English Language and Literature

Insights into the experiences of migrant figures in Children’s Literature shed new light on the
construction of identity and human agency in migration research, which so far has been almost
completely dominated by adult perspectives. Examining the first person narratives of Sandra
Cisneros, Fran Leeper Buss, Edwidge Danticat, and Ibtisam Barakat through the lens of
postcolonial and narrative theory, this paper argues that a focus on displaced children in this
epoch of a global refugee crisis is vital to understanding the links between autobiographical
memory and human agency in the context of transnational migration. It establishes that children
are not merely pawns in the power paradigms of nations but rather subjects with agency, with the
ability to traverse the imagined and geographical boundaries of space and time. Situating the
protagonists at the juncture of historicity and memory, from which sites of resistance emerge,
these narratives subvert the preconceived notions of child migrants, relocating them from the
margins to the center, from invisibility to visibility, and from subjugated childhoods to agents
capable of reimagining and rewriting the nation in the eyes of the ‘other.'

Almost Home is a creative nonfiction piece that embodies the outsider’s search for belonging amidst the foreign and the familiar. Written from several vantage points of a narrator who seeks to find a sense of calm in the wake of turbulence and a center from the margins at best, Almost Home paints a bittersweet portrait of grief and loss, of comings and goings, of a shared nostalgia that propels us backwards and forwards, around and back home again. Just almost.

How does literature for children portray homes lost and perhaps found? Does children's literature liberate or subjugate with these representations? What kinds of perspectives do the written and visual representations in children's narratives offer? How is the experience of subjugated childhoods represented in these narratives? How is the sense of self and sense of place, namely home, represented in both word and image? The literary representation of children is contingent upon pre-established notions of political formations and identity, namely the dynamics of the subjugated and subjugator. Employing theories from canonical critics in the field of postcolonial study, this paper looks at several children's narratives to explore the value of children's stories in representing home(lessness) from the perspective of child immigrants and refugees. It argues for the need to question whether these representations in children's narratives subjugate or liberate, considering how children's books can be seen as political acts. It argues that literature for children can be used as a tool of criticism to critique certain ideologies (and the existing social order and postcolonial ties). Considering the relationship between the individual and the state, it concludes by considering children's narratives as a way of configuring and even overturning the notion of home(lessness) and the significant question of whether a return to the homeland is ever possible.

Wanderers in the spaces of their memories and the streets of their would-be homes, generations of suffering immigrants are traced back to the past, propelled by the crescendo of melancholic stillness that moves displaced bodies through states of in betweenness that both dispels and teeters on the far side of either assimilation or exclusion. Many transnational narratives situate the immigrant at a crossroads in terms
of a loss of the ‘original’ culture in exchange for the new ‘American’ culture, where national diversities are confined to a singular framework and rhetoric of displacement, overruled by the myth of successful assimilation, whereby the hardships of adjusting  to foreign spaces are ‘normalized’ and reduced to a series of trials. This portrayal, in turn, does not leave any room for the rhetoric of pain, or what I label as the ‘migrant’s mourning’, where the immigrant’s suffering is suppressed and eclipsed by a collective history of racial abjection. Insights into the psyche of the immigrant serve to map the hedge between the past and the present and absolute versus relative spaces. Applying  psychoanalytical and postcolonial frameworks to literary analysis, this dissertation explores some of the prominent transnational narratives to establish that the melancholic dynamics of space, memory, and language can subvert misrepresentations and grant the immigrant mobility within the confines of homogenized spaces. It seeks
to explore the ways in which the transnational American narrative employs melancholic tenor as aesthetics to empower displaced figures. Situating its protagonists at the locus of nations, these narratives underscore melancholia, mourning, and memory as tools and protocols of agency that challenge the myth of assimilation and re-think the rhetoric of displacement.

Healthcare has been one of the most vital endeavors in human life during the entire history of humanity. In the past two millennia, all efforts and expertise are put into healthcare in order to maintain human beings in healthy condition. While the science and technology in medical field has advanced incredibly, some serious issues remain as problems in healthcare activities that need attention. Two issues that have been researched and discussed in the literature during the past century are quality and ethical problems in healthcare. Parallel to these issues is a new branch of research, called medical humanities, which attempts to emphasize the subjective experience of patients within the objective and scientific world of medicine, where literature plays a major role to influence and enrich medical practice. In this paper, we try to summarize basic types of human errors, medical malpractices, causes of quality problems, and ethical issues in healthcare systems. We also try to present...

Bu çalışma 1960’ların Türkiye’sinde, yirmili yaşları-nın başında İngilizce öğretmeni, hemşire/sağlık uzmanı ve “kırsal kalkınma uzmanı” olarak bulunan  bazı  Barış  Gönüllüleri’nin  değişim  süreçlerini gönüllülerin  yazarla  sözlü  ve/veya
yazılı olarak paylaştıkları anıları ile kendi yazdıkları kitaplardan yararlanarak incelemektedir.
Çalışmanın bu alandaki boşluğun doldurulmasına mütevazı bir katkıda bulunması amaçlanmaktadır.

Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology published in 1915 is a collection of more than two hundred poems, written in the form of post-mortem autobiographical epitaphs of ordinary residents of a fictional small American town called Spoon River in Illinois. Each poem is titled with the name of a long deceased resident whose unheard yet striking story is explicitly or implicitly displayed with meticulous use of language and imagery. Along with the universal themes and its call to action for a less hostile and more embracing world, the anthology serves as a fruitful source for translation, literary study, and stylistic and discourse analysis. The primary purpose of this paper is to introduce Spoon River Anthology to practitioners of related fields and help them enhance their teaching process.

Philological Research and Studies - English Language and Literature Series.  University of Pite
sti.  Volume 1 / No. 1 / 2012
Pages: 12-21



Abstract:  This paper aims to answer why we tend to think that there is a monolithic
Native  American  culture.  To  do  this,  it  focuses  on  the  role  of  Indian  Boarding
Schools in assimilation and acculturation of Native Americans. It probes the shift in
the  “Indian  policy”  of  the  federal  government,  the  motives  that  led  to  inauguration
of  these  schools  and  the  content  of  the  education.  Viewpoints  of  both  educators,
administrators  and  students  are  included  to  provide  a  multidimensional  perspective
on  such  a  controversial  issue.  Effects  of  the  schoo ls  on  Native  American  studen ts
and  how  their  experience  shape  the  present  day  Amer ican  life  will  be  displayed
through personal accounts.
Key words:  Indian Boarding Schools ,  Assimilation, Acculturation, Manifest Destiny,
Social Darwinism, Missiona ries

Turkey hosted 1460 U.S. Peace Corps Volunteers between 1962 and 1971. After almost half a century later, hundreds of surviving volunteers refer to Turkey as their second country or “ikinci memleket.” Although they were then criticized as agents or spies whose mission was Americanization of Turks, the result seems to have been just the reverse for hundreds of volunteers. A returned PCV summarized this “we were being Turkified” while another one mentions about “marrying the Turkish culture.”
This presentation will focus on the voluntary Turkification process of Peace Corps Volunteers who have maintained their ties with Turkey, Turkish language and culture. It will be based on interviews with almost three hundred volunteers some of whom became Turkish citizens or preferred to live in Turkey as ex-pats after their service. It will also refer to their journals, diaries and memoirs that convey transnational messages. Another purpose of the presentation is to highlight the contribution of some volunteers to Turkey’s cultural and political life.

ÖZET: Bu çalışma Türkiye’deki yabancı kadın algısı ve yabancı kadın cinayetlerinin
tarihsel köklerine vaka incelemeleriyle yoluyla yaklaşmakta ve 1960 sonrasıdönemi
kronolojik olarak ele almaktadır. Araştırmada sosyolojik ve kültürel çözümlemeler
yoluyla cinayetlerin hem ana akım medyada hem de sosyal medyadaki yansımaları
incelenmektedir. Bu aşamada habercilerin, köşe yazarlarının ve sosyal medyada
yorum yapan kişilerin cinayetlere bakışaçılarındaki farklılıklar, nedenleri ve vardıklarısonuçlarıele alınmaktadır. Yabancıkadın algısıiçin 1960’ların çok okunan
gazetesi Hürriyet’ten yararlanılmıştır. Cinayetlerle ilgili olarak ve popüler mikro
blog sitelerindeki üç bin civarında giriş/tanım/yorum (entry) incelenmişve söylem
çözümlemesine tabi tutulmuşve sınıflandırılmıştır.
ANAHTAR KELİMELER: Yabancı kadın algısı, yabancı kadın cinayetleri, Pippa
Bacca, Sarai Sierra, Mai Kurihara, Ekşi Sözlük, İtü Sözlük, UludağSözlük, Twitter

Kurulduğu 1961 yılından bu yana 140 ülkede yaklaşık 210.000 Amerikan Barış Gönüllüsü görev yapmış / hizmet vermiştir. Türkiye’de 1962-1971 yılları arasında 1460 Amerikan Barış Gönüllüsü bulunmuştur. Her ne kadar Amerikan Dışişleri Bakanlığı’nın yumuşak güç aracı olarak kullanılsalar da, gönüllüler bu görev/hizmete başta idealizm olmak üzere değişik nedenlerle dahil olduklarından ve dünya vatandaşına dönüştüklerinden söz etmektedirler. Türkiye’ye gelmeden önce ve Türkiye’de iken bu gönüllüler hem Türkçe eğitimi hem de kültür eğitimi almışlardır. Talat Sait Halman ise bu gruplara önce Princeton Üniversitesi’nde daha sonra Robert Kolej’de  Türk Kültürü ve Edebiyatı eğitimleri vermiştir. Halman gönüllülerin Türkiye’ye olan katkılarını yeterli bulmasa da programı “genellikle çok yararlı” bulmaktadır. Bazılarıyla kurduğu dostluğun ömür boyu sürdüğünü belirten Halman, “dostluk ve kültürel anlayış bakımından hem Barış Gönüllüleri, hem onlarla temas eden onbinlerce Türk büyük yararlar sağladılar” demektedir.  Gönüllüler kendilerini “Türkiye’nin Amerika’daki büyükelçileri” olarak adlandırmakta ve Türkiye’nin tanıtımına katkıda bulunmaktadırlar. Halman da Türk Kültürü  ve Edebiyatı konusundaki ciddi çalışmaların arkasında Barış Gönüllülerinin bulunduğunu ifade etmekte ve şüphe temelli yaygın kanının tersi bir yaklaşım sergilemektedir.

Bu makale "Barış Gönüllüleri-Türkiye Deneyimi” başlıklı,  yaklaşık yedi yıldır süren ve çok tartışmalı bir konuyu ele alan bir araştırmanın Talat Sait Halman ile ilgili olan bölümüdür.  Sunum Halman ile olan yazışmalarımızı ve Türkiye ile ilgili çalışmalar yapmış olan birkaç yüz gönüllünün bazıları ile yapılan röportajları içerecek, kültür araştırmaları konusuna sözlü tarih boyutu ile yaklaşacaktır.

People become a part of the place they inhabit. Even if they resist to change and assimilation, they cannot avoid being shaped by the social, cultural and physical conditions of their new environment; and they inevitably start to redefine themselves. Although this transformation does not necessarily require giving up old identities and ties, it encourages a new sense of belongingness, hence formation of a new identity. The number of Turks and Turkish-Americans residing in the United States is estimated to be around 500,000. However, there is not enough information on what kind of assimilation and transformation process they undergo while they become a part of mainstream America. We also do not know much about the challenges they encounter, if and how they maintain their contact with the culture and country they left behind, and if they welcome or resist assimilation. Our presentation will seek answers to the above questions in personal accounts and memories of Turkish-Americans derived from a survey given to Turks residing in the United States and have ties with Turkish-American associations. The survey includes mainly semi-structured and open ended questions to increase the variety of responses.

Amerika Birleşik Devletlerinin Güneybatı eyaletlerinde, özellikle Arizona'da rezervasyonlarda yaşayan kızılderililerin (Apaçi, Yavapai, Ak-Chin...) günümüzdeki yaşam şekilleri ve içinde bulundukları asimilasyon  süreci ve kültürlerini koruma çabaları anlatılmaktadır.
Yazarın rezervasyonlardaki gözlem ve deneyimlerine ek olarak akademik bilgi de mevcuttur.