Orienting Istanbul: Cultural Capital of Europe?

Abstract

Recently, the city of Istanbul has be- come the subject, the pivot of the narra- tive, or the constitutive setting for many books, in Turkish or in English, fiction or social science, monographs or edited vol- umes (Eckard, 2008; Guvenc, 2009; Key- der, 1999; Keyder 2010; Magden 2005; Mills 2010; Navaro-Yashin, 2002; Pamuk,

2006; Perouse, 2011; Safak, 2000; Stokes,

2010; Tugal, 2009; Yardimci, 2005). In these works, Istanbul has been repre- sented as the unique showcase of the con- temporary Turkish culture: Cosmopolitan, multilayered, commercialized, privatized, ambiguous, perplexing, incoherent, dan- gerous, segregated, and full of intricate relations that urban citizens have to navi- gate through. Culture has long been a prob- lematical term for social scientists, as the city for urban analysts, and Istanbul for all those who have endeavored to under- stand and interpret Turkey. Thus, a single volume that brings together the different aspects of “cultural life in Istanbul” in a multidimensional and interdisciplinary manner was both an obvious need and an ambitious task. Orienting Istanbul claims to satisfy this need with its all-embracing content and opportune timing, when Istan- bul was endorsed as one of the three Euro- pean cultural capitals of the year 2010.