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| A Traditional Turkish Bath |
For Tuesday's class, answer TWO of the following for our last essay before we take a short break from reading and work on Paper #1! Remember to look up words you're not familiar with (or can't remember), and think about the Title and the Opening Paragraph.
Q1: This essay is also a mini-history lesson about Turkish baths and Turkish culture. Why do you think the author does this, considering the essay is really about how COVID is making it difficult to visit the baths like she used to? In other words, why is the historical context important?
Q2: Jamison writes that "Visiting the hammams of Istanbul was like taking a rigorous course in pleasure itself, a syllabus committed to exploring the granular texture of bodily enjoyment, and to proving that pleasure holds its own pathways to meaning, that it might matter most at precisely those moments when it seems most out of place" (44). What do you think she means by this? Why in a world experiencing COVID-19 and lockdowns, are Turkish baths and the pleasures they offer so important? Why do we need to read an essay about them when people are literally dying or being hospitalized?
Q3: She also writes that in the baths, its easier to understand who people really are, since "everyone's impassivity is cracked open--at least in brief glimpses--by physical extremity and pleasure" (47). Why do the baths allow us to see people in a more true or honest light? What does she think they really do to people?
Q4: Obviously, we can't go to a Turkish bath (or hammam) in Ada, Oklahoma, so we can't completely understand what she sees and feels there. But based on what she's writing about, where could we have a similar experience here, or even in your own hometown? Where can we feel that "there are literally 7 billion other ways to be alive besides the particular way I am alive" (48)?
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