Karanlık Şehirler, Kent Distopyaları, Ümitvar Açılımlar: Abluka, "Üçüncü Çocuk", Körfez

Abstract

In this thesis urban dystopias and dystopian cities produced in Turkish literature and cinema in the 2000s are examined through focusing Emin Alper’s movie called Frenzy (2015), Mehmet Açar’s short story “The Third Child” (2018) and Emre Yeksan’s The Gulf (2017). It is argued that these works were produced in response to the socio-political and cultural changes such as rapid urbanization, neo-liberal policies, identity conflicts, and authoritarian tendencies, which have been decisive in the context of Turkey in recent years. Furthermore, in the context of utopian/dystopian studies, the relations between canonical works that stand out in the world literature or cinema with these dystopian cities created in Turkey is also discussed. The study examines how writers and directors employ the city as both a heterotopic space of struggle and resistance, and a source of anxiety, fear, alienation, and a source of domination. The thesis focuses on four main themes in the context of totalitarianism, architecture and urban politics: The capitalist city and the livings on its fringes, the design of the city as a scene of violence and despotism; the representation of modernist urban utopias as dystopia, future installations through alternative scenarios. The study aims to contribute to the field of utopian/dystopian and urban studies by examining urban dystopias, a subject that has inadequately studied in literature and cinema, with examples from Turkey.