The role of 19th century pocket novels in the modernization of sexual relati̇onships and body-mi̇nd politics

This dissertation focuses on the late 19th century's newly emerged form pocket novels, specifically on examples published by booksellers Arakel and Şems, and examines the relationships between discourses of hegemony and fiction. With a New Historicist perspective, this study focuses on how the masculinities and femininities of "new human" that formed the modern family of 19th century were constructed. Ottoman Empire's anxiety of modernization accelerated especially in its last century, and gave rise to some legal and social reforms including new policies on health and demography. Following Arakel's pioneering steps at fin de siècle, pocket novels emerged as important examples of fiction, in which this historical process can be traced. Even though they were written mostly by the most accomplished and the best-selling authors of the time, pocket novels are rarely mentioned in literary histories and criticism. In this dissertation, pocket novels based on romantic relationships are scrutinized with taking positive and negative body representations at the explicit focus. Sales strategies of the era and the effort to make the reading activity joyful influenced both the form and the content of pocket novels. These novels are constructed as useful tools to control and discipline the mental and bodily "degenerations" such as extra-marital affairs, syphilis, abortion, hysteria, obsession, insanity, suicide, and excessive alcohol consumption. Thus, these texts with "social engineering," due to their practicality of being able to be read anytime and anywhere, enables a public discussion about both the possibilities of the Ottoman family and the constructions of masculinities and femininities in the public.