CAAS Seminars: 'Psychoanalysis in Early Republican Turkey' by Soyubol

Critical Approaches in Social Sciences (CAAS) Seminars

"On Happiness: Psychoanalysis, Religion, and Nationalism in Early Republican Turkey"

Kutluğhan Soyubol
Postdoctoral Researcher, Tel Aviv University

February 23, Thursday, 2-4 pm, FEAS 345

Abstract
Considering translation as a convoluted process of cross-configuration between different cultures, this paper scrutinizes the work of Izzettin Şadan (1895-1970s), the initiator of psychoanalysis in Turkey. Through translations of the works of western psychoanalysts such as Sigmund Freud, and others, Şadan attempted to produce a Turkish psychoanalytic canon. This canon nonetheless was bound to be different in form as it filtered through the cultural and socio-political structures of the early Turkish Republic. The paper argues that Şadanian psychoanalysis accordingly engendered novel psychoanalytic meanings and conceptualizations. It also emerged to symbolically represent a resistance to, if not a break from, some features of western (Freudian) psychoanalytic discourse, including those that relate to society, civilization, and the attainability of happiness in modern societies. In sum, through a close reading of Şadan’s writings, the paper attempts to demonstrate how the translation of psychoanalysis into Turkish involved in the process its reconfiguration to accommodate the socio-historical conditions, including the Kemalist nation building project, Islamic cultural memory, and radical secularism of the early Turkish Republic.