The Little Sparrow affect: Sezen Aksu’s memorial time-space and anarcho-feminism in Turkish popular music

Abstract

This article employs affect as a conceptual category to address the question of why Turkey’s pop music icon Sezen Aksu—also known as the Little Sparrow—resonates across a wide audience, including non- local or irrelevant listeners who do not understand the vernacular language. In music studies, affect can be theoretically contextualized and methodologically studied in myriad ways. In the case focused here, I argue that what I define as the Little Sparrow affect manifests itself through three interrelated dimensions: a bodily representation that distorts the time–space configurations of personal and societal memory; a paradoxical political stance blending anarcho-feminism with moralism; and a raspy vocal texture that penetrates the subconscious through paralinguistic timbres. Methodologically, this argument draws on Theodor Adorno’s notion of “negative dialectics” understood here as a heuristic mode of investigation primarily employed within critical theory and cultural studies-oriented approaches. To render such an analysis tangible, I first draw attention to Aksu’s timeless contradictory feminist public persona, intertwined with a bygone Mediterranean spatio-temporality—a theme that frequently reoccurs in her song lyrics, interviews, music videos, and overall album concepts, as will be demonstrated below. Secondly, by drawing attention to the anarcho-humanist themed existential inquiries that particularly stand out in her recent lyrics, I will demonstrate how the feminist representation again transcending both time and space generates affect. Lastly, I examine her vocal technique and characteristics as a physiologically changing bodily component, arguing that it penetrates the subconscious through the paralinguistic qualifiers authentically produced thanks to her raspy nature of voice.

Keywords

• affect
• anarcho-feminism
• pop music
• dissonance
• feminist musicology
• gender representation
• Mediterranean identity
• Sezen Aksu
• Turkish popular music
• voice and embodiment

Supporting Institution

This study has received no support from any institution or funding source.

Project Number

31

Ethical Statement

This study does not require ethical approval. The necessary permission for the photographs has been obtained.

Thanks

I would like to thank Sezen Aksu’s representative company SN Publishing for granting access to their archives and for their guidance throughout the process. I would also like to thank Gizem Çiçek for her developmental writing and editing guidance, for sharing this burden with me. And lastly, I would like to thank my mom, who introduced me to Aksu even before I came into this physical world, and Aksu herself, for still somehow managing to be part of my life.

Zamansız ve Anarko-Feminist: Küçük Asya’nın Popüler Müzik Figürü Olarak Serçe Duygulanımı

Abstract

This article employs affect as a conceptual category to address the question of why Turkey’s pop music icon Sezen Aksu—also known as the Little Sparrow—resonates across a wide audience, including non- local or irrelevant listeners who do not understand the vernacular language. In music studies, affect can be theoretically contextualized and methodologically studied in myriad ways. In the case focused here, I argue that what I define as the Little Sparrow affect manifests itself through three interrelated dimensions: a bodily representation that distorts the time–space configurations of personal and societal memory; a paradoxical political stance blending anarcho-feminism with moralism; and a raspy vocal texture that penetrates the subconscious through paralinguistic timbres. Methodologically, this argument draws on Theodor Adorno’s notion of “negative dialectics” understood here as a heuristic mode of investigation primarily employed within critical theory and cultural studies-oriented approaches. To render such an analysis tangible, I first draw attention to Aksu’s timeless contradictory feminist public persona, intertwined with a bygone Mediterranean spatio-temporality—a theme that frequently reoccurs in her song lyrics, interviews, music videos, and overall album concepts, as will be demonstrated below. Secondly, by drawing attention to the anarcho-humanist themed existential inquiries that particularly stand out in her recent lyrics, I will demonstrate how the feminist representation again transcending both time and space generates affect. Lastly, I examine her vocal technique and characteristics as a physiologically changing bodily component, arguing that it penetrates the subconscious through the paralinguistic qualifiers authentically produced thanks to her raspy nature of voice.ve de duygulanım mekanizmasının nasıl dilsel alandan bağımsız bir şekilde işleyebileceğini ortaya koyuyorum.

Keywords

• affect
• anarcho-feminism
• dissonance
• feminist musicology
• gender representation
• Mediterranean identity
• Sezen Aksu
• Turkish popular music
• voice and embodiment

Supporting Institution

This study has received no support from any institution or funding source.

Project Number

31

Ethical Statement

This study does not require ethical approval. The necessary permission for the photographs has been obtained.

Thanks

I would like to thank Sezen Aksu’s representative company SN Publishing for granting access to their archives and for their guidance throughout the process. I would also like to thank Gizem Çiçek for her developmental writing and editing guidance, for sharing this burden with me. And lastly, I would like to thank my mom, who introduced me to Aksu even before I came into this physical world, and Aksu herself, for still somehow managing to be part of my life.

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