The Islamist version of utopia: The politics of redesigning space
The Islamist version of utopia: The politics of redesigning space
Author(s): Seval Şahin, Didem Ardalı BüyükarmanSubject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Turkish Literature, Contemporary Islamic Thought
Published by: Ústav svetovej literatúry, Slovenská akadémia vied
Keywords: Islam; Utopia; Place/Space; Ali Nar; Ayşe Şasa; Western civilization
Summary/Abstract: This article examines utopian novels by two Islamist Turkish writers: Ali Nar’s The Space Farmers (Uzay Çiftçileri, 1988) and Ayşe Şasa’s The Novel of the Monkeys (Şebek Romanı, 2004), which were celebrated among Islamist circles upon their publication. In these two novels, the corruption and pollution of place/space is blamed upon the “Christian” Western civilization. They depict how the desired regime change will begin in Turkey and expand towards Europe and then to the rest of the world, through the portrayal of oppositional places as utopian/dystopian spaces. The article discusses the ways in which space/place is ideologically redesigned in the Islamist imagination as a political symbol and analyze how these popular Islamist writers present the world and the space for their utopian vision of Islamist supremacy.
Journal: World Literature Studies
- Issue Year: 13/2021
- Issue No: 2
- Page Range: 43-55
- Page Count: 13
- Language: English