Jessica: Fascinating paper! Thank you.
Jiré: I enjoyed your talk a lot, thank you!
Veera: Great presentation
Ayça: Hi, your presentation was very enjoyable. Thank you.
Sumeyra: thanks a lot
Alexander: Hi, just writing to say I found this talk fascinating, and made me long to read the The Woman in Other Universe!
Sumeyra: Hi Alexander, thanks a lot. The author is the only one focusing on queer and transgender in cyberpunk when we consider the negative atmosphere in Turkey towards cyberqueer. queertopian cyberpunk universes are rare in western cyberpunk as well.
Alexander: I agree, disappointingly so. I think of Samuel R. Delany’s Triton as being vaguely about the concept of queertopia, or at least, querying it.
Sumeyra: yes, you are right. Delany is a good example. But in movie and films queertopian elements are seen such as in Black Mirror
Sumeyra: Turkish sci-fi and cyberpunk are interrelated to Islamicate, Şeyda Aydın’s novel is mostly related to Scandinavian myth. She offers utopian cyberpunk as well as dys(queer)topia
Steven: I enjoyed your presentation. Why the Scandanavian influence in the novel?
Sumeyra: There are so much resemblance between Turkic myth and Scandinavian, Nordic, Shaman and Pagan myths and the author wants to pick up strong goddesses rather than gods. In western cyberpunk we also see such mythological elements but I think near eastern ones focus on a lot
Muhammad: Are the similarities between the Turkic and the Nordic myths because of a distant common origin?
Sumeyra:yeah in terms of using ravens, birds, or other animals. Turkic myth has lots of goddess and gods having similar powers
but I mean Turkic myth before converted to Islam
Larisa: What is your opinion – is talking about Islamic SF feasible? I have doubts that religious inclinations add anything genre-specific to science fiction besides better understood cultural history of the countries in question. It would rather reflect beliefs of the author, but what may be the characteristics not met in texts by authors whose beliefs have nothing to do with Islam?
Sumeyra: you are right. Seyda Aydın is one of those authors you mention and her novels are anti-religious. I mean in Turkish SF, authors do not use Islam or religious elements so much and they focus more on transhumanism, posthumanism, and futurism. Cyberpunk is also weaved from an utopian perspective as a counter culture. I agree with you.
Şeyda Aydın, the author, is the first to focus on queer and transgender creating a cybertopian parallel universe criticising the dys(queer)topian universe, which reflects our real world. So, as Barthes announced the Death of the Author, there is no any influence or inclinations into the genre. In fact, Aydın’s novel does not reflect the cultural history of the country as it criticizes all patriarchal cultures as well as religions. For your question, in some cultures, some authors might have problem with the dominant culture or with hegemonic governances but it is not a case for Turkish sf at least right now as it is beyond any religion focus.
Ayça: do you think that the reason for not focusing on religion in Turkish SF is only the desire to create utopias that overcome inequality?
Sumeyra: I cannot talk about this for all Turkish sf authors but in terms of Seyda Aydın’s novel, yes it does. The novel creates a queertopian universe as an alternate parallel universe for Antero which is a homophobic and transphobic world.
Veera: the issue here is not directly about religion, it is just an element that adds color to the genre.
Sumeyra: I would say, As Turkey, we are technically a secular nation but practically we are culturally Muslim. But there is no influence of religion in Turkish SF. Yes, you are right, Veera that’s true for Turkish sci-fi, there is no influence of religion on the genre. It is beyond any religion.
Veera: there are only divine justice, karma and fantastic figures. For this reason, i use myths. Moreover, i use specially woman god figures. I never use an islami figure.
Ayça: I think this perspective presented by Şeyda Aydın as a woman from the Muslim country will be an inspiration for those who want to be another Turkish science fiction writer
Veera: Thank you so much.
Sumeyra: Seyda Aydın has Pagan and Scandinavian influences in her novels but she is from a Muslim country. So, as Barthes announces, we should remember the Death of the Author. Dune has Islamicate influences using Islamic terminology but is certainly not Islamic. So, culture and religious culture are different. So, the text is more important than the ideology the author as as readers the sf text is rewritten by the readers.
Larisa: The death of the author is a thing which shouldn’t be overestimated. Polemically it was right to call it that, to include the ever-existing reader’s appreciation formed by the reader’s experience and culture, but the author is a person too, and to see all the implications one should see as many of the circumstances, plans and the author’s intentions as one can. That’s the critic’s and the researcher’s task. Don’t you agree?
Sumeyra: This is a great question. Thanks you so much. Both yes and no. Yes, I agree that the author is a person and readers, critics can see the plans and intentions of the author. But, the intention of the author should be the focus of the reader who might read and interpret the references from his/her experience and culture, that’s why there are so different articles about the same novel. So, as a researcher I interpret Şeyda Aydın’s novel in terms of queer theory with the text’s cyberqueertopian parallel universe to criticize a homophobic/transphobic cyberpunk dystopia with her queer and transgender characters, but it does not mean that I focus on the author’s ideology rather on the text, the novel itself.
Even for autobiographical novels, the writer and the author might be different as he/she becomes a character, fictional or not. Just think that you are reading a novel that the author aims to give a radical political and religious messages opposite to yours, so the author’s personal thoughts do not shape and affect your way of criticism that you can read and analyze the novel quite differently, don’t you agree? So, readers should thus, according to Roland Barthes whom I agree, separate a literary work from its creator in order to liberate the text from interpretive tyranny. Each text has multiple layers and meanings but the essential meaning of a text depends on the impressions of the reader rather than the “intentions”, “plans”, “passions” or “tastes” of the author. So, each text is “eternally written” with each re-reading, that’s I agree with Barthes that the “origin” of meaning lies not in its creator but in “language itself” and its impressions on me, as the reader, critic or researchers because there is not a single Author-God meaning but reader-multidimensional-meaning. No, I don’t agree, the critic’s and the researcher’s task should be to focus on the intentions of the author but to focus on his/her own interpretations of the text.
Larisa: No one is arguing that you can adopt any approach which you consider feasible for you as a researcher. Only Barth is also just a person with an opinion which you adopt as it coincides with your task at the moment and not expressing any immanent truth per se, just stressing and absolutizing another part of creative process. It was revolutionary and started structuralism, but since then there emerged other approaches, the ones you name and apply included. To me such cutting out a part leading to the creation of the text is seeing with one eye. So while applying any method of analysis the researcher should recognize its partiality. And in your case looking into the author’s motivations might make your arguments more valid.
Sumeyra: thank you so much for your valuable comments. Yes, in this case, it might help.
Mikail: Hi Sumeyra … My question regarding your topic – cyberpunk is of course a dystopian critique of our time (among other things), the lesbian relationship publicization campaign in the novel you are referring to is an allusion to which political scandal? It is my impression that lesbianism in general is received much more positively with the general public, unlike male sexuality. And if anything it is used nowadays in the West to propel one’s career in public sphere… (not to say it works the same way with the working class for example). Why then the author would choose this angle?
Sumeyra: Hi Mikail, that a very good question. Thanks a lot. In fact, the novel portrays two different parallel universes and in Netta, queertopian one we see diverse sexes and even transgender people are very happy with eternal freedom. In Netta there is no scandal, but when the protagonist travels to the parallel universe which is quite the opposite one ruled by homophobic/transphobic patriarchy, Veera’s wife Eeeva who is reflected a famous artist, begin to have problem with the government and the society when the couple reunite in this dystopic universe. Media becomes a means to create scandals on the artist for her lesbian affair but we also see the same lynching campaigns for gays, and transgender people. Even people are forced to hide their preferences and prisoned to male or woman body forms. I do not think that lesbians are received mush more positively but maybe not so much negatively as gays or transgender, but we cannot say that our society or mostly governments offer equality beyond binary sexes. In how many countries can lesbians, gays and transgender marry and have children? Or they live as equal as binary gender. I do not think that in the West there are gender freedom or racial freedom or it works in public sphere.
Feminist cyberpunk changes cyberpunk’s white masculine and heterosexual forms. That’s why I think the novel is beyond any culture from West to East, conveying a hope for a better future, worlds or universes with non-binary gender with fluid gender identities.
Mikail: Thank you for the reply and explanation! I guess, I’m more bound to the darker understanding of Cyberpunk, which does not envision moving beyond the bleak reality, but only provides shades of resistance and hope, overall reality retains status quo. Here, the solution is given in a fairly easy way, as a fantasy where things just work out well and better with their child. On the other hand I see a paradox with feminist or masculist cyberpunk aimed at gender issues, in that if one should go with either version of cyberpunk, one inevitably reaches the point where gender becomes irrelevant (as machine) or unlimited (as in limitless kinds of it), which then disconnects the novel (game, film…) from related problems in reality. If we are not human anymore – male or female are rather irrelevant, we’re just instances…
Sumeyra: I am in between or beyond utopian and dystopian as Donna Haraway says, maybe we should learn to “stay with the trouble”. Yes, in the novel the solution is shown with their posthuman child who will try to end the troubles in dystopian universe in the third novel. But, you are right, maybe posthumanity will bring a darker picture bringing multiple sexes and so multiple gender troubles or species battle. I think Aydın’s feminist cyberpunk conveys the message that we should think beyond gender, beyond borders and universes. Then cheers for a better future with gender-neutral/free or genderless society away from gender binary. Thanks a lot for your valuable contributions and beautiful comments Mikail.