Difference and the Future of Turkish Literary Studies.

• Author: Halman, Talat Sait

"Study of Ottoman literature," observes Victoria Holbrook, "has been discouraged by a British Orientalist legacy received in this country." Her diagnosis is accurate, although one could point to numerous other factors as well. Dr. Holbrook is one of the few American scholars working to correct the situation - through her teaching, her translations of classical and modern texts, and several symposia she has organized. She has pioneered (at Ohio State University) a series of conferences, under the general title of "The `Other' Turkey." These gatherings have generated a number of first-rate scholarly papers from highly promising graduate students at U.S. universities.

The Turkish Studies Association Bulletin has recognized the value of these papers and has devoted to them substantial portions of two of its issues. The topics range from "Er Toshtuk" of the Kirghiz tradition to "Midnight Express"; from new Uzbek literature to one of Turkey's most popular novels ("Calikusu"); from the Bosnian literary narrative to a 19th-century Ottoman novel. Judging by these essays I feel optimistic about the future of American scholarship in the field of Turkish literature.

Carel Bertram's essay on perception of place in Ottoman Bosnia, written in 1990, sounds melancholy in 1992, when many of the places whose names are cited lie in ruins. In his analysis of a novel by Namik Kemal (d. 1888), John M. Cro-foot raises significant questions concerning the sui generis aspects of late Ottoman culture and its communicative system in its interaction with acquisitions from the West. Gonul Erhan tackles U.S. stereotypes in regard to Turks, mainly in the context of the issue of Bulgarian Turkish refugees and the film "Midnight Express" - a discussion based on currently...