Cultural Encounters

This book owes to my summer-long affiliation with the Shakespeare Library at Ludwig Maximilian University in München. I wish to express my gratitude to Prof. Claudia Olk for hosting my study in such a challenging research environment. My heartfelt thanks go to my lifelong academic mentor, Prof. Özden Sözalan, for being always so supportive and providing us with such a distinct atmosphere of study at İstanbul Bilgi University, Department of English Language and Literature, as head of the department. I owe a special thanks to Prof. Aslı Tekinay, whom I keep consulting at each and every academic step I take, ever since I took her inspiring drama lectures at Boğaziçi University. I feel indebted to my dear colleague and beloved friend, Prof. Naz Bulamur, for her invaluable support and constructive suggestions during this study. Many thanks to my postdoc academic sponsor, Prof. Deborah Cartmell, for enabling such secure access to the fantastic world of Adaptation Studies. I also wish to express my gratitude to my dear colleagues at İstanbul Bilgi University, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, and my dear students at İstanbul Bilgi University and Boğaziçi University for the intriguing discussions feeding this study.

Another heartfelt thanks goes to dear members of my family for bearing with me at each and every stage of this journey. My lifelong partner, Dr. Bülent Tekin, my inspiring son, Mert Tekin, my creative daughter, Derin Tekin, my loving parents, Prof. Leman Bilgin and Servet Bilgin, my beloved sister, Güller Pınar Bilgin, without your enduring support, this would not have been possible. Each and every academic work reflects an accumulation of emotional and intellectual wealth. I feel grateful to my late grandparents, Mustafa Sami-Yıldız Dinçer and Ahmet-Fatma Ayten Bilgin, for initiating my intellectual enthusiasm in reading and writing. Heartfelt thanks to all my teachers, lecturers and storytellers, established writers and potential ones as well as keen readers, whose indirect presence I can trace in each and every word I have been writing.

This book contextually, methodologically and structurally draws on intertextual engagements, which are connected and responsive to one another, within a broadly given context of cultural encounters.

Both the texts that are dealt within the chapters and the chapters themselves share a common ground in approaching intertextuality as a counter-oppressive method, accommodating postcolonial, feminist posthumanist and therefore intersectionally inclusive responses to the hegemonic discourses.