Congist'26: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Crisis

Session

Session 3.1 (Day 3)

D3-S3-A6

15 May 2026, 13:15

A6 (Istanbul University Faculty of Letters)

Conveners

Session 3.1 (Day 3): Edebiyat Bilimi / Literary Studies

• Zeynep Bilge (Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University)

Crisis in Seneca: Stoic Promise or Tragic Failure? (D3-S3-A6)

Bengü Cennet Coşkun (Istanbul University)

15/05/2026, 13:15

Oral Presentation

Seneca’s works exhibit a profound duality in the portrayal of crisis. In his philosophical proses (esp. On Providence, Consolations, Letters on Ethics), crisis is presented as a way to prove Stoic virtue; it has an transformative effect on an individual and brings out virtues that the person is not yet aware of. Adversity is not a true evil but an opportunity to exercise endurance and...

Logos of Lies: Illocutionary Forces in the Realms of Shakespeare and Tolkien (D3-S3-A6)

Damir Kahrić (International University of Sarajevo)

15/05/2026, 13:35

Oral Presentation

This study presents an analysis of the manipulative nature of language in modelling crises through the linguistic ploys of Iago in William Shakespeare’s drama Othello and Saruman in J. R. R. Tolkien’s mythopoesis The Lord of the Rings. Both Iago and Saruman utilise illocutionary forces to undermine human relations. Iago creates tragedy through deceitful speech, while Saruman’s rhetoric...

“This Contentious Storm Invades us to the Skin”: Ecophobia and Cosmological Crisis in King Lear (D3-S3-A6)

Beril Huri (Independent Researcher)

15/05/2026, 13:55

Oral Presentation

This paper examines Shakespeare's King Lear as a drama of ecological and cosmological crisis, arguing that the tragedy’s emotional and political devastation stems not only from filial conflict but from the collapse of early modern assumptions about human exceptionalism. In a period when the Great Chain of Being and theories of climatic influence shaped understandings of identity, authority,...