Beyond terrestrial approach in Turkish literature: Queer adaptation, Mediterranean, and spatiality

This thesis interrogates the relationship between queer spatiality and the location of Turkish literature as world literature concerning literary and cinematic adaptations. Drawing upon key concepts of critical Mediterranean Studies, such as transcontinentalism and regional specificity, it aims to show that collaboration between disciplines of literature, queer, Mediterranean, and adaptation studies could offer a methodology unbounded by terrestrial boundaries. In the first chapter, by discussing Mehmet Bilâl's novel Osmanlı'da Bir Vampir Béla and Hülya Serap Doğaner's Leyla ile Şirin, I question Istanbul's location as a center for Turkish literature. I show that while the city's spaces of exclusion for queer people also reflect upon literature, tracing traveling and hybrid texts could propose new queer horizons to world literature. In the second chapter, I focus on Atıf Yılmaz's movie adaptations Dul Bir Kadın and Düş Gezgileri to discuss whether Mediterranean space could offer potentialities for queer futurities that could shape literary imaginations. Keywords: Turkish Literature, World Literature, Queer Futurity, Adaptation, Mediterranean Studies, Queer, Turkish Cinema, Queer Utopia, Istanbul, spatiality