Call for Chapters 

Türkiye has a long tradition of reading, translating, and staging William Shakespeare’s plays, a practice dating back to the pre-Constitution era and persisting in the 21st century. Shakespeare is arguably the most popular foreign writer within Turkish discourse. This enduring interest is evident in the myriad ways his plays and poetry have been adapted and translated. Stage adaptations, particularly those in theatre, opera, and ballet, have been notably popular. To bridge the gap between Turkish readers and Shakespeare, his works have undergone numerous translations and re-translations. They have also been abridged and produced in the form of comics, also providing an important addition to children’s literature. Cinematic versions of his plays have been produced and achieved popularity abroad. Furthermore, the number of multimedia and digital versions of his plays has surged, a trend accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic. His plays have made their way to social media, been caricatured, and inspired various pop culture products derived from the setting and/or character names in his plays. Popular lines from his sonnets have permeated Turkish song lyrics. As elsewhere, Shakespeare has also served as a means to voice political dissent and comment on the historical trajectory of the country, reflecting societal shifts towards modernisation, Westernisation, secularisation, and democratisation. His works have also been performed beyond the mainstream theatres of urban centres, echoing the diverse minority and marginalized voices in Anatolia. Additionally, the pedagogical approach to his works has been a focal point for educators and academics seeking innovative methods and materials to deepen Turkish students’ understanding and engagement with Shakespeare in classroom settings. Despite this extensive engagement, this long tradition has remained relatively obscure for the majority of both Turkish and non-Turkish academic and non-academic circles. 

This volume aims to fill this gap by exploring the intricate ways in which Shakespeare has been adapted, translated, domesticated, politicised, and commercialised in Türkiye. For this book, we are looking forward to receiving abstracts for 7,000-word chapters (including Bibliography) that document and critically engage with the impact of Shakespeare adaptations in Türkiye. 

Contributors are invited on any of the following aspects: 

• Pre-Republic Renditions of Shakespeare
• Post-Republic Adaptations
• Stage adaptations of Shakespeare in Türkiye
• Politicised Shakespeare
• Marginal Shakespeares
• Mediatised Shakespeare
• Shakespeare in İstanbul
• Shakespeare in Anatolia
• Shakespeare in Translation/Re-translation
• Localisation and Domestication of Shakespeare
• Shakespeare on the Turkish Screen
• Teaching Shakespeare
• Shakespeare in Visual Arts
• Turkish audiences and Shakespeare
• Cultural Materialism of Shakespeare in Türkiye
• Shakespeare in Children’s Literature
• Digitised Shakespeare
• Popular Culture Shakespeares
• Shakespeare in Turkish Literature
• Performance history of Shakespeare in Türkiye
• Shakespeare and minorities in Türkiye
• Censorship of Shakespeare’s works in Türkiye
• Turkification of Shakespeare
• Uses of Shakespeare in Modernisation, Westernisation, Secularisation Process of Türkiye
• Trans/cross-cultural adaptations of Shakespeare in Türkiye

Essays might discuss any of these issues either as groups from a macro perspective (looking at chronological, spatial, class, gender, racial, linguistic, translational, ecological, and posthuman continuities or discontinuities) or from a micro perspective and focus on individual play adaptations (but papers should critically engage with these plays without reducing them to reviews).

Please send a 250-word abstract, a short bio, and your recent CV to Turkish Shakespeares (turkishshakespeares@gmail.com) before the 30th of September 2024.

We have already contacted two major academic publishers which have shown great interest in the volume.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any further queries. We are looking forward to receiving your proposals.

The Editors

Özlem Özmen Akdoğan is currently a Fulbright postdoctoral visiting scholar in the Department of Comparative Literature at Harvard University. She works as an Associate Professor Doctor of English at Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University, Türkiye. She received her PhD on the British rewritings of Shakespeare’s plays in the twentieth century from the Department of English Language and Literature at Hacettepe University, Türkiye, in 2018. She carried out research for her dissertation at the School of English and Drama, Queen Mary University of London with TÜBİTAK scholarship from September 2015 to March 2016. She has publications on twentieth and twenty-first-century adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets. She is a member of ESRA (European Shakespeare Research Association). She has presented several papers on Shakespeare adaptation at ESRA and WSC (World Shakespeare Congress) conferences. Her research interests include adaptation studies, British women dramatists, contemporary British dramatists, climate crisis and animal studies, and political drama. She has taught courses on Shakespeare at the Department of English Language and Literature and the Department of Performing Arts at Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University and Department of English at Cappadocia University.

Murat Öğütcü is an Associate Professor Doctor in the English Language and Literature Department at Adıyaman University, Türkiye. He received his PhD degree from the Department of English Language and Literature at Hacettepe University, Türkiye, in 2016. From August 2012 to January 2013, he was a visiting scholar at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is currently working at Adıyaman University, Türkiye. He is the General Editor of the “Turkish Shakespeares” Project which aims to introduce texts, productions and research on Turkish Shakespeares to a broader international audience of students, teachers, and researchers. He is also a researcher at the AHRC-funded “Medieval and Early Modern Orients” project which aims to contribute to our understanding of the medieval and early modern encounters between England and the Islamic Worlds. He is among the regional editors of the Global Shakespeares Project and the World Shakespeare Bibliography. He is co-editor of Materializing the East in Early Modern English Drama (Bloomsbury, 2023). He has written book chapters and articles on his research interests, including early modern studies, Shakespeare, and cultural studies.