Aesthetics of Occidentalism. Yücel Çakmaklı's Islamic-Turkistic Millî Sinema ("National Cinema") (1964-2006)

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Ömer Alkin
• Subject Area: Theatre and Media Studies
• Term: from 2019 to 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 435847492

For more than thirty years, scientists have been exploring different concepts of 'Occidentalism'. Most of this research analyzes the dichotomic relationship between the Orient and the Occident and the complex discursive and historical entanglements in different regional and national contexts.Due to the discourse analytical approach of most of these investigations, which are oriented towards textuality, they neglect the media aesthetic features of the discourses. Although the investigations focus on radio broadcasts, photographs or other types of media, the non-textual media-aesthetic qualities (image, sound) are hardly considered.The consequence is that the aesthetic dimension of discourses remains analytically untouched. In order to understand the role of media-aesthetic features of discourses in the context of the constitution of Occidentalism, the research project pursues the following central question:How do media aesthetic qualities of discourses contribute to the constitution of Occidentalist discourses, i.e. discourses that are devaluing and demarcating the West in such a way that a non-Western identity is stabilized and consolidated?This overriding question is pursued by an example that has been neglected so far. The research project examines the cinematic work of the founder of Islamic cinema in Turkey, Yücel Çakmaklı (1943-2009). It analyzes his works in order to work out how the film aesthetic cinematically translates the Occidentalist stance of the director. The analysis of his films highlights the recurring film aesthetic which produce Occidentalist discourses that are anti-Western and serve to stabilize one's own non-Western identity. In doing so, the analysis focuses on identifying recurring cinematic strategies in a category-building way, i.e. empirically saturated across the entire oeuvre of the director.This makes it possible to heuristically evaluate further anti-Western cinematic discourses as Occidentalist and to assess the aesthetic achievements of films in the realization of such evaluations. The two final research questions are thus:Which recurring cinematic methods in the service of Occidentalist discourse strategies can be found in the oeuvre of the discourse founder of Islamic cinema in Turkey, Yücel Çakmaklı?Into what categories can these procedures be subdivided, so that the contribution of film-aesthetic features for the implementation of Occidentalist discourses becomes clear?

• DFG Programme: Research Grants