Reading Group 4th semester

COLLECTIVE CUKURCUMA READING GROUP – 4th semester
Founded by Gökcan Demirkazık, Mine Kaplangı and Naz Cuguoğlu, Collective Çukurcuma Reading Group will have monthly meetings and invite our friends to assign a reading, we will read, talk and discuss.

 

 

WEEK VI

 

 

 

 

 

 

Date –  Friday,  September 7th, 2018
Location –  Robinson Crusoe 389
Number of participants –
Selected Texts –  Son Kuşlar by Sait Faik Abasıyanık
“Sait’ten Hatıralar” by Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu

Discussion questions –

-In what ways does Sait Faik Abasıyanık’s animal, nature and human imagery and their relations to one another differs in his book “Son Kuşlar” ?
-Why does everything seems to be so downbeat and moving so fast nowadays? Does it have anything to do with the bombardment of news we’re getting? Or was it always the case, but we weren’t able to acknowledge it because of the differing ways of receiving it?
-Is it possible to love the current Istanbul in Sait Faik’s naivety?
-In what ways were the resentment to the society portrayed in Sait Faik’s stories?
-What is the importance of Burgazada to Sait Faik? Is it a choice to remain in a state where one is away from the city but still in proximity, away but still being able to observe?

WEEK V

Date –  Saturday,  August 4th, 2018
Location –  Riverrun
Number of participants – 16
Selected Texts –  Alemdağ’da Var Bir Yılan by Sait Faik Abasıyanık
“Sait Faik’in Realitesi” by Fikret Ürgüp Varlık, Haziran 1954, 407. Sayı

Link for the texts – 

Alemdağ’da Var Bir Yılan, Sait Faik Abasıyanık

Sait Faik’in Realitesi, Fikret Ürgüp, Varlık Dergisi, 1954

Discussion questions –

– We discussed how each story in the book was embodying certain elements and referances and how they were all connected with the fact that it was the writer’s last written book.
– Comparison of Sait Faik’s early works and Alemdağ’da Var Bir Yılan
– Discuss the metaphorical use of elements from nature (bird, wind, snow etc) in the last story Sleep of Snake in the book
– Importance of the character named Panco
– How the concept of time and space were presented differently in each story throughout the book?
– Discuss the main reasons of why the writer was so upset with the city of Istanbul and its people and the society he was born in

WEEK IV

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Date –  Tuesday, June 12th, 2018
Location –  Riverrun
Number of participants – 7
Selected Texts – Tarihöncesi dönemde vampir: Ölüm ve defin üzerine ilk düşünceler, İfritler’den Dracula’ya Modern Vampir Mitinin Doğuşu, Matthew Beresford; Edebiyatta Vampir, İfritler’den Dracula’ya Modern Vampir Mitinin Doğuşu, Matthew Beresford; Repulsive to Romantic: The Evolution of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Sarah L. Peters

Link for the texts – 

Tarihöncesi dönemde vampir: Ölüm ve defin üzerine ilk düşünceler, İfritler’den Dracula’ya Modern Vampir Mitinin Doğuşu, Matthew Beresford
Edebiyatta Vampir, İfritler’den Dracula’ya Modern Vampir Mitinin Doğuşu, Matthew Beresford
Repulsive to Romantic: The Evolution of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Sarah L. Peters

Discussion questions –

  1. How the modern vampire myth was born in western literature according to Matthew Beresford?
  2. How did the concept and the meanings of death change in Europe from the Bronze Age to Middle Ages?
  3. What were the reasons of arranging different types of death ceremonies and graveyards during the Middle Age and especially after the Christianity in Europe?
  4. According to Sarah Peter, how did the myth of Dracula evolve in western history of literature and cinema?
  5. Discuss the relations between the psychoanalysis and the legend of ‘vampires.’
  6. Are there any examples of ‘vampires’ in Turkish folk stories or myths? (Learn more about the story of Cihangir vampire in 20th century)
  7. Comparison of the movies based on Bram Stoker’s Dracula; Nosferatu (1922, Murnau) and Dracula (1992, Coppola).

WEEK III

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Date –  Sunday, June 3rd, 2018
Location –  Casa dell Arte Bodrum artist residency
Number of participants – 7
Selected Texts –“The Aleph” by Jorge Luis Borges
Various sections from Gaston Bachelard’s “The Poetics of Space”

Link for the texts – 
Jorge Luis Borges, Alef
English: http://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/borgesaleph.pdf
Türkçe: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1t-8JSDaSfvVCU1BfIlW-dJIeFaNke8DK

Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space (pages 17-29 and Chapter 8)
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1yWwmL9Nb295WtYA477XgN_8ff9y3sQE8

Discussion questions –

  1. Consider the relation between consciousness / unconsciousness and horizontality / verticality
  2. Think about the concept of “light”—cellar is always dark
  3. Why is the protagonist of Aleph angry? Is it jealousy or is it that he will never get surprised again?
  4. “Forgetting is a treasure”
  5. Discuss the relation between time-perception and language—when we use language, everything is in order, and we also perceive time as linear l (past-present-future) but in cellar, the protagonist sees things from different times, time collapses.
  6. Think about you childhood houses.
  7. Now in the modern houses there are no cellars, so maybe we do not have connection to our unconsciousness anymore.
  8. How does this relate to politics of turkey? They do not want you to have roots (asphalt roads)
  9. Phenomenology and psychoanalysis, image has to be understood first phenomenological then psychoanalysis follows, first you need to name it.
  10. We do not have time and space for cellar anymore. New generation always on the phones, they do not have a cellar, how would this affect them?
  11. Reading something twice takes you from verticality.
  12. To break the linearity of time—relation to the concept of “Hauntology” and how perceptions of past-present-future affect each other simultaneously.
  13. Reality and dream form the whole. We can move from the constructed to the dreams—how this relates to artist’s practice?
  14. The verticality of skyscrapers does not mean depth—no cellar, no attic, so becomes artificial, cannot relate with the nature anymore—they want us to forget, not being able to relate to the past.
  15. The architecture effects how we perceive things—having a rounded house or a rectangular house (experiments in psychology)
  16. We do not daydream anymore—we are on our phone all the time, how does this effect us?
  17. There are studies about dreams but no studies about daydreaming, why?
  18. What is daydreaming in Turkish?—gündüz düşü, düşlemek

WEEK II

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Date –  Monday, March 13th, 2018
Location –  Sabo’s studio
Number of participants – 7
Selected Texts – Notes On the Cityscape of Blade Runner 2049 by Begüm Yamanlar; Phantoms by Steven Millhauser; “Ghosts of my Life: Writings on Depression, Hauntology and Lost Futures” by Mark Fisher (first chapter “00: Lost Futures”)

Link for the texts – 

https://libcom.org/library/ghosts-my-life-writings-depression-hauntology-lost-futures
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1jQW9nI4BJIfAnjjj-mB4dAUGav8OFPXU

Discussion questions –

  1. How do the cities change after the idea of “hauntology”?
  2. Discuss the idea that the theories of future are all outdated, and discuss how we can communicate with each other in such a context.
  3. Is there a limit for critical thought?
  4. Discuss the idea of “I am working for a better future”
  5. The new left– Already gave up on future but is not even aware of it.
  6. What is the relation between the concept of “hauntology” and music culture? If we send a record from future to past or vice versa, would it be surprising for the generation that receives it?
  7. Are there still “unfamiliar” things in music?
  8. When we talk about music, which music do we talk about?
  9. Music culture is used to explain lost futures, but how can we get the same answer from different cultures? (discuss the effect of locality)
  10. Imagine a world in which only North Korea is left, and opens its doors, would the history of world evolve in the same way?
  11. According to astrology, the idea is that the world will become more bisexual and more creative after 2020, what does it mean?
  12. Movies to watch: The Double Life of Veronique (1991), A Ghost Story (2017), The Others (2001), The Spirit (2008), Wings of Desire (1987)
  13. What is the translation of “phantom” in Turkish?
  14. What is the difference between “ghost” and “phantom”? – How does it change from culture to culture?
  15. How does the culture of mythical stories affect the respect for nature in different cultures?
  16. Why do the ghosts experience a feeling of imprisonment in most ghost stories? – Why are they mostly limited / trapped in a specific territory?
  17. How do the ghost stories change across cultures?
  18. Discuss the translation of hauntology in Turkish (“musallat bilimi”).
  19. From a psychoanalytic approach, discuss the relation between trauma and ghosts of past.

WEEK I

Date –  Monday, February 19th, 2018
Location –  Naz & Serhat’s home
Number of participants – 10
Selected Texts – Edgar Allen Poe: The Fall of the House of Usher, Ursula Le Guin: The Island of Immortals, Vincent Freeland: Hauntology: How the Ghosts of Our Past Haunt Our Future, James Bridle: How to Think About the Future

Link for the texts – 

https://poestories.com/read/houseofusher
http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-island-of-the-immortals/
http://www.theoccultmuseum.com/hauntology-ghosts-past-haunt-futures/
http://www.howtothinkaboutthefuture.com/?p=75

Discussion questions –

  1. Relation to telecommunication – how it was used to communicate with ghosts (previous collaborations between the spiritualists & scientists)
  2. How does “hauntology” relate to our perception of the space?
  3. Discuss the idea of nostalgia for the “lost past” and “the lost future.”
  4. When we talk about the “lost future”, what is it that is lost there? Can a future that has not happened yet get lost?
  5. Share the true story that an object was transported, but no one knows where it ended up.
  6. Some possible reference materials: the movies “Coherence”, “Blade Runner”, “Ghost in a Shell”, the book “Haunted Media”
  7. Talk about aliens.
  8. Can we trust the accuracy of our perception of the past?
  9. How does the history get manipulated through constructing memories with different narratives?
  10. Compare different perceptions of horror movies in different cultures.
  11. How does culture / language affect our perception of ghosts?
  12. Why do they call them “cursed”? Who benefits from this in the society?
  13. What is cyberpunk?
  14. How do manipulated images affect our perception of reality?
  15. Tell your personal haunted stories.

 

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