The emergence of Turkism in Azerbaijani literature occurred after the rise of literary Turkism in Ottoman Turkey, where it first developed and flourished. Although ideas of Turkification or a return to Turkism, as proposed by Ottoman thinkers, writers, and educators, initially sparked debate, over time these ideas evolved into an ideology and eventually a well-established concept. Unlike political Turkism, literary Turkism gained widespread acceptance among the people through the works of writers and poets, who awakened national feelings and patriotism. The (...) ideas of literary Turkism gradually transcended Ottoman Turkey’s borders, spreading into the Azerbaijani literary environment and influencing Azerbaijani writers and poets. In Azerbaijan, people discussed these ideas, which piqued their interest through newspapers, magazines, and books published in Istanbul. Azerbaijani writers and thinkers, inspired by these ideas, promoted them in their writings and sought to make them widespread. Even earlier, Mirza Fatali Akhundov, by creating works in his native language, laid the foundation for Turkism in terms of writing and language, albeit indirectly. After him, Hasan bey Zardabi, Ahmad bey Aghaoghlu, and especially Ali bey Huseynzadeh, contributed significantly to this movement through their writings. This paper explores the emergence, development, and dissemination of literary Turkism in Azerbaijan. (shrink)

From 1993-96, artist Rainer Ganahl held six reading seminars with six different bibliographies in six different countries and entitled this public project; "IMPORTED -- A READING SEMINAR, Or How to Reinvent the Coffee Table: 25 Books for Instant Use." Imported -- A Reading Seminar is an extension of that project and gathers together a collection of texts with the common theme of import. For this volume, Ganahl invited a series of authors who have an intimate relation with each country he (...) visited to contribute texts or interviews addressing the consequences of exchange, globalization, nationalism, multinationalism, Orientalism, Eurocentrism, tourism, languages, theory, desires, identity, and politics from a variety of perspectives.The interview between Kojin Karatani and Sabu Kohso, included in this volume, addresses important economical and political aspects along with its instrumentality in the construction of nations and of race consciousness; Bill Arning's text demonstrates how the author came to understand through his experience as a curator that sexuality always has a specific cultural context; Coco Fusco deals with issues of prostitution in socialist countries now in the process of transition to capitalism; dealing with displacement of collective identities and their representation, Sami Naïr asks the question: What is it to be Arab? And Sylvere Lotringer: How can one become a foreigner in a foreign country. The resulting volume includes texts in English, Japanese, Russian, German, and French by nineteen different authors. Knowledge of a foreign language helps, but is not necessary. Along with those already mentioned included are texts by Julia Kristeva, Gayatri Spivak, Edward Said, Zeigam Azizov, Lisa Adkins, Dan Bacalzo, Benjamin Buchloh, Karen Kelsky, Dana Leonard, Edward Soja, Victor Tupitsyn, Wulf Schmidt-Wulfen. (shrink)