On the question, 'what is Turkish -German?' Minority literatures and the dialectics of exclusion

This dissertation is a study of four novels that document the complexity of Turkish-German cultural interactions. It start out by criticizing the practice of categorizing literature primarily according to the ethnicity of its authors. In doing so, it attempts to redefine Turkish-German literature as an aesthetic tradition in which authors of both ethnicities and/or nationalities explore identity and difference in a multiethnic, multireligious Germany at the end of the 20th century. The first three chapters are analyses of three novels that directly address the issues of Turkish immigrants in Germany: Sten Nadolny's Selim, Oder die Gabe der Rede (1990), Emine Sevgi Özdamar's Die Brücke vom Goldenen Horn (1998), and Aras Ören's Berlin Savignyplatz (1995). Later, through a reading of Orhan Pamuk's Yeni Hayat (The New Life, 1992) the author shifts the focus from Germany to Turkey; indeed from literary marginality to literary globality. The fourth chapter examines Pamuk's use of Novalis and Rilke to explore Turkish nationalism. At the core of this dissertation is the author's contention that scholarly discussions of construction and representation cannot adequately capture the dialogue, the exchange and the confluence between majority and minority literatures. Furthermore, a criticism of the canon that argues merely for its replacement by a counter (ethnic)-canon is ultimately detrimental to multiculturalism.;This dissertation highlights the complex relationship among gender, class, and ethnicity in aesthetic expressions of identities. The focus on the novels gestures toward the genre's shift from an accomplice in the project of nationalism in the late 19th century to an associate of denationalization of literatures in the 20th century. By engaging with Turkish contributions to this intercultural exchange this dissertation also addresses the neglect of non-Western scholarship in discussions of Turkish-German literature in particular, and literatures of minorities in general. By exploring the interweaving of German and Turkish literary traditions, it opens up the problem of multiculturalism to a comparatist examination.