CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2009
| Author | Karakaya, Defne |
|---|---|
| Title | "Patriarchal Bargain": Fatma Aliye's strategies of writing in Ahmed Cevdet Pasa and His Time |
| Summary | In this thesis, I argue that a comprehensive analysis of Fatma Aliye (1862-1936), the first woman novelist of the Ottoman Empire, through her works on different genres is required to understand her strategies of writing in the male dominant frame of writing. I critically engage with two sections, “Mukaddime” (Introduction) and “Maârif” (Education) of her book Ahmed Cevdet Pasa and His Time, which is the biography of her father Ahmed Cevdet Pasa (1822-1895), a bureaucrat and historian. The “Mukaddime” demonstrates the historical perception of Fatma Aliye and “Maârif” as a topic is among the major concerns of the Tanzimat period, as well as being crucial in other works of Fatma Aliye. Thus, these two sections help to conceive the political position of Fatma Aliye in this book. Applying a feminist reading to understand her strategies of male domain of history writing, I conclude that Fatma Aliye enters into “patriarchal bargain” in an intellectual level. She legitimizes herself as a historian through the intellectual heritage of her father and represents herself as the faithful student of Cevdet Pasa, yet, she instrumentalizes this legitimacy and the idea of continuity with her father to engage in a criticism of the 19th century political life. Therefore, she bargains with patriarchy through omitting the “woman question” from her political agenda in this book, even in the section of “Maârif”, on the contrary to her position in her other works. |
| Supervisor | Peto, Andrea |
| Department | Gender Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2009/karakaya_defne.pdf |
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