Direnişi Arşivlemek: Distopya Yazınında Hafıza ve Muhalif Kayıtlar

Year 2023, Volume: 17 Issue: 1, 62 - 79, 30.06.2023

Burcu Kayışcı Akkoyun

https://doi.org/10.47777/cankujhss.1221173

Abstract

Edebi ütopyalar başka yer ve zamanlarda konumlanan hayali iyi yerler olarak geri getirilemez bir geçmişe duyulan özlemi dile getirebilir. Ancak daha da önemlisi, şimdiden duyulan sosyopolitik hoşnutsuzlukları ve geleceğe dair görüşleri ifade eder. Ütopya tahayyülleri belirli tarihsel konjonktürleri değerlendirerek daha iyi alternatifler sunduğundan işleyişlerinde hafızanın temel bir yeri vardır. Yirminci yüzyılın ilk dönemlerinden itibaren distopya yazınının yükselişiyle, hafızanın korunması ya da tahrip edilmesi ile ilgili meseleler ön plana çıkmıştır. Yazarlar, totaliter düzenlerin geçmiş, şimdi ve gelecek arasındaki bağları nasıl yeniden şekillendirdiğini ya da kopardığını, bu düzenlere karşı duran karakterlerin alternatif anlatılar üreterek politik baskılara nasıl karşı geldiğini hikayelemiştir. Geçmiş ve şimdiye ait kayıtların yok edilişine karşılık kişisel ve toplumsal arşivler oluşturma mücadelesi pek çok distopik eserin ortak temasını oluşturur. Bu çalışma, türün belli başlı örneklerine değinerek “muhalif kayıt tutma” adını verdiğim izleği, distopya yazını, hafıza ve arşiv ile ilgili teorik okumalar ışığında ele almaktadır. Çalışma, yazarların eserlerinde yazarlık ve otoriteye dair sorunları göz ardı etmeksizin tahayyül ettikleri muhalif kayıtlar aracılığıyla ütopik değişim olasılığını koruduğu sonucuna varır.

Keywords

arşiv, hafıza, ütopya, distopya, kayıt tutma

Archiving the Resistance: Memory and Oppositional Recordkeeping in Dystopian Fiction

Abstract

As imaginary good places located elsewhere and/or in another time, literary utopias may articulate nostalgic yearnings for an irretrievable past, but more significantly, they express socio-political discontent with the present and anticipations for the future. The role of memory is thus central in utopian configurations since they present better alternatives primarily by “remembering” and evaluating specific historical conjunctures. In line with the increasing prominence of dystopian fiction starting from the early twentieth century, issues concerning the preservation and destruction of memory have become more relevant. Authors portray how totalitarian regimes and corporations reshape or sever the links between the past, the present, and the future while defiant characters resist political oppression by forming alternative narratives. The struggle to construct personal and collective archives against the obliteration of past and present records makes recordkeeping a common theme and trope in many dystopian narratives. This paper examines the various forms of what I call “oppositional recordkeeping” in the selected major examples of the genre through theories of dystopia, memory, and the archive. The paper will conclude that authors of dystopian fiction preserve the possibility of utopian change by imagining various oppositional recordkeeping practices without overlooking the problems entailed in authority and authorship.

Keywords

Archive, memory, utopia, dystopia, recordkeeping

References

• Adorno, T. W. (2007). Negative dialectics (E.B. Ashton, Trans.). Continuum. (Original work published in 1966).
• Atasoy, E. (2015). Impediment to knowledge and imagination in Ray Bradbury’s dystopian novel, Fahrenheit 451. Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi Dergisi 55(1), 399-414.
• Atwood, M. (1998). The handmaid’s tale. Anchor Books. (Original work published in 1985).
• Atwood, M. (2011). In other worlds: SF and the human imagination. Anchor Books.
• Baccolini, R. and Moylan, T. (2003). Introduction: Dystopias and histories. In R. Baccolini & T. Moylan (Eds.), Dark horizons: Science fiction and the dystopian imagination (pp. 1-12). Routledge.
• Baccolini, R. (2000). Gender and genre in the feminist critical dystopias of Katharine Burdekin, Margaret Atwood, and Octavia Butler. In M. S.Barr (Ed.), Future females, the next generation: New voices and velocities in feminist science fiction criticism (pp. 13-34). Rowman & Littlefield.
• Bloom, H. (2008). Introduction. In Harold Bloom (ed.), Bloom’s modern critical interpretations: Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 (pp. 1-2). Infobase Publishing.
• Bradbury, R. (2008). Fahrenheit 451. Harper Voyager. (Original work published in 1953).
• Bradbury, R. (2008). Burning bright. In Harold Bloom (ed.), Bloom’s modern critical interpretations: Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 (pp. 55-61). Infobase Publishing.
• Butler, O. (2007). Parable of the sower. Grand Central Publishing. (Original work published in 1993).
• Cristofaro, D. D. (2020). The politics of the archive in nineteen eighty-four. In N. Waddell (Ed.), The Cambridge companion to nineteen eighty-four (pp. 51–63). Cambridge University Press. doi.org/10.1017/9781108887090.004.
• Da Silva J. B. (2020). Utopia and cultural memory: A survey of themes and critical problems. Utopian Studies (31), 314-324. doi.org/10.5325/utopianstudies.31.2.0314
• Derrida, J. (1996). Archive fever: A Freudian impression (E. Prenowitz, Trans.). University of Chicago Press.
• Derrida. J. (2002). Archive fever in South Africa. In C. Hamilton et al. (Eds), Refiguring the archive (pp. 38-60). Academic Publishers.
• Elphick, K. (2014). Discursive transgressions and ideological negotiations: from Orwell’s 1984 to Butler’s parable of the sower. In S. M. Bernardo, D. E. Palumbo & C.W. Sullivan III (Eds.), Environments in science fiction: Essays on alternative spaces (pp. 171-190). McFarland.
• Finigan, T. (2011). Into the memory hole: Totalitarianism and mal d’Archive in nineteen eighty-four and the handmaid’s tale. Science Fiction Studies 38 (3), 435-459. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5621/sciefictstud.38.3.0435.
• Geoghegan, V. (1990). Remembering the future. Utopian Studies, 1(2), 52-68. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20719000.
• Guerrero, P. B. (2021). Post-apocalyptic memory sites: Damaged space, nostalgia, and refuge in Octavia Butler's parable of the sower.” Science Fiction Studies 48(1), 29-45. 10.1353/sfs.2021.0012.
• Halbwachs, M. (1992). On collective memory. (L. A. Coser, Trans.). University of Chicago Press.
• Hanson, C. F. (2020). Memory and utopian agency in utopian/dystopian literature: Memory of the future. Routledge.
• Howells, C. A. (1996). Modern novelists: Margaret Atwood. Macmillan Education.
• Hurtgen, J. (2016). Archival domination in Fahrenheit 451. Journal of Science Fiction 1(2), 3-46.
• Ketelaar, E. (2005). Recordkeeping and societal power. In S McKemmish, M. Piggott, B. Reed & F Upward (Eds.), Archives: Recordkeeping in society (pp. 277-298). Chandos Publishing.
• Moylan, T. (1986). Demand the impossible: Science fiction and the utopian imagination. Methuen.
• Moylan, T. (2000). Scraps of the untainted sky: Science fiction, utopia, dystopia. Westview Press.
• Orwell, G. (1977). Nineteen eighty- four. New American Library. (Original work published in 1949).
• Ricoeur, P. (2004). Memory, history, forgetting (K. Blamey & D. Pellauer, Trans.). University of Chicago Press.
• Seed, D. (1994). The flight from the good life: Fahrenheit 451 in the context of postwar American dystopias. Journal of American Studies, 28(2), 225-240. doi:10.1017/S0021875800025470.
• Wood, D. (2008). Bradbury and Atwood: Exile as rational decision. In Harold Bloom (ed.), Bloom’s modern critical interpretations: Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 (pp. 43-54). Infobase Publishing.