Companionship, Compassion, Violence: Encounters between Humans and Cats in the Time of Servet-i Fünûn Journal

Abstract

This study discusses selected texts in the collection Geçmiş Zaman Kedileri: TürkEdebiyatında Kedi Metinleri (1870-1950) (Cats of The Past: Cat Texts in TurkishLiterature) in relation to the context of the Servet-i Fünûn journal with a focus on“human and nonhuman” relations in the light of recent debates in posthumanist theories. Looking at the temporal overlap of fiction and non-fiction texts in the collectionand fiction and non-fiction texts in the journal from a search in the journal’s databasewith the keywords “cat”, “animal”, “nature”, etc., I give a close reading and discussionof “cathood states” and the representation of nonhuman beings, and the similaritiesand differences between the texts in the collection and the journal. The textual representation of cats, nonhuman animals, and even microbes and bacteria offers variousconflicts and reconciliations regarding an anthropocentric understanding at a timewhen the modernist-humanist paradigm was dominant. Challenging the acceptanceof the existence of a precise line that distinguishes humans from nonhumans, nonhuman animals, this study aims at opening up the relationships of people and nonhumanbeings with comradeship, companionship, love, care, violence, and conflict relations.