Basak Candar
(Appalachian state University / EUME Fellow 2014-15)

Chair: Susanne Klengel
(ZI Lateinamerika-Institut, Freie Universität Berlin)

Abstract
In South African author J.M. Coetzee’s novella Lives of Animals, a fictional academic named Elizabeth Costello draws a comparison between the plight of animals at slaughterhouses and the Holocaust, only to find that at the proposal of this specific comparison, all possibilities of dialogue and discussion end. Her discussant quits and boycotts the dinner given in Costello’s honor. At the heart of this provocative story is the question of incomparability, the limits – ethical, aesthetic, logical – that separate a “good” comparison from a “bad” or impossible one. As a discipline, Comparative Literature must contend with such questions of comparability. Are any literature so singular as to be incomparable? Or can we assume that all works and themes are essentially comparable? Taking a comparison between 20th century Turkish and Spanish literature as its basis, this talk will discuss the current frameworks of comparison that inform Comparative Literature, and explore methods of comparison that operate outside of the standard linguistic/geographical/post-colonial frameworks.  Particularly, I will discuss representations of historical trauma and state-violence in two novels, set apart by three decades: Spanish author Juan Marsé’s 1973 novel about post Civil War Barcelona, Si te dicen que caí (The Fallen) and Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk’s 2002 novel Kar (Snow).

Başak Çandar is Assistant Professor of World Literature at Appalachian State University, North Carolina. She completed her PhD in Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 2014. She holds a BA in English and Hispanic Studies from Macalester College.Her doctoral thesis, titled “Representations of State Violence in Twentieth Century Turkish and Spanish Literature,” examines the formal and ethical challenges of representing state violence fictionally, using examples from the twentieth century Turkish and Spanish literature. Her work also explores the dynamics between official (national) narratives and literature, discussing the national identities of Turkey and Spain and their formation vis-à-vis the image of Europe. As a EUME Fellow, she will work on a book manuscript based on her dissertation, focusing on comparison as methodology and placing the Turkey-Spain comparison within the World Literature framework. She is especially interested in expanding her work on literature during transitions from military regimes to democracy in the 1970s and 80s.