The Linguistic Pandemic and the Crisis of Subjectivity: A Metamodern Memory Analysis of the Novel Sıcak Kafa

This study positions Afşin Kum’s dystopian novel Sıcak Kafa [Hot Skull] within the contemporary cultural logic of metamodernism, addressing a critical lacuna in the scholarship concerning memory’s function after postmodernism. It asks how the novel engages with Alison Landsberg and Timotheus Vermeulen’s nascent theory of “metamodern memory,” which posits a shift toward a politically paralyzing obsession with authenticity, origin, and the proprietorship of lived experience. Using a methodology of close reading guided by this theoretical framework, the analysis first demonstrates how Sıcak Kafa serves as a powerful diagnostic tool, meticulously instantiating the pathologies of the metamodern condition: a fragile subjectivity defined by trauma, a fetishistic reliance on corporeal indexes, and the societal balkanization fostered by a centrally controlled information ecosystem. The study’s central finding, however, is that the novel stages a radical break from this bleak diagnosis. It charts the protagonist’s ultimate rejection of the rational, trauma-defined self in favor of a post-rational, post-linguistic consciousness, culminating in a speculative vision of collective liberation. The article concludes that Sıcak Kafa is not merely an example of metamodernism but a profound and transformative critique of its political pessimism, offering a speculative path beyond its contemporary impasse.