Collisions, Deflections, and Conjunctions

This book studies the representations of Turks and Moors in Italian folktales. It offers an interdisciplinary frame of analysis that approaches the issue of Otherness from historical and literary contexts and addresses the stories and histories of enmity, captivity, exile, death, love, and reunion.

Witches, fairies, unicorns, giants, dwarves, gnomes, and talking animals. Folk tales feature many magical creatures and larger or smaller than life entities and are great for pastime activities. What if such enchanted beings are replaced by familiar figures of kings, queens, lords, peasants, pirates, and slaves? What if folk tales are given center stage to understand the international politics and sociocultural matters of a milieu? By analyses of Italian folktales and the notion of Other as represented by Turks and Moors, the book is premised to address the clashing, bifurcating, and intersecting paths of the ruling classes and the subaltern groups and is set to throw a light on the convoluted hegemonic relations between different strata in the Italian society in the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries.

Autorentext

A k n Çelikkol teaches and researches in the areas of American literature, comparative literature, and cultural studies in the Department of Western Languages and Literatures, Istanbul University. His research interests include African American literature, American political history, Early Modern English, and Italian Renaissance.

Inhalt

A survey of folklore theories Turks in Italian folktales Moors in Italian folktales