Tales from the expat harem : foreign women in modern Turkey / [edited by] Anastasia M. Ashman, Jennifer Eaton Gokmen.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Ashman, Anastasia M.

Gökmen, Jennifer Eaton.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women--Turkey--20th century.

Women.

Visitors, Foreign--Turkey--20th century.

Visitors, Foreign.

Turkey--Social life and customs--20th century.

Turkey.

Turkey--Social conditions--20th century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xvii, 293 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Emeryville, CA : Seal Press : Distributed by Publishers Group West, c2006.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

As the Western world struggles to comprehend the paradoxes of modern Turkey, Tales from the Expat Harem reveals its most personal nuances. This illuminating anthology provides a window into the country from the perspective of thirty-two expatriates from seven different nations artists, entrepreneurs, Peace Corps volunteers, archaeologists, missionaries, and others who established lives in Turkey for work, love, or adventure. Through narrative essays covering the last four decades, these diverse women unveil the mystique of the ?Orient," describe religious conflict, embrace...

Contents:

Kervansaray

Losing my gender at Troy / Maureen Basedow. Digging with rural workmen in the 1990s, a Bryn Mawr archaeologist tests the conventional wisdom of gender relations

Orienting express /Jennifer Eaton Gokmen. A dispirited and dependent woman reempowers herself by leading her visiting mother on an adventurous cross-country road trip

Hello, I love you / Amanda Coffin. A computer specialist in her forties struggles to thwart amorous advances of tireless would-be suitors as she tours eastern Turkey

Last stop on the Orient Express

The painting or the boy / Eveline Zoutendijk. When a devout hotel employee objects to an Ottoman painting hung in the lobby of a hotel, the Dutch hotel owner must decipher the paintings mystery and decide a course of action

Conversion in Erzurum / Susan Fleming Holm. In the 1960s, a Peace Corps volunteer in remote eastern Turkey weighs her cultural assumptions regarding female clothing and taboo body parts

The beat of a different drummer / Pat Yale. A Briton wishing to avoid a traditional livestock sacrifice as thanks for her new stone home hopes to repair the town's Ramazan drums instead

Hamam

Coming clean in Kayseri / Wendy Fox. In a steamy 13th-century Cappadocian bathhouse a morbidly shy English teacher confronts her self-image

Haze / Katherine Belliel. A heartbroken Michigan girl finds closure in Bursa at an ancient Ottoman bath, nurtured by her would-be Turkish sister-in-law

The goddess metamorphosis / Karen-Claire Voss. Taking part in a traditional bridal bath in 1995, a New Jersey scholar finds aspects of the ancient gddess culture alive and well in a Turkish hamam in central Anatolia

Femin-Istanbul / Dana Gonzalez. A public relations professional seeking the cure for an intimate ailment in Istanbul agonizes over assumed cultural taboos

Henna'd hands

Forever after, for now / Tanala Osayande. A thirty-year-old African American reviews the rules of engagement on the Istanbul dating scene, where rather than playing it cool the men won't stop calling

Village bride / Eppie Lunsford. A young woman from rural Tennessee connects to her Appalachian upbringing in the 1980s while participating in theatrical village weddings in central Turkey

A fine kettle of fish / Trici Venola. Love and chaos are one in the same in Istanbul for a dramatic Kurd and a midlife Los Angeleno

Tying the knot, Ottoman princess-style / Anastasia M. Ashman. A woman from bohemian California finds marrying into the Turkish high society, surrounded by paparazzi, is the fulfillment of a forgotten wish

Darbuka drumbeat

Dancing my way home / Diane Caldwell. A psychotherapist answers the enticing beat of a Turkish darbuka drum and escapes her rigid, twice-divorced life in Seattle

From the hip / Sally Green. A writing instructor compares the synthetic salacious approach to belly dancing in a Colorado recreation center with the spirited communal event she recalls from Turkey

Kin, cauldron and kismet

The language of family / Ana Carolina Fletes. Learning from her polished TV host mother-in-law, a Guatemalan grows into her femininity and her family, speaking Turkish with an unrivalled accent

The food factory / Catherine Yigit. In a women-filled kitchen on the Black Sea coast, a pregnant Irish bride helps prepare a feast to welcome the family's next bride

Cherry pie / Mahira Afridi-Perese. An affluent Pakistani who never learned to cook defends her American-born Turkish husband's right to bake when a man in the kitchen upsets his family patriarch

Water under the bridge / Catherine Salter Bayar. A clothing designer sets boundaries in the Seljuk home she shares with her Kurdish husband, his parents, and his nine siblings

Peddler in the bazaar

The business of the bazaar / Dena Sukaya. A Seattle retail executive abandons the boardroom for Istanbul's Grand Bazaar

Unpacking the pazar arabasi / Valerie Tairan. An American-born naturalized Turkish citizen reconciles the meaning of Turkishness with her own misguided assumptions

Charms and soothsayers

Ankara's fertile ground / Nancy Lunsford. A doubly pregnant Appalachian artist blooms in a land of fecundity and fortunetelling, where popcorn is magical and village midwives are more accurate than sonograms

A mother's charms / Maria Yarbrough Orhon. Doubtful of shamanistic charms and rituals in her Turkish husband's family, a South Carolina woman nevertheless learns to conduct them on her own

Evil eye exorcism / Annie Prior Ozsara. When a series of accidents befall a young couple in Istanbul, Turkish relatives call on their Black Sea matriarch to perform a shamanistic exorcism

Homespun hospitality

Rescued by village intelligence / Claire Uhr. Stricken with influenza, a friendless Australian finds surprise succor with unknown Cappadocian neighbors

The headman's pajamas / Jessica Lutz. Village men in a desolate war-torn border town near Iraq in 1993 maintain impeccable standards of civility toward a Dutch journalist who smuggles herself into their lives

Hijacked / Kathleen Hamilton Gundogdu. Traveling alone by bus to Konya during a civil unrest, a young Texan secretary is unexpectedly detoured

Failed missionary / Rhonda Vander Sluis. A Christian evangelist from Iowa is transformed by the compassion of Turkish souls she hopes to save.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

ISBN:

1-282-46903-7

9786612469039

1-58005-330-0

OCLC:

647827055