News - Voyvoda Street Lectures 2007-2008

A.POLITICAL ECONOMY LECTURES

First Wednesday of each month, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
The theme this season is, "Understanding New Turkey."

April 2, 2008 – Assoc. Prof. Ayhan Kaya
Return Migration and Integration in the Context of Enforced Migration
The project “Current Internal Migration in Turkey: Return or Integration?” is supported by TÜBİTAK and conducted through in-depth interviews with the victims of enforced migration in Diyarbakır, Mersin and Istanbul. This lecture will share the results for Diyarbakır, and present some of the evaluations of the research team concerning Diyarbakır’s changing socio-economic structure, the seasonal migration towards western and northern provinces, the reactions of women face to domestic violence, and the failure of return migration.       
“Victims of enforced migration choose the place they will relocate in terms of both their financial and social capital. Our research reveals that similar processes have occurred in Southeastern Turkey. According to the social and economic capital they possess, the region’s inhabitants, especially those living in the mountainous areas, migrate to Diyarbakır city center, to Mersin or to Istanbul. Although the people remaining in Diyarbakır are the most deprived, current developments in the region are increasingly fading from the habitat of meaning of the majority society in Turkey, indicating an actual and symbolic break. The rejections that migrant workers seeking seasonal jobs in western and northern Anatolia encounter in their everyday lives, the alienation of the women, the tensions between the village guards and the villagers, the fact that these migrants’ return to their village has become impossible not only because of continuing tensions but due to globalization are all important indicators that these victims of enforced migration should be integrated into the urban life of the areas in which they find themselves.”  

May 7, 2008 – Prof. Ayşe Buğra
What does the Fight against Poverty Imply?
In the1980s, the dominant belief was that with a free market economy there would be no need for additional social intervention and poverty would be eradicated along with other social issues. Yet a short while after, this premise became dubious as poverty attained huge dimensions the world over. In the second half of the 1990s, the current view was that instead of a welfare state a new model for “welfare administration” should be developed. The general consensus on the necessity for less state intervention continued but the stress was now on new methods for fighting poverty that gave a central role to the private sector in cooperation with the state, to Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), and to benevolent fundraising initiatives. The lecture will investigate the problems that arise from this new model especially in Turkey’s case.

June 4, 2008 – Prof. Eser Karakaş
Turkey and Change
The lecture examines the state of Turkey’s labor market and the changes it has undergone. At the same time, Karakaş will explain the concept of new modernity shaped by foreign demand and consider the topics of “unchanging financial demography” and “unchanging factors in times of change.” 

B. ISTANBUL LECTURES

Second Wednesday of each month, from 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Discussions on "Everyday Lifestyle Culture in Istanbul."

April 9, 2008 – Dr. Özge Samancı
Ottoman Gastronomical Culture in the Late Ottoman Period
The 19th century brought about significant changes in the political, military, institutional and economic spheres of the Ottoman Empire but did these transformations also affect the gastronomical culture of the capital Istanbul? To what extent did the “alafranga” or European lifestyle, which the Ottoman elite was gradually becoming familiar with and starting to adopt from the second half of the century on, also modify eating habits and preferences?

Through these questions the lecture examines 19th century Istanbul gastronomical culture as its main theme. Sub-themes addressed include the main elements that make up gastronomical culture, the choice of ingredients, the various dishes, cooking techniques, and table etiquette.  

In addition to Turkish cookbooks printed in Istanbul between 1844 and 1900, the lecture uses as source materials account books from the Imperial kitchens kept during the same period and the magazine Revue Commerciale du Levant published by the French Chamber of Commerce, which also contained information about everyday life in Istanbul at the end of the century.  

May 14, 2008 – Ekrem Işın
The Iconography of Everyday Life: Istanbul as an Antique Shop
Istanbul’s everyday life is an archeological labyrinth made up of various cultural layers piled up one on top of the other. This complex urban iconography of objects and images has shaped Istanbul’s historical identity. The repertoire of iconographic values inherited from the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman civilizations have engraved the image that the world has of Istanbul as an imperial city onto the collective unconscious. The “Antique Shop” metaphor is a reflection of this image in everyday life. The historian wandering among lifestyles, tastes and fashions is actually like a client searching for his social identity in the disorder of the antique shop.    

June 11, 2008 – Gönül Paçacı
The Change of Music and the Music of Change in Istanbul
Istanbul is a city that has accumulated just about everything that comes to the mind. It houses both its own urban esthetic heritage and that of other regions and identities. The result is an immense wealth and an immense chaos.

Istanbul is also the core of a rich culture-music heritage. There is the music in itself as well as the ways in which it reaches the general public – this in turn dependent upon the added impetus that new technologies bring to the pace of change. It is a long and winding adventure. In fact, music is a means of communication that emerges from a creative source and brings with it a great many of the characteristics of the setting in which it was created.    

Thus we have, on the one hand, a collection of works that cannot retain the features they possessed when they were first produced and which, as they are transmitted, gradually undergo a series of changes in form and style; on the other hand, a dynamic and engaged social environment that contributes to these changes.   

C. ENLIGHTENMENT LECTURES

Third Wednesday of each month from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
"The Role of the Enlightenment in Shaping Political Thought and Art in Turkey"

April 16, 2008 – Prof. Galip Yalman
Political Economy from the Enlightenment to our Day
When it appeared in 1776, Adam Smith’s classic The Wealth of Nations represented the first comprehensive defense of the advantages of a free market, and the social order he advocated was offered as an alternative to mercantilism. In light of the evolution his ideas have undergone since then and the critiques directed towards his economic theory, the lecture examines the stance taken by contemporary political economy models towards the social, political and economic issues that emerge in our current global system, in a ‘free market’ that allows the free flow of capital across the borders.

May 21, 2008 – Prof. Füsun Üstel
The Enlightenment seen from an “Educational” Perspective
The modernization of the educational system witnessed in the second half of the 19th century, led both to an increase in the rate of scholarization and to the heightening of the controversy surrounding the required attributes of schooling. This in turn, made the “School” an important institution in the enlightenment discourses of the populations of the Ottoman Empire. Examining educational movements overlooked by mainstream collections on the history of education in the Ottoman Empire, the lecture evaluates them in terms of their contribution to the creation of the modern individual and the process of nation-state building. 

D. OBJECTS AND RITUALS

Fourth Wednesday of each month, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
“The involvement of art in everyday life and the interaction of culture with perceived reality”.

April 30, 2008 – Nezih Başgelen
Mid Euphrates from the Air
In the Old Testament, the Euphrates and the Tigris are mentioned as two of the rivers that watered the Garden of Eden (Genesis, 2.10-14). The area between the two rivers is also remembered in world history as the cradle of civilization. In effect, no other region has contributed as much to the history of civilization as the Euphrates and Tigris river basins. Many of the major discoveries that form the foundation of modern civilization – writing, calculus, mining, domesticating plants and animals, mass production, organized trade, the first cities and the first states originated from this region and from there spread to the rest of the world. 

The archeological digs undertaken from 1967 on in the lake areas of the Keban, Karakaya, Atatürk, Birecik and Kargamış dams constructed on the Euphrates as part of the GAP regional development project have yielded extremely important findings of that reshape the history of civilization. Unfortunately, once the dam construction is completed, the Euphrates, one of the rivers that was the birthplace of civilization, will no longer flow within the boundaries of Turkey.      

Before the lecture, Nezih Başgelen will share with us and comment on the striking air and land photographs he took in the area of the Birecik and Kargamış dams before the Mid Euphrates basin was turned into a lake. The lecture will focus on the rescue excavations at the site, the archaeological remains that were submerged, those that have been rescued from the Birecik and Zeugma flood, the remarkable discoveries at Halfeti, Kalemeydanı and Rumkale, Vespasiyanus's Latin inscription on the banks of the Euphrates, traces of the Roman legions, the ancient Sesonk (“three columns”) tomb, and other fascinating vestiges.  

May 28, 2008 – Dr. Şehrazat Karagöz
Uncovered by the Marmaray-Üsküdar Project: the Antique City of Chrysopolis
The archaeological excavations of the Marmaray project in Üsküdar began in 2004 and are still going on today. The excavation works have uncovered remains from the antique city of Chrysopolis, whose name until now only appeared in ancient sources. The findings, which go back to the 7th century B.C., verify the historic past of Chrysopolis and are proof of the legendary city’s reality. The remains uncovered by the excavations reveal that Chrysopolis was an important harbor city in antiquity  – just as it is documented that the cities of Byzantion (as Istanbul was formerly known) and Khalkedon (today’s Kadıköy) were founded in the Archaic period.

In antiquity, the Bülbül and Çavuş streams – both highly frequented today –  flowed into the square at Üsküdar, which in the 7th to 6th centuryB.C. was a deep cove. At different periods, this bay filled up and, due to political and natural events, became usable, so that the site at Üsküdar has yielded findings from various antique civilizations. The lecture will present an evaluation of the very interesting and archaeologically significant results from these excavations.