{"id":4152,"date":"2022-10-26T15:25:20","date_gmt":"2022-10-26T12:25:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ucy.ac.cy\/tms\/?p=4152"},"modified":"2022-10-26T15:44:43","modified_gmt":"2022-10-26T12:44:43","slug":"of-books-and-buddhas-turkish-writers-and-the-religions-of-the-other-asia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ucy.ac.cy\/tms\/of-books-and-buddhas-turkish-writers-and-the-religions-of-the-other-asia\/?lang=en","title":{"rendered":"Of Books and Buddhas: Turkish writers and the religions of the other Asia (8\/11)"},"content":{"rendered":"
The Turkish and Middle Eastern Studies Department<\/strong><\/h6>\n

Invites you to the lecture: “Of Books and Buddhas: Turkish Writers and the Religions of the Other Asia”<\/p>\n

Speaker:
\nLaurent Mignon<\/strong>
\nProfessor, University of Oxford<\/p>\n

Abstract:<\/strong><\/p>\n

At the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century, an increased interest in India and East Asia can be witnessed in Ottoman Turkey. While the recent focus of scholars has mainly been on the geopolitical significance of this development, the literary and religious dimensions of the intellectual encounter with the other Asia have rarely been investigated, unless they were in connection to Islam.\u00a0However, the study of literary and autobiographical writings of the first half of the twentieth century reveals that authors as different as the novelist Halide Edip [Ad\u0131var] (1884-1964) and the poet Asaf Halet \u00c7elebi (1907-1958) have engaged with and even adopted aspects of the teachings of non-Abrahamic religions. Some of their writings introduce the readers to Buddhism and Neo-Hinduism and are indicative of important aspects of the changing religious landscape of the reading classes in Ottoman and republican Turkey. They are a reminder of the wealth of intellectual, literary, and religious experiences in the lands known today as Turkey, experiences that are too often obscured by a reduction of Turkish religious and intellectual history to a conflict between Islam and secularism.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Biography<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Laurent Mignon is Professor of Turkish Literature at the University of Oxford, a Fellow of St Antony\u2019s College and Affiliate Professor at the Luxembourg School of Religion and Society. His research focuses on the minor literatures of Ottoman and Republican Turkey, in particular Jewish literatures, as well as the literary engagement with non-Abrahamic religions during the era straddling the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic. He is the author of, among others, Ana Metne Ta\u015f\u0131nan Dipnotlar: T\u00fcrk Edebiyat\u0131 ve K\u00fclt\u00fcrleraras\u0131l\u0131k \u00dczerine Yaz\u0131lar<\/em> [Footnotes Moving to the Main Text: Writings on Turkish Literature and Interculturalism] (Istanbul, 2009), H\u00fcz\u00fcnl\u00fc \u00d6zg\u00fcrl\u00fck: Yahudi Edebiyat\u0131 ve D\u00fc\u015f\u00fcncesi \u00dczerine Yaz\u0131lar<\/em> [A Sad State of Freedom: Writings on Jewish Literature and Thought] (Istanbul, 2014) and Uncoupling Language and Religion: An Exploration into the Margins of Turkish Literature<\/em> (Boston, 2021).<\/p>\n

TUESDAY 8 NOVEMBER<\/strong> 2022<\/strong>
\nTIME: 19:00
\nROOM: LRC 014
\nNEW CAMPUS (LIBRARY BUILDING)
\n1 Panepistimiou Avenue
\n2109 Aglantzia, Nicosia<\/p>\n

<\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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