The article is dedicated to the study of the works of contemporary Turkish playwright Behic Akas through the lens of the postmodern paradigm, specifically focusing on the ways of decentering the subject. The relevance of the topic is determined by the dominance of the postmodern paradigm in Turkish literature at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries, which necessitates the study of the characteristics and potential of postmodern narrative in drama as well. All of Akas's plays are to varying degrees governed by postmodern principles of construction; however, the postmodern traits are most vividly manifested in such plays as "Building" (Bina, 1984), "Hospital" (Hastane, 2013), "Fault Line" (Fay Hatt, 2003), "What Newton Understands About Computers" (Newton Bilgisayardan Ne Anlar, 2003), and "Image Killer" (maj Katili, 2004), which form the basis of our research. The article employs literary analysis, textual analysis, textually-hermeneutic analysis, as well as methods of comparison and juxtaposition. Until now, the creative works of Akas, like those of other Turkish postmodern playwrights, have not become objects of scientific understanding in domestic scholarship; in Turkish literary studies, only a few articles have addressed his work (considered from other perspectives), which defines the scientific novelty and significance of the conducted research. The authors conclude that in all the examined plays, the "death of the subject" is realized through Akas's use of various postmodern techniques and devices. In them, hybrid-quotational characters are stripped of names and any personal characteristics; the "depersonalization" of the characters' bodies is compensated by an emphasis on their objectness and physicality, reaching its peak in the play "What Newton Understands About Computers." Depersonalization and decentering of characters manifests in that they are "objectified" ("Fault Line"), "cloned" ("Hospital"), "scattered" as images on posters and shirts, "flicker" and constantly change places ("Image Killer"), and degrade to the point of (textual sign), transforming into a configuration of sign codes ("What Newton Understands About Computers"). The deconstruction of the human, in turn, leads to the complete erasure and leveling of the personal, individual aspect within it, due to which we observe the phenomenon of the "death of the subject."
Rusulova et al. (Sun,) studied this question.