Journal article

Publication year: 2017

Pages: 215-232

Journal: International Journal of Middle East Studies

Volume number: 49

Issue number: 2

ISSN: 0020-7438

eISSN: 1471-6380

Open access status: Bronze

DOI Link: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020743817000022

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Abstract: 
The sociosexual world of the premodern Middle East has been studied through a variety of sources ranging from legal documents to shadow theater. Most such sources are either prescriptive or transgressive: they uphold or subvert a normative framework, telling us more about the framework itself than about how it was inhabited by subjects in everyday life. This study introduces the Tfli stories as a descriptive source that transcends the prescriptive-transgressive dichotomy. An Ottoman-Turkish genre of prose fiction produced at least from the 18th to the 20th century, the Tfli stories were a protorealist form of "pulp fiction." Where most sources sought to stabilize specific sociosexual roles, the Tfli stories explored the ambiguities inherent in these roles. This study employs the Tfli stories to interrogate understandings of the Ottoman sociosexual world that rely strongly on normative sources and to stage an approximation of how norms were negotiated in practice.

Harvard Citation style: Sayers, D. (2017) SOCIOSEXUAL ROLES IN OTTOMAN PULP FICTION, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 49(2), pp. 215-232. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020743817000022

APA Citation style: Sayers, D. (2017). SOCIOSEXUAL ROLES IN OTTOMAN PULP FICTION. International Journal of Middle East Studies. 49(2), 215-232. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0020743817000022