Üniversitesinin yazılı izni olmaksızın yayının tümünün elektronik, mekanik veya fotokopi yoluyla basımı, yayımı, çoğaltımı ve dağıtımı yapılamaz.
Material-Spiritual Bodies: Posthuman Performativity of Avatars
The Avatar Television Franchise
Posthuman Pathogenesis: Contagion in Literature, Arts, and Media, 2023
Literature of disease has long focused on such viral interpolations in socio-political and enviro... more Literature of disease has long focused on such viral interpolations in socio-political and environmental systems, creating both conspiracy scenarios and alternative realities, the truthfulness of which is only bound to the historical unfolding of the real-life examples. In the face of the current COVID-19 outbreak, we are—again—all full of doubts and questions. Despite the bleak picture at hand, the current situation has once again proven the fact that the world, with all its beings and things, is an entangled mesh. True, the lack of unionised protocols brings about different measures in different geographical settings. And separatory attempts of administrations are required to slow down the pandemic. But one must notice that all the posthuman bodies of this planet are unified and act, ‘only by sitting at home,’ as a whole. As a result, this introduction provides a framework to supplement the theoretical basis of such unification, an idea that is recurring and consistent throughout the chapters. Following a postqualitative approach, Ağın and Horzum follow an implosive methodology inspired by the Harawayan thought and the Baradian concept of entanglement, and thus, in this introduction, they bring together their model-readings of several literary and artistic texts with their personal and political stances as posthumanities scholars. At the end of this introductory chapter, each part and its related chapters are summarised.
Posthuman Pathogenesis: Contagion in Literature, Arts, and Media, 2023
Horzum reads Griffith’s novel from material-feminist and material-ecocritical perspectives, highl... more Horzum reads Griffith’s novel from material-feminist and material-ecocritical perspectives, highlighting how Ammonite is conducive to a contemporary posthumanist worldview. The author argues that the novel demonstrates the intertwined nature of human and viral bodies through its critique of androcentrism, often equated with anthropocentrism of the Enlightenment ‘Man.’ Horzum’s analysis illustrates how Donna Haraway’s concept of naturecultures, Margaret Price’s bodymind, and Başak Ağın’s mattertext are always already enmeshed within one another, with examples from the text and with supports from the recent theoretical intersections of environmental humanities and posthumanities. Reading Marghe, the protagonist of the novel, as a posthuman subject who undergoes symbiotic experiences with the nonhuman and the planet, Horzum contends that the entangled bodies of the woman, the Jeep virus, and the planet GP unfold as an assemblage presenting an emergent relationality within the narrative. Noting these actors’ involvement in multiple becomings, the author pinpoints the flat ontology on which each actor dwells within an ongoing, dynamic process of narrating and becoming with each of its components. This process, according to Horzum, is one that creates and navigates the entire narrativity and horizontal relationality in Ammonite. This chapter concludes with the author’s indication of a never-ending dynamism where every non/living entity is a vibrant, lively agent.
İngiliz Edebiyatında Toplumsal Cinsiyet (pp. 149-168), 2017
İngiltere’de on dokuzuncu yüzyılın sonlarına doğru, Viktorya dönemi idealleri ve değerlerinden ko... more İngiltere’de on dokuzuncu yüzyılın sonlarına doğru, Viktorya dönemi idealleri ve değerlerinden kopmanın başladığı görülmektedir. Bu durumun sanata ve edebiyata yansıması bakımından, modernist romancılar da erkeklerin normatif emperyalist İngiliz erkekliği ve yeni sosyo-politik ilkeler arasında kalıp savaş vermesi gibi modern bireylerin gelenekselden sıyrılma çabalarını eserlerinde ele almış ve Viktorya dönemi değerlerinin yıkılmasına katkıda bulunmuşlardır. Joseph Conrad bu ‘gelenek dışı’ modernist yazarlardan biri olup Lord Jim (1900) adlı romanında geleneksel değerlerden uzaklaşan başkahramanın içsel ve toplumsal bir erkeklik çatışması halini alan normlardan kopuş öyküsünü kurgular. Olay örgüsü, romana adını vermiş başkahraman Jim’in bütün ömrü boyunca karşıt değerler arasında kalıp arzuları, hayal kırıklıkları ve başarısızlıkları çevresinde şekillenmektedir. Bu çalışmanın amacı, Conrad’ın Lord Jim romanında topluma ve siyasete hâkim on dokuzuncu yüzyıl orta sınıf değerlerinin yirminci yüzyılın henüz başlarında nasıl parçalandığını ve Jim’in eski emperyalist erkekliğin küllerinden kendi özgün erkekliğini nasıl inşa ettiğini incelemektir.
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Articles by Şafak Horzum
Books by Şafak Horzum
Book Chapters by Şafak Horzum