Save

Reading Yashar Khanum’s Memoirs with Edward Said

Contrapuntal Agency of an Exiled Woman

In: Kurdish Studies Journal
Author:
Kumru Toktamış Pratt Institute Brooklyn, NY USA

Search for other papers by Kumru Toktamış in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Close
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5966-9778
Download Citation Get Permissions

Access options

Get access to the full article by using one of the access options below.

Institutional Login

Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials

Login via Institution

Purchase

Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):

€36.93

Abstract

The memoirs of Yashar Khanum, the wife of a World War I Ottoman officer who was later the commander of the Kurdish Ararat rebellion, cover a decade of her post-World War I (forced) travels from 1920 to 1930/31. Her narration at a time of massive territorial changes in the aftermath of the Great War is explored using Edward Said’s conceptualization of contrapuntal, i.e., intellectual and analytical possibilities of exile as a counterpoint to existing narratives of history. Yashar Khanum’s memoirs mark and reveal the ambivalences of exclusion and forced mobility, shedding new light on the ethnographic and gendered qualities of a young woman’s observations of a politically and socially transforming world and its cathartic impact on her daily existence. Her narrative of homelessness, strangeness, and exile invites readers to reconsider received notions of land and territory, contested and emerging (national) belonging and identity, and gendered encounters.

Content Metrics

All Time Past 365 days Past 30 Days
Abstract Views 135 135 8
Full Text Views 9 9 1
PDF Views & Downloads 24 24 2