13/02/2017 | Writer: Kaos GL

Talim-Terbiye as the theme of the 6th issue of Kaos Q+ questions how queer bodies are trained and tamed.

KaosQ+ will focus on Talim-Terbiye* Kaos GL - News Portal for LGBTI+

Talim-Terbiye as the theme of the 6th issue of Kaos Q+ questions how queer bodies are trained and tamed. Journal waits contributions until April 1.

                                                 Cover of journals 5th issue

Peer-reviewed academic journal KaosQ+’s next issue will focus on “Talim-Terbiye”. Issue’s editor is Prof. Dr. Barış Kılıçbay. Journal waits articles for its 6th issue until April 1. Call for paper and detailed description of the theme follows:

The Turkish Word “terbiye”, having triple meaning used in gastronomy (sauced dishes or recipes with dressing), morality (a well-behaved/ civilized/ polite child) and in education in a broader context (discipline, training, cultivation…) has been one of the leading terms in humanities - and particularly in queer theory- with its full array of weighty and layered connotations.  It is observed that as an object of investigation terbiye has been explored and discussed yet again with a variety of concepts such as education, formation, pedagogy, taming, bio-politics, Bildung, identity, discipline, heteronormativity, and wellness. Having thought of these terms, of course, it is almost inevitable to consider some other concepts such as nation, citizenship, body, power, childhood, disability, sexuality, perversity, normality, religion, militarism, capitalism, performance, and legality. 

“The Board of Education (Talim ve Terbiye Kurulu) is composed of the words “talim” and “terbiye.” While the former means both ‘training’ and ‘instructing (precept)’, the latter means both education/ educating and smoothing/ taming. Since the establishment of the board in 1926, it has had the mission of forming the school education system in Turkey. This mission is summarized in the article 2/b of the board’s regulation as the following: “To determine what kind of human beings the national education system intends to create.”

“Taking this precise connotations map, Talim - terbiye as the theme of the 6th issue of Kaos Q+ questions how queer bodies are trained and tamed. While doing this, it reveals that heteronormativity is not only a decisive aspect of the education with capital “E” but rather articulated with everyday cultivating mechanisms. Besides, in this issue, it is examined that how “right” or “wrong” as pedagogical categories can be read in a queer manner and how non-heteronormal sexualities and bodies are disciplined by metanarratives such as nation, religion, economy, and law. And depending upon these, this issue invites many other questions associated with the ubiquity of terbiye by elaborating how heteronormality is also tamed by these discourses and how tamed subjectivities are shaped/reproduced/positioned by everyday practices, culture, entertainment and literature…”

For detailed information about the journal please click here.

What is KaosQ+?

KaosQ+ is a peer-reviewed periodical journal that aims at a collection of reflective practices on issues ranging from genders, sexualities to ability, class, and ethnicity, and their intersections in different contexts such as arts, history, sociology, politics or medicine.

KaosQ+ welcomes theoretical contributions and sharing of practical experiences and knowledges that derive their interventionist motivations from the assessment that in modern societies, sexual, social, cultural economic relations or sexual, religious, ethnic etc. identities are shaped and reshaped by diverse and at times intersecting power relations. Such an assessment also argues that such power relations, identities and practices are historically constructed and for this reason, they can be traced and even reversed both at theoretical and practical levels. With the collection of reflective practices, essays, narratives, historiographies, studies, artworks etc. on the present and the current functioning of power relations, the journal aims at contributing to the praxis of transformation of existing relations.

Where and how gender, sexual identities and sexualities interact and intersect with other inequalities within specific power mechanisms? What power relations are verified and sustained and which ones are made irrelevant or transformed? How they operate on subjects and what kinds of subjectivities and relations are produced? Which type of inequalities are produced and how they can be sustained? How can we assess the normalizing, disciplinary or marginalizing effects of dominant power relations?

KaosQ+ also desires to undertake the endeavour of discovering and sharing of the knowledge of practices of resistance, transformation, and solidarity building. Analyses of the dynamic and impacts of these activities on the social, cultural, economic and political domains and their transformative potentials are also among the interests of the journal.

The Editorial Board of KaosQ+, therefore, is calling for academics, activists and anyone who would like to take part in the journey of discovering new ways of interactions among academic disciplines, study areas and activisms. With a will to trespass the boundaries of established norms and forms of knowledges and practices, we would like to suggest this attempt to be transdisciplinary in its effort and in its impact.

Overall, we announce the birth of KaosQ+, a site of meeting of transdiciplinary, reflective and queer practicesand send out an invitation to everyone to participate in this journey.  


Tags: human rights, education
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