Past Not-So-Perfect: Ararat and Its Reception in Turkey
- Submitting institution
-
The University of Westminster
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- q2845
- Type
- D - Journal article
- DOI
-
10.1353/cj.2014.0069
- Title of journal
- Cinema Journal
- Article number
- -
- First page
- 45
- Volume
- 54
- Issue
- 1
- ISSN
- 0009-7101
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of publication
- November
- Year of publication
- 2014
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
0
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Koksal’s article examines the reception in contemporary Turkey of Ararat (Atom Egoyan), a film that deals with the Armenian Genocide of 1915 and its effects on later generations of Armenians. Turkey was the country where the genocide took place. Its publication coincided with the centenary of the genocide, and it was published in the Cinema Journal, one of the most important film studies journals in the United States.
Even before it was released in 2002, Ararat caused heated debates in Turkey and elsewhere as a result of its subject matter. The event is widely referred to as genocide in the literature but this is denied in Turkey. Koksal’s article focuses on the mechanisms of denial of traumatic memory and the rhetoric it produces, looking at the problematic reception of the film in Turkey.
Koksal’s methodology differentiates her article from other publications on the topic of Armenian Genocide, and from scholarly work on Ararat. Rigorous and careful analysis of the rhetoric produced on the film by journalists, opinion leaders, as well as academics in Turkey, is juxtaposed with the close analyses of key scenes from the film that were either taken out of context and/or ignored altogether in order to produce denialist rhetoric. Such an approach allows the discussion to paint a picture of the politics of memory and its erasure in contemporary Turkey, as well as offering a novel approach to analysing similar traumatic historical events and their representation in film and visual culture.
Koksal’s subsequent monograph, submitted as another output, has a chapter which analyses Ararat along with other films from a stylistic and thematic perspective. The chapter does not reproduce the article, which specifically looks at the film’s reception in Turkey.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -
