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ETEL ADNAN’IN JOURNEY TO MOUNT TAMALPAIS ESERİNDE SANAT, DOĞA VE BELLEK

Year 2023, Volume: 63 Issue: 2, 1272 - 1293, 25.12.2023
https://doi.org/10.33171/dtcfjournal.2023.63.2.16

Abstract

Arap kökenli Amerikalı ressam ve şair Etel Adnan (1925-2021), Journey to Mount Tamalpais: An Essay (1986) adlı eserinde California kıyısında bulunan Tamalpais Dağı üzerinden, algı edimini merkeze alarak sanat, doğa ve bellek üzerine düşünür. Bu eser 1970’lerde Lübnan’da başlayan iç savaştan kaçarak California’ya yerleşen Adnan’ın o dönemde yazdığı politik yönü belirgin eserlerden farklı olarak içsel barışa doğru bir yolculuğu ele alır. Eserde merkeze alınan algı edimi sanat, doğa ve bellek arasında iç çe geçmiş bir ilişkiye işaret eder. Bu iç içelik, Batı düşüncesinin ayırdığı özne ve nesne, ben ve öteki, algılayan ve algılanan gibi kavramları birbirine katıştırır. Fenomenolojik yaklaşımın önemli figürlerinden Maurice Merleau-Ponty’nin algıyı ele alışı ve özellikle son döneminde olgunlaştırdığı tersine çevrilebilirlik (reversibility), kesişme (chiasm), çatlama (dehiscence) ve ten (flesh) kavramları, Adnan’ın metnini kavramsal ve kültürel derinliğiyle okumayı mümkün kılar. Tamalpais Dağı’nın yem yazı hem de resim düzleminde ele alındığı bu metin, bastırılmış kültürler arasında farklılıkları koruyarak kurduğu bağlar dolayısıyla Merleau-Ponty’nin kesişme kavramına ilginç bir örnek oluşturur. Adnan’ın birbiriyle neredeyse çatışma halinde olan Arap, Fransız ve Amerikan kültür ve dil dünyalarıyla ilişkisi ve tarihsel tanıklığı dolayısıyla, algı ediminin bellek ile birlikte ele alınması gerekmektedir. Bu çerçevede mümkün olabilecek iki boyutlu (kavramsal ve kültürel) okuma, bizi Adnan’ın yolculuğunda Tamalpais Dağı’nın yeni tezahürüne ulaştıracaktır. Adnan’ın bakışında yakaladığı Tamalpais Dağı nihayetinde yaralı, bilge, kadim bir kadın imgesi olarak belirir. Bu imgenin altında işleyen algı süreci Merleau-Ponty’nin kavramlarıyla incelendiğinde Adnan’ın metni sanat, doğa ve belleğin iç içe geçmesiyle nesne ve öznenin, algılayanın ve algılananın, arka ve ön planın birbirine karıştığı bir düşünce biçimi sunmaktadır.

Ethical Statement

N/A

Supporting Institution

N/A

Thanks

Yoktur

References

  • Abunnasr, M. B. (2013). The m aking o f R as B eirut: A l andscape o f m emory for narratives of exceptionalism, 1870-1975. (Publication No. AAI3603046) [Doctoral Dissertations University of Massachusetts] Campus Repository. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI3603046
  • Ada, S. & S. Fattal. (6 April-8 August 2021). Etel Adnan: Impossible homecoming/İmkânsız eve dönüş [Exhibition of artwork]. Pera Museum, İstanbul, Türkiye.
  • Ada, S. (Ed.). (2021). Etel Adnan. İstanbul: Everest.
  • Alcalay, A. (1999). Memories of our future: Selected essays 1982-1999. San Francisco, CA: City Lights Books.
  • Adnan, E. (1986). Journey to Mount Tamalpais: An essay. Sausalito, CA: Post-Apollo Press.
  • Adnan, E. (1990). Growing up to be a woman writer in Lebanon. In M. Badran & M. Cooke (Eds.). Opening the Gates: An Anthology of Arab Feminist Writing (pp. 5- 20). Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP.
  • Adnan, E. (1993). Of cities and women: Letters to Fawwaz. Sausalito, CA: Post-Apollo Press.
  • Adnan, E. (1996). To write in a foreign language. Electronic Poetry Review. Accessed: April 2022. www.epoetry.org/issues/issue1/alltext/esadn.htm
  • Adnan, E. (with Toufic, J.). (2006). Foreword: Resurrecting the Arab Apocalypse STOP [THE WORLD]. The Arab Apocalypse. Sausalito, CA: Post-Apollo Press. (Original work published 1986).
  • Adnan, E. (2006). Voyage, war, and exile. In P. J. Tumang & J. de Rivera (Eds.). Homelands: Women’s journeys across race, place, and time (pp. 307-318). Emeryville, CA: Seal Press.
  • Adnan, E. (2012). Arap Kıyameti. (S. Ada, Çev.). İstanbul: Metis.
  • Adnan, E. (2015). On small magazines. Bidoun. Accessed: April 2022. https://bidoun.org/news/etel-adnan-collection
  • Aksoy Kökkaya, H. (2022). Hep sürgün: Etel Adnan’ın hayatında dilsel bir uzlaşı alanı olarak resim. Sanat ve İnsan Dergisi, 6, 81-96.
  • Blansett, K. (2018). Journey to freedom: Richard Oakes, Alcatraz, and the Red Power Movement. New Haven, CT: Yale UP.
  • Diprose, R. & Reynolds, J. (Eds.). (2014). Merleau-Ponty: Key concepts, NY: Routledge. Direk, Z. (Ed.). (2003). Dünyanın Teni: Merleau-Ponty Felsefesi Üzerine Incelemeler. İstanbul: Metis.
  • Direk, Z. (2015). Merleau-Ponty ve Lacan: Fenomenolojiyi Psikanalizle Birlikte Düşünmek. In E. Şan (Ed.), Fikir Mimarları–31: Merleau-Ponty. (pp. 464-481). İstanbul: Say.
  • Evans, F. (2014). Chiasm and flesh. In R. Diprose & J. Reynolds (Eds.). Merleau- Ponty: Key concepts (pp. 184-193). NY: Routledge.
  • Fattal, S. (2002). On perception: Etel Adnan’s visual art. In L. S. Majaj & A. Amireh (Eds.). Etel Adnan: Critical essays on the Arab-American writer and artist (pp. 89-102). Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
  • Gökyaran, E. (2003). Başkası ve Aşkınlık. In Z. Direk (Ed.). Dünyanın Teni: Merleau- Ponty Felsefesi Üzerine İncelemeler (pp. 45-79). İstanbul: Metis.
  • Harrison, O. C. & Villa-Ignacio, T. (2016). Introduction: Souffles-Anfas for the New Millennium. In O. C. Harrison & T. Villa-Ignacio (Eds.). Souffles-Anfas: A Critical Anthology from the Moroccan Journal of Culture and Politics (pp. 1-13). Stanford, CA: Stanford UP.
  • Jackson, G. (1970). Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson. NY: Coward-McCann.
  • Johnson, G. A. (2010). The retrieval of the beautiful: Thinking through Merleau-Ponty’s aesthetics. Evanston, IL: Northwestern UP.
  • Landes, D. A. (2013). The Merleau-Ponty dictionary. NY: Bloomsbury. Majaj, L. S., & Amireh, A. (Eds.). (2002). Etel Adnan: Critical essays on the Arab- American writer and artist. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
  • Merleau-Ponty, M. (2007). The Merleau-Ponty reader. T. Toadvine & L. Lawlor (Eds.). Evanston, IL: Northwestern UP.
  • Ruschkowski, K. (2017). The many worlds of Etel Adnan. PAJ: Journal of Performance and Art, 39(3), 77-81.
  • Sanders, M. (2014). Intersubjectivity and alterity. In R. Diprose & J. Reynolds (Eds.). Merleau-Ponty: Key concepts (pp. 142-151). NY: Routledge.
  • Scappettone, J. (2020). “Fog is my land”: A citizenship of mutual estrangement in the painted books of Etel Adnan. In G. Colby (Ed.). Reading experimental writing (pp. 15-50). Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP.
  • Silverman, H. J. (2014). Art and aesthetics. In R. Diprose & J. Reynolds (Eds.). Merleau-Ponty: Key concepts (pp. 95-108). NY: Routledge.
  • Soysal, A. (2015). Merleau-Ponty’nin Bitmemiş Felsefesi. In E. Şan (Ed.). Fikir mimarları–31: Merleau-Ponty (pp. 454-463). İstanbul: Say.
  • Şan, E. (Ed.). (2015). Fikir Mimarları–31: Merleau-Ponty. İstanbul: Say.
  • Villa-Ignacio, T. (2014). Apocalypse and poethical daring in Etel Adnan’s ‘There: In the light and darkness of the self and of the other.’ Contemporary Literature, 55(2), 304–335. https://doi.org/https://www.jstor.org/stable/43297961
  • Zengin, N. (2003). Görülmeyi Görmek: Et Kavramı Üzerine. In Z. Direk (Ed.). Dünyanın Teni: Merleau-Ponty Felsefesi Üzerine Incelemeler (pp. 138-149). İstanbul: Metis.

ART, NATURE, AND MEMORY IN ETEL ADNAN’S JOURNEY TO MOUNT TAMALPAIS

Year 2023, Volume: 63 Issue: 2, 1272 - 1293, 25.12.2023
https://doi.org/10.33171/dtcfjournal.2023.63.2.16

Abstract

In her Journey to Mount Tamalpais: An Essay (1986), the Arab American painter and poet Etel Adnan (1925-2021) contemplates on the relationship between art, nature, and memory by focusing on the act of perception. Adnan’s text tells of her inner journey towards peace in contrast to her other work that responds to the Lebanese civil war, from which she had to flee in the 1970s. The centrality of perception reveals an intertwining relationship between art, nature and memory. In this relationship, the subject is intertwined with the object, self with the other, the perceiver with the perceived, which traditional Western thought separates as binaries. One of the prominent figures in phenomenological approach, Maurice Merleau-Ponty has focused on perception that is compatible with Adnan’s text. His concepts of “reversibility,” “chiasm,” “dehiscence,” and “flesh” are useful tools to analyze the essay both in its conceptual and cultural dimensions. As a work which incorporates verbal and visual treatments of the mountain, in which Adnan excavates the hidden histories and memories, retaining their differences, Journey to Mount Tamalpais proves to be a manifestation of “the intertwining—the chiasm” as Merleau-Ponty attempts to map. In relation to perception, memory emerges as a preeminent concept due to Adnan’s engagements with cultures and linguistic worlds such as Arab, French and American, and her witness of colonial wars. This article proposes a reading that captures the conceptual and cultural dimensions of the text, which ultimately leads to a new visibility of the mountain. The ultimate manifestation of Mount Tamalpais is the image of a wise and wounded old woman. When the process of perception that produces this image is analyzed from Merleau-Ponty’s perspective, Journey to Mount Tamalpais reveals a way of thinking about the chiasm of art, nature and memory in which the boundaries between subject and object, perceiver and perceived, and background and foreground collapse.

Ethical Statement

N/A

Supporting Institution

N/A

Thanks

None

References

  • Abunnasr, M. B. (2013). The m aking o f R as B eirut: A l andscape o f m emory for narratives of exceptionalism, 1870-1975. (Publication No. AAI3603046) [Doctoral Dissertations University of Massachusetts] Campus Repository. https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations/AAI3603046
  • Ada, S. & S. Fattal. (6 April-8 August 2021). Etel Adnan: Impossible homecoming/İmkânsız eve dönüş [Exhibition of artwork]. Pera Museum, İstanbul, Türkiye.
  • Ada, S. (Ed.). (2021). Etel Adnan. İstanbul: Everest.
  • Alcalay, A. (1999). Memories of our future: Selected essays 1982-1999. San Francisco, CA: City Lights Books.
  • Adnan, E. (1986). Journey to Mount Tamalpais: An essay. Sausalito, CA: Post-Apollo Press.
  • Adnan, E. (1990). Growing up to be a woman writer in Lebanon. In M. Badran & M. Cooke (Eds.). Opening the Gates: An Anthology of Arab Feminist Writing (pp. 5- 20). Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP.
  • Adnan, E. (1993). Of cities and women: Letters to Fawwaz. Sausalito, CA: Post-Apollo Press.
  • Adnan, E. (1996). To write in a foreign language. Electronic Poetry Review. Accessed: April 2022. www.epoetry.org/issues/issue1/alltext/esadn.htm
  • Adnan, E. (with Toufic, J.). (2006). Foreword: Resurrecting the Arab Apocalypse STOP [THE WORLD]. The Arab Apocalypse. Sausalito, CA: Post-Apollo Press. (Original work published 1986).
  • Adnan, E. (2006). Voyage, war, and exile. In P. J. Tumang & J. de Rivera (Eds.). Homelands: Women’s journeys across race, place, and time (pp. 307-318). Emeryville, CA: Seal Press.
  • Adnan, E. (2012). Arap Kıyameti. (S. Ada, Çev.). İstanbul: Metis.
  • Adnan, E. (2015). On small magazines. Bidoun. Accessed: April 2022. https://bidoun.org/news/etel-adnan-collection
  • Aksoy Kökkaya, H. (2022). Hep sürgün: Etel Adnan’ın hayatında dilsel bir uzlaşı alanı olarak resim. Sanat ve İnsan Dergisi, 6, 81-96.
  • Blansett, K. (2018). Journey to freedom: Richard Oakes, Alcatraz, and the Red Power Movement. New Haven, CT: Yale UP.
  • Diprose, R. & Reynolds, J. (Eds.). (2014). Merleau-Ponty: Key concepts, NY: Routledge. Direk, Z. (Ed.). (2003). Dünyanın Teni: Merleau-Ponty Felsefesi Üzerine Incelemeler. İstanbul: Metis.
  • Direk, Z. (2015). Merleau-Ponty ve Lacan: Fenomenolojiyi Psikanalizle Birlikte Düşünmek. In E. Şan (Ed.), Fikir Mimarları–31: Merleau-Ponty. (pp. 464-481). İstanbul: Say.
  • Evans, F. (2014). Chiasm and flesh. In R. Diprose & J. Reynolds (Eds.). Merleau- Ponty: Key concepts (pp. 184-193). NY: Routledge.
  • Fattal, S. (2002). On perception: Etel Adnan’s visual art. In L. S. Majaj & A. Amireh (Eds.). Etel Adnan: Critical essays on the Arab-American writer and artist (pp. 89-102). Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
  • Gökyaran, E. (2003). Başkası ve Aşkınlık. In Z. Direk (Ed.). Dünyanın Teni: Merleau- Ponty Felsefesi Üzerine İncelemeler (pp. 45-79). İstanbul: Metis.
  • Harrison, O. C. & Villa-Ignacio, T. (2016). Introduction: Souffles-Anfas for the New Millennium. In O. C. Harrison & T. Villa-Ignacio (Eds.). Souffles-Anfas: A Critical Anthology from the Moroccan Journal of Culture and Politics (pp. 1-13). Stanford, CA: Stanford UP.
  • Jackson, G. (1970). Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson. NY: Coward-McCann.
  • Johnson, G. A. (2010). The retrieval of the beautiful: Thinking through Merleau-Ponty’s aesthetics. Evanston, IL: Northwestern UP.
  • Landes, D. A. (2013). The Merleau-Ponty dictionary. NY: Bloomsbury. Majaj, L. S., & Amireh, A. (Eds.). (2002). Etel Adnan: Critical essays on the Arab- American writer and artist. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.
  • Merleau-Ponty, M. (2007). The Merleau-Ponty reader. T. Toadvine & L. Lawlor (Eds.). Evanston, IL: Northwestern UP.
  • Ruschkowski, K. (2017). The many worlds of Etel Adnan. PAJ: Journal of Performance and Art, 39(3), 77-81.
  • Sanders, M. (2014). Intersubjectivity and alterity. In R. Diprose & J. Reynolds (Eds.). Merleau-Ponty: Key concepts (pp. 142-151). NY: Routledge.
  • Scappettone, J. (2020). “Fog is my land”: A citizenship of mutual estrangement in the painted books of Etel Adnan. In G. Colby (Ed.). Reading experimental writing (pp. 15-50). Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP.
  • Silverman, H. J. (2014). Art and aesthetics. In R. Diprose & J. Reynolds (Eds.). Merleau-Ponty: Key concepts (pp. 95-108). NY: Routledge.
  • Soysal, A. (2015). Merleau-Ponty’nin Bitmemiş Felsefesi. In E. Şan (Ed.). Fikir mimarları–31: Merleau-Ponty (pp. 454-463). İstanbul: Say.
  • Şan, E. (Ed.). (2015). Fikir Mimarları–31: Merleau-Ponty. İstanbul: Say.
  • Villa-Ignacio, T. (2014). Apocalypse and poethical daring in Etel Adnan’s ‘There: In the light and darkness of the self and of the other.’ Contemporary Literature, 55(2), 304–335. https://doi.org/https://www.jstor.org/stable/43297961
  • Zengin, N. (2003). Görülmeyi Görmek: Et Kavramı Üzerine. In Z. Direk (Ed.). Dünyanın Teni: Merleau-Ponty Felsefesi Üzerine Incelemeler (pp. 138-149). İstanbul: Metis.
There are 32 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language English
Subjects Comparative and Transnational Literature, Literary Studies (Other)
Journal Section Research Article
Authors

Özge Özbek Akıman 0000-0002-8644-044X

Early Pub Date December 20, 2023
Publication Date December 25, 2023
Submission Date September 3, 2023
Published in Issue Year 2023 Volume: 63 Issue: 2

Cite

APA Özbek Akıman, Ö. (2023). ART, NATURE, AND MEMORY IN ETEL ADNAN’S JOURNEY TO MOUNT TAMALPAIS. Ankara Üniversitesi Dil Ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi Dergisi, 63(2), 1272-1293. https://doi.org/10.33171/dtcfjournal.2023.63.2.16

Ankara University Journal of the Faculty of Languages and History-Geography

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