De-monstrating bodies, bestial machines: the posthuman in Halid Ziya Uşakligil’s short stories

Abstract

This thesis explores the posthuman figurations in Halid Ziya Uşaklıgil’s four short stories, “Sevda-yı Sengîn”, “Kadın Pençesi”, “Mösyö Kanguru”, and “Kırık Oyuncak” in comparative and intermedial contexts. The thesis asks the question of how the boundaries between the human and posthuman are constructed, and whether the posthumanization is strengthened or melted these boundaries. For the answers, we visit ancient Greek mythological figures such as Pygmalion and Medusa and come back to the nineteenth century’s narrations that intermingled with dance, cinema, art, and poetry. These art forms and texts help us understand and change today’s narratives and social structures that oppress others. This thesis also explores the posthuman entanglement with nature and culture in and out of the realms of fiction/reality achromatically while all sorts of forming in texts bend the fixations.