Welcome to issue seventeen of The Attention Span Newsletter by me, Canan “Ja’anan” Marasligil. I’m a writer, a literary translator and an artist based in Amsterdam.

Every other week, I take the time to reflect and offer a glimpse of how I see and feel the world through the lens of culture, art, translation, poetry and literature.

You can support my work via Patreon.

This will be the last issue of 2023, I will take a break and will send the next issue on 17 January 2024.

I wish you all healing, love, health and beauty for the new year. I hope you can celebrate whichever festivities you believe in surrounded by your loved ones.

EPISODE 17 SHOW NOTES

Listen to writer Ahdaf Soueif in Desert Island Discs - it’s an old recording (from 2012) but one I like going back to. I see Marina Abramović has recently appeared on the show as well. You can check all episodes online.

Read In the Shadow of the Holocaust. How the politics of memory in Europe obscures what we see in Israel and Gaza today by Masha Gessen in The New Yorker. (Gessen explains in an interview on Democracy Now what happened regarding the withdrawal of the Hannah Arendt prize they were going to be awarded in Germany).

Watch Anselm by Wim Wenders, a beautiful and poetic documentary about artist Anselm Kiefer. There is currently also an exhibition of his work at the Museum Voorlinden in The Hague.

Welcome to issue sixteen of The Attention Span Newsletter by me, Canan “Ja’anan” Marasligil. I’m a writer, a literary translator and an artist based in Amsterdam.

Every other week, I take the time to reflect and offer a glimpse of how I see and feel the world through the lens of culture, art, translation, poetry and literature.

You can support my work via Patreon.

EPISODE 16 SHOW NOTES

Those of us in the Netherlands have witnessed worrying election results two weeks ago. Part of me is shocked, another part of me is not surprised at all. We have seen populist discourses being normalized in many countries we thought were safely guarded behind democratic doors. Instead of penning an essay about my disappointment in the current politics, I have decided to share diary entries written and published in French in 2019 when I was in residency in the Bassin Minier, the former mining area in Northern France. The city where I was based has been governed by the far right since 2014. I felt the necessity to go back there, where I managed to find space for culture, literature, and translation among a group of resilient people. This is an edited version from the notebook entries from 2018-2019 which I have translated myself from French.

A collection of Nurdan Gürbilek’s work has been published in English in 2011 as The New Cultural Climate in Turkey: Living in a Shop Window in Victoria Holbrook’s translation.

Ses etme (video clip) by Athena.

Welcome to issue fifteen of The Attention Span Newsletter by me, Canan “Ja’anan” Marasligil. I’m a writer, a literary translator, an artist and a curator of cultural programmes based in Amsterdam.

Every other week, I take the time to reflect and offer a glimpse of how I see and feel the world through the lens of culture, art, translation, poetry and literature.

You can support my work via Patreon.

EPISODE 15 SHOW NOTES

Listen to Amal (Hope) by Egyptian producer Molotof and Tunisian singer Emel Mathlouthi, created in dedication of the perseverance of the Palestinian people (there is also a music video including English subtitles).

Read Arundhati Roy’s address at the Munich Literature Festival: “If we allow this brazen slaughter to continue, even as it is livestreamed into the most private recesses of our personal lives, we are complicit in it. Something in our moral selves will be altered forever.” I also invite you to read Anne Boyer’s resignation letter as New York Times Magazine’s poetry editor.

Watch The Burning Olive Tree, the first online reading organised by Poems for Palestine, a collective of poets I am a proud member and co-organiser of. We have brought together poets and writers from around the world, reading poetry they have written in solidarity with the Palestinian people. Poems were read in Iranian, Arabic, French, English, German…

Notebook notes from Threa Almontaser: https://www.threawrites.com

Welcome to issue fourteen of The Attention Span Newsletter by me, Canan “Ja’anan” Marasligil. I’m a writer, a literary translator, an artist and a curator of cultural programmes based in Amsterdam.

Every other week, I take the time to reflect and offer a glimpse of how I see and feel the world through the lens of culture, art, translation, poetry and literature.

You can support my work via Patreon.

EPISODE 14 SHOW NOTES

Listen to this beautiful song Land of Gold by Anoushka Shankar.

Read a poem and an essay from June 2021 by Fady Joudah, a Palestinian American physician, poet, and translator: My Palestinian Poem that “The New Yorker” Wouldn’t Publish in LA Review of Books.

Watch this gorgeous concert of Sevdaliza filmed at the Arts et Métiers Museum in Paris, available on ARTE TV.

Welcome to issue thirteen of The Attention Span Newsletter by me, Canan “Ja’anan” Marasligil. I’m a writer, a literary translator, an artist and a curator of cultural programmes based in Amsterdam.

Every other week, I take the time to reflect and offer a glimpse of how I see and feel the world through the lens of culture, art, translation, poetry and literature. Each issue has a short essay or some thoughts, a nerdy look at translation, a page from one of my notebooks, and a list of things to read, watch or listen to.

You can support my work via Patreon.

EPISODE 13 SHOW NOTES

Sumanth S Gopinath, associate professor of music theory at the University of Minnesota, discusses Steve Reich in an episode of Will Robin’s Sound Expertise Podcast.

“Enough With the Solidarity Statements. Why Art Institutions Should Stop Taking Positions on Geopolitical Events They Have Nothing to Do With” by Sascha Freudenheim, published on Artnet (16 October 2023).

The book Culture Strike: Art and Museums in an Age of Protest by Laura Raicovich.

LISTENING, WATCHING, READING

Listen to London-based DJ and producer Nabihah Iqbal’s music: her latest album DREAMER (2023) for instance, or discover her musical finds in the radio shows she hosts on NTS (like this latest episode from 10 October 2023 where she shares sounds she brought back from a recent trip to Lebanon; including “Remote Control” a 1980s tune from Beirut by Teddy Lane, music from The Bunny Tylers and Maya Yazbeck). And for the lucky ones among us in Amsterdam, Nabihah will perform at the Melkweg on 22 November 2023.

Read the poem Fuck Your Lecture on Craft, My People Are Dyingby Palestinian-American poet and reporter Noor Hindi (and also the poem I am referring to here above. Here is the Turkish translation Kahrolsun İş Bilirlik Ahkamınız, Halkım Ölüyor by Mertcan Karakuş a.k.a. Zakkum Kök).

Watch the documentary film The Shadow of the West (UK, 1983), written and narrated by Edward Said. Directed by Geoff Dunlop. In this film, Said examines Western attitudes to the Arabs and finds their origins in the Crusades, Hollywood and European empire building. He sees the Palestinian fate as the result of years of Western interference. This film is one of the ten episodes of The Arabs: A Living History and is available to watch on YouTube.

Welcome to issue twelve of The Attention Span Newsletter by me, Canan “Ja’anan” Marasligil. I’m a writer, a literary translator, an artist and a curator of cultural programmes based in Amsterdam.

Every other week, I take the time to reflect and offer a glimpse of how I see and feel the world through the lens of culture, art, translation, poetry and literature.

I also invite you to support my work via Patreon.

Thank you for your presence and attention!

Last summer, I wrote an essay on Etel Adnan for the Poëziekrant (translated to Dutch by Martine Wezenbeek), and my heart just told me that today is a good day to share the original English version with you. I have made a selection of photographs to accompany your reading, and the essay includes a list of references including writing and audiovisual material. My usual reading/watching/listening list, notes on translation and sketchbook page have been incorporated into this essay as accompanying resources that I hope will feed your thoughts, heart and soul.

SHOWNOTES

Essay written in Amsterdam in May 2023, published in De Poëziekrantin Dutch (translated by Martine Wezenbeek) in July 2023. Published in English for the first time in this newsletter.

All translations to English in the essay, unless otherwise stated, are my own.

 Books by Etel Adnan:

Surge. 2018.

THERE. In the Light and the Darkness of the Self and of the Other. 1997.

Sea & Fog. 2012.

“To Write in a Foreign Language” in Thom Donovan and Brandon Shimoda (eds), To look at the sea is to become what one is. An Etel Adnan Reader, vol. 1, New York 2014.

Van Gogh Museum exhibition catalogue:

Etel Adnan Vincent van Gogh. Kleur als taal / Colour as language. With writings by Sara Tas, Simone Fattal, Etel Adnan. Van Gogh Museum en Uitgeverij Tijdsbeeld, 2022.

(Translation to English of Sara Tas: Ted Alkins)

Interviews and hommages:

L’entretien infini - Etel Adnan - Conversation avec Hans Ulrich Obrist, Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, 2014. https://youtu.be/IiJqIVzN3z

Entretien avec Etel Adnan in Conversation avec Ricardo Karam, 2019 https://ricardokaram.com/podcasts

Dominique Eddé, “Etel, l’oiseau rare,” first published in French in L’Orient-Le Jour, 19 November 2021 (https://www.lorientlejour.com/article/1282043/etel-loiseau-rare.html) English translation by Ros Schwartz, January 2022

La beauté de la lumière, entretiens – Etel Adnan & Laure Adler. Avec Laure Adler, Hans Ulrich Obrist & Jean Frémon. Lecture par Nathalie Richard. Rencontre animée par Marie-Madeleine Rigopoulos. 18 mars 2022. https://maisondelapoesieparis.com/programme/la-beaute-de-la-lumiere-entretiens-etel-adnan-laure-adler/

Welcome to issue eleven of The Attention Span Newsletter by me, Canan “Ja’anan” Marasligil. I’m a writer, a literary translator, an artist and a curator of cultural programmes based in Amsterdam.  

Every other week, I take the time to reflect and offer a glimpse of how I see and feel the world through the lens of culture, art, translation, poetry and literature. Each issue has a short essay or reflection, a nerdy look at translation, a page from one of my notebooks, a list of things to read, watch or listen to, and a highlight from my archives.

I invite you to support my work via Patreon: http://patreon.com/theattentionspan

Thank you for your presence and attention!

SHOW NOTES

This episode of the podcast version comes with a delay as I was travelling. Below are the links I mention:

LISTENING, WATCHING, READING

Listen: Feeling in Turkish: (un)translatable. A playlist I made years ago with songs in Turkish which are so difficult to translate that the (im)possibility makes my heart ache.

Read: James Baldwin in Turkey. How Istanbul changed his career—and his life, a beautiful portrait of Baldwin in the context of his many years in Turkey, by Azareen Van der Vliet Oloomi in The Yale Review.

Watch: The Club/Kulüp on Netflix. I had watched the first season of the series when it came out in 2021. Walking in the neighbourhoods around Beyoğlu today brought me back to the story which takes place in that area and shows you the cosmopolitan and multilingual history of Istanbul in the 1950s.

Welcome to issue ten of The Attention Span Newsletter by me, Canan “Ja’anan” Marasligil. I’m a writer, a literary translator, an artist and a curator of cultural programmes based in Amsterdam.  

Every other week, I take the time to reflect and offer a glimpse of how I see and feel the world through the lens of culture, art, translation, poetry and literature. Each issue has a short essay or reflection, a nerdy look at translation, a page from one of my notebooks, a list of things to read, watch or listen to, and a highlight from my archives.

I invite you to support my work via Patreon: http://patreon.com/theattentionspan

Thank you for your presence and attention!

SHOW NOTES

Citations from: Elena Ferrante. Frantumaglia. A Writer’s Journey. (Translated by Ann Goldstein) Europa Editions, 2016. https://www.europaeditions.com/book/9781609452926/frantumaglia

Reading/Watching/Listening to

Listen/ Serpentine Podcast: Intimacies considers many forms, ideas, and understandings of intimacy. Host Gaylene Gould gathers perspectives from artists, designers, writers, thinkers, and others on how we can rekindle trust, and open ourselves up to new possibilities for connection. I was particularly touched by a reminder in the first episode, of the etymology of the word “curate”, which in its essence means “to care”.  https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/art-and-ideas/serpentine-podcast-intimacies/

Read/ Culture Strike: Art and Museums in an Age of Protest by Laura Raicovich. Since I’m talking about curating in this issue, I am sharing this book, in which Raicovich, a former director of the Queens Museum in New York, shows how art museums arose as colonial institutions bearing an ideology of neutrality that masks their role in upholding capitalist values. And she suggests how museums can be reinvented to serve better, public ends. There are lots of US specific cases, but most of the book can also speak to many of us working in different geographical and political contexts, it spoke to my vision as a curator of literary programmes, on many levels. https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2560-culture-strike

Watch/ Dichter bij Onze Coloniale Erfenis/Closer to Our Colonial Heritage is a programme series featuring poets, writers and spoken word artists accompanying the exhibition Our Colonial Heritage on show at the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam. They offer powerful and poignant reflections on colonial heritage and how colonialism affects our bodies, hearts, minds, relationships, life, and work. How this heritage belongs to all of us. I had the immense pleasure and honour to host one of the conversations after a performance by one of the poets, Nisrine Mbarki, and I have also translated the poems/performances of Nisrine and Joshua Timisela for these videos, made by the amazing Beyond Walls Collective, in partnership with the Tropenmuseum and Read My World. You can watch all the videos on the museum’s website: https://www.tropenmuseum.nl/nl/zien-en-doen/tentoonstellingen/onze-koloniale-erfenis/filmreeks-dichter-bij-onze-koloniale-erfenis (the website is in Dutch, but the videos have all English subtitles).

Welcome to issue nine of The Attention Span Newsletter by me, Canan “Ja’anan” Marasligil. I’m a writer, a literary translator, an artist and a curator of cultural programmes based in Amsterdam.  

Every other week, I take the time to reflect and offer a glimpse of how I see and feel the world through the lens of culture, art, translation, poetry and literature. Each issue has a short essay or reflection, a nerdy look at translation, a page from one of my notebooks, a list of things to read, watch or listen to, and a highlight from my archives.

I invite you to support my work via Patreon: http://patreon.com/theattentionspan

Thank you for your presence and attention!

SHOW NOTES

City in Translation: https://www.cityintranslation.com

Poetry Translation Centre: https://www.poetrytranslation.org

Reading/Watching/Listening to

Listen/ I started listening to Living Archives, an oral histories project co-produced by the Stuart Hall Foundation and the International Curators Forum. The project is made up of six intergenerational conversations. Each conversation considers an alternative history of contemporary Britain through testimonies shared by UK-based diasporic artists working between the 1980s and the present-day. The project will form what Stuart Hall calls a “living archive of the diaspora”, which maps the development, endurance, and centrality of diasporic artistic production in Britain. It is hosted by ICF’s Deputy Artistic Director, Jessica Taylor who invites practitioners to reflect on the reasons they became artists, the development of their practices, the different moments and movements they bore witness to, and the beautiful reasons they chose to be in conversation with each other. https://www.stuarthallfoundation.org/projects/living-archives-podcast-artists/

Read/ “Picturing things, taking a view, is what makes us human; art is making sense and giving shape to that sense. It is like the religious search for God. We are well aware that making sense and picturing are artificial, like illusion; but we can never give them up.” These are notes from 1962 by painter Gerhard Richter, published in The Daily Practice of Painting, which assembles writing and interviews between 1962 and 1993, edited and introduced by Hans-Ulrich Obrist and translated from the German by David Britt. It’s one of the many books I have been gathering from the library (I go to university libraries and the local ones and have always a dozen of borrowed books around the house). I love reading several books in parallel. The context in which I read (whether it is external or internal) always influences how I will feel a text. I admire Richter as a painter and reading his thoughts, his process and vision is just fascinating. https://books.google.nl/books/about/The_Daily_Practice_of_Painting.html?id=lPoE70v9ERQC&redir_esc=y

Watch/ I waited for weeks to find the right time to see Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer at the cinema. I would need to have had eaten before, bring water and snacks, make sure I am rested so I can make it for more than three hours seated in a cinema. But these all went out the window last week when, following a conversation which made me reflect on questions regarding integrity, moral and ethical responsibility in the positions I hold within culture, I decided to go for a walk and my steps made me cross the IJ river to the EYE Cinema where they show Oppenheimer in 70mm. I didn’t check the time once, I was deeply engaged in the complicated story, the magnitude of Nolan’s visual language, the mesmerizing music, the superb acting and flawless cinematography. Of course, there are many angles to read this film from, and I understand the different critical point of views. But in that moment, I needed that intense cinematic and human experience. I have loved many of Nolan’s films and was disappointed in a few others. This one will be added to my beloved ones. https://www.eyefilm.nl/en/whats-on/oppenheimer/976513

Welcome to issue eight of The Attention Span Newsletter by me, Canan “Ja’anan” Marasligil. I’m a writer, a literary translator, an artist and a curator of cultural programmes based in Amsterdam. 

Every other week, I take the time to reflect and offer a glimpse of how I see and feel the world through the lens of culture, art, translation, poetry and literature. Each issue has a short essay or reflection, a nerdy look at translation, a page from one of my notebooks, a list of things to read, watch or listen to, and a highlight from my archives.

If you prefer an audio experience, you can listen to me reading the newsletter to you. You can also support my work via Patreon. 

Thank you for your presence and attention!

EPISODE 8 SHOW NOTES

The song “özledim” by Candan Erçetin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDHnvtc3BKM

Reading/Watching/Listening to

Read/ The British Library in London celebrated its 50th anniversary on 1 July 2023 (I honestly thought it was a centuries-old institution). This report exploring the British Library’s history, mission and work takes us behind the scenes. I find it fascinating! https://londonist.com/london/features/british-library-50-years-tour-secrets   

Watch/ a 4-minute-long documentary on 93-year-old artist Dorothea Rockburne in her New York studio. This short film is part of a documentary series by Limelight that follows the lives of different New Yorkers. I came across it via an Instagram ad (one of those moments when you regain faith in the “social” of social media). The channel is the creation of 24-year-old documentary filmmaker, Josh Charow. All films are made by Josh and a small crew of friends willing to lend a hand on the projects. I was very inspired by the video and discovering an artist I didn’t know, and now I’ll follow the channel too.
https://www.instagram.com/limelightdocs/
https://youtu.be/N_FgE-lVs8s

Listen/ This one is for those of you who can understand French. I always love listening to the radio, and France Culture is one of my go-to, especially when I want to listen to documentary series or interviews. One of the programmes I love is à voix nue which focuses on a new figure every week, interviewed all week long (5 episodes) with each episode highlighting a period of their lives. A recent focus was on artist Niki de Saint Phalle. You can start listening here: https://www.radiofrance.fr/franceculture/podcasts/a-voix-nue/l-experience-du-rire-1900743