Browsing by Author "Tuzun, Defne"

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Flattery and the Misanthrope
(Wiley, 2025) Diken, Bulent; Akcali, Elif; Tuzun, Defne
Molière's Alceste is often discussed with reference to his misanthropic personality, but what he aspires to doing, truth-telling, has received relatively less attention. This is curious especially if we consider that Alceste defines flattery, the opposite of truth-telling, as his main adversary. Indeed, it is Alceste's hatred of flattery that explains his misanthropy, not the other way around. We will first discuss the significance of flattery. Then, we trace the consequences of this idea in the play drawing on Aristophanes, Plato, and Aristotle where they define flattery as a relation to untruth and in opposition to friendship. In Plato's Gorgias, however, a second sense of flattery transpires: distorting ideas and practices through instrumental use. We ask what a reflection on flattery in these two interrelated senses can contribute to our understanding of Molière's comedy. What frames our discussion is the relation between Alceste and Philinte (as a stand-in for the social), on the one hand, and the relation between Alceste and Célimène (as a stand-in for seduction) on the other. Alceste cuts an abject figure in relation to both Philinte and Célimène. We end with a discussion of how Alceste can, for all his abjection, continue to fascinate us.
Garden of Ambivalence The Topology of the Mother-child Dyad in Grey Gardens
(Univ Pittsburgh, Univ Library System, 2012) Tuzun, Defne
The Maysles brothers' 1975 documentary, Grey Gardens, portrays the lives of Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, Edith, known as Little Edie, the aunt and first cousin, respectively, of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis. As their identical names imply, the Beales share a symbiotic relationship which is reflected in every aspect of their We. This article argues that Grey Gardens calls for Julia Kristeva 's insistence on abjection as a crucial struggle with spatial ambivalence (inside/outside uncertainty) and an attempt to mark out a space in the undifferentiated field of the mother-child symbiosis. In Powers of Hoffor, Kristeva (1982) states. abjection preserves what existed in the archaism of pre-objectal relationship (p. 10). Grey Gardens portrays the topology of the mother-child dyad. which pertains to a particular spatio-temporality: where this primordial relationship is concerned object and subject crumble, and the distinction between past and present is irrelevant.
In Between Two Screens: Trauma, Memory, and Subjectivity in Gulsun Karamustafa's Work
(Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2023) Tuzun, Defne
Informed by psychoanalytic theory, this essay analyses two major video installations, namely The Settler (2003) and Memory of a Square (2005) by Gulsun Karamustafa, who is one of the best-known artists from Turkey. These two works are concerned with similar themes, such as trauma, memory, subjectivity, and spatiality, through certain stylistic choices which allow them to be evaluated and studied from a Lacanian perspective. Elaborating on Lacan's topology of the Real in relation to trauma as well as his notion of extimacy, this paper argues that in both works, the questions of exterior/interior, reality/imaginary, and public/private are repeatedly posed and subverted, thereby creating spatio-temporal and epistemological ambiguity for the spectators. Both works include double-projection video installations, and the presence of the two screens with the simultaneous flow of images in each work not only mobilizes the viewer's memory and facilitates their unconscious, but also invites them to contemplate their own history, subjectivity, and experiences.
Citation - Scopus: 1
Two Balloons Can Fly a Minaret: Parody and Fabricated Reality as Integral Qualities of Mock-Documentary in aya Seyahat
(Routledge Journals, Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2025) Tuzun, Defne; Akcali, Elif; Cengiz, Esin Paca; Behlil, Melis
This paper takes a close look at the critically acclaimed artist and filmmaker Kutlu & gbreve; Ataman's mockumentary Aya Seyahat (Journey to the Moon, 2009). We discuss the potentials and possibilities that the mockumentary mode brings to the film in detail, and address this mode as an aesthetic and critical manner that Ataman employs in his artistic practice. Through this discussion, we evaluate the ways in which the film is informed by and can be interpreted as a parodic observation of recurrent patterns in Turkish politics and representations of the national pasts. We argue that it exemplifies and endorses mockumentary's politically reflexive capacity to rethink history and the process of historiography in which historical truths are constructed. Mockumentary mode offers layers of meanings, exceeding the obvious narrative of historical parody, and invites the viewers to notice and problematize conventional narrational and stylistic methods of documenting a historical event. Thus, the film provides a criticism and comparison of the public opinion towards politics within two distinct periods in Turkey's history, namely the 1950s and the 2000s. It also opens up a space for a critical engagement with Turkey's troubled pasts and their construction as historical narratives in both cinematic and other representations.