COURSE DESCRIPTION AND APPLICATION INFORMATION
| Course Name | Code | Semester | T+A+L (hour/week) | Type (C / O) | Local Credit | ECTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Exploring Istanbul Through Music, Film and Literature | KHAS 1408 | Spring | 03+00+00 | Elective | 3 | 5 |
| Academic Unit: | Core Program |
| Mode of Delivery: | Face to face |
| Prerequisites: | None |
| Language of Instruction: | English |
| Level of Course Unit: | Undergraduate |
| Course Coordinator: | - - |
| Course Lecturer(s): | Başak Deniz Özdoğan |
| Course Objectives: | This course aims to introduce the social, political, and cultural atlas and history of Istanbul through the images of the city in music, film, and literature. For this purpose, each week is designed as a musical, visual, and literary journey to the main districts of the city (Beyoğlu, Haliç, the historical peninsula, Bosphorus, and Kadıköy). A brief historical introduction will be followed each week by a student discussion session about the assigned music, film, or reading material to investigate the multi-layered city. At the end of the course, students will not only gain significant historical knowledge about the city, but they will also be able to relate to the socio-cultural transformation of modern Turkey to Istanbul’s polyphonic and cosmopolitan life and history. In this sense, as a site for the performance of multiple art forms, Istanbul is an indispensable founding member of artistic production and social memory. Poetry, novels, short stories, classical Ottoman music, popular songs, Yeşilçam movies, audio recordings, words, musical notes, and images create infinite spatial entities of the city. Therefore, as the course outcome, students will be asked to do a thematic city atlas, including literary, audio/visual mapping, marking, and explaining a specific district or neighborhood to rethink and recreate the infinite spatial, artistic production. In a sense, they will reproduce the palimpsest memory or a never-ending story of Istanbul. |
| Course Contents: | This course explores Istanbul’s daily life and history, focusing on the city’s musical, visual, and literary images. |
| Learning Outcomes of the Course Unit (LO): |
|
| Planned Learning Activities and Teaching Methods: | Lecture, presentation, discussion, research, Q&A, project |
WEEKLY SUBJECTS AND RELATED PREPARATIONS
| Week | Subjects | Related Preperation |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Week 1: [19-23 February] Welcoming the City with Poetry (Introduction and poetry reading) | No preparation required |
| 2 | Week 2 [26 February-1 March]: Music and sound of the city | Reading the assigned texts, watching the assigned film |
| 3 | Week 3: [4-8 March] Reading social and economic change through music. | Reading the assigned texts, watching the assigned film |
| 4 | Week 4: [11-15 March] Istanbul Squares I: Taksim Square: “Bu meydan kanlı meydan” (Taksim Square: a brief history, and its cultural, social, and political significance as a public sphere-social movement) | Reading the assigned texts, watching the assigned film |
| 5 | Week 5: [18-22 March] Istanbul Squares I: Taksim Square: “Kiss in Taksim Square” (Taksim Square and Beyoğlu, underground culture, and artistic sub-cultures). Beyoğlu tour. | Reading the assigned texts, watching the assigned film, and touring |
| 6 | Week 6: [25-29 March] Istanbul Radio: Zeki Müren, radio, gazinos and music clubs, music scene in Istanbul, rural migration and birth of the arabesque music. | Reading the assigned texts, watching the assigned film |
| 7 | Week 7: [April 1-5] “Tophane Rıhtımında Yaparlar Gemi” (Docks: Galata and Tophane, marine culture, and the city’s underground life.) Tour to Beyoğlu | Reading the assigned texts, watching the assigned film, and touring |
| 8 | Week 8: [15-19 April] Turkish psychedelia and Istanbul | Reading the assigned texts, watching the assigned film |
| 9 | Week 9: [22-26 April] Istanbul Squares II: Sultanahmet Square, Hippodrome, and Beyazıt Square. (Theme song: “Ben bir ceviz ağacıyım Gülhane parkında”) | Reading the assigned texts, watching the assigned film |
| 10 | Week 10: [29 April-3 May] İstanbul Draper’s Bazar (İMÇ, record companies and heart of the music industry, Cibali Tobacco Factory, Haliç) | Reading the assigned texts, watching the assigned film |
| 11 | Week 11: [6-10 May] Essay week | Writing and research week. |
| 12 | Week 12: [13-17 May] Tour to historical peninsula | Tour. |
| 13 | Week 13: [20-24 May] “Boğaz’ın suları çekildiği zaman” The Bosphorus as the center of film, literature and music. | Reading the assigned texts, watching the assigned film |
| 14 | Week 14: [27-31 May] “Kadıköy’de ne güzel Solduk Biz” Kadıköy as the stage of alternative music and sound of the city. | Reading the assigned texts, watching the assigned film |
At Kadir Has University, a Semester is 14 weeks; The weeks 15 and 16 are reserved for final exams.
REQUIRED AND RECOMMENDED READING
| Selected audio-visual clips, maps, novels, films, short stories, poems, essays, and scientific articles. We will read and discuss selected chapters from the sources below: • “Chapter 6: Halcyon Days of Household Names 1970-80: 170-210” in Skoog, G. (2012). On strange shepherds, golden microphones, and electric guitars: Genre, scene, and the rise of anadolu pop in the republic of turkey (Order No. 3506526). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global; Publicly Available Content Database. (1013766191). Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/on-strange-shepherdsgolden-microphones-electric/docview/1013766191/se-2 • “Istanbul,” Britannica • “The palimpsest in urbanism” https://hum54- 15.omeka.fas.harvard.edu/exhibits/show/the-urban-city-as-a-palimpsest/thepalimpsest-in-urbanism • Alex G. Papadopoulos and Aslı Duru (eds). Landscapes of Music in Istanbul. A Cultural Politics of Place and Exclusion. Bielefeld, Germany: Transcript-Verlag, 2017 • Ara Güler and Orhan Pamuk, Ara Güler’s Istanbul (Thames and Hudson Publishing) • Asuman Suner, "New Istanbul Films" (141-148). • Catherine Pinguet, “Street Dogs of Istanbul”. • Cem Behar, A Neighborhood in Ottoman Istanbul: Fruit Vendors and Civil Servants in the Kasap Ilyas Mahalle (State University of New York Press) • Çağlar Keyder, Istanbul : Between the Global and the Local, 1999. • Haluk Çetinkaya, “Byzantine Architecture in Istanbul” https://istanbultarihi.ist/688- byzantine-architecture-in-istanbul • Hillary Sumner-Boyd and John Freely, Strolling Through Istanbul: A Guide to the City (Tauris Parke Publishing) • Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities (translated by William Weaver, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich • İncilâ Bertuğ “Musical Coffeehouses and Other Venues of Music” https://istanbultarihi.ist/600-musical-coffeehouses-and-other-venues-of-music • John Berger, “On Bosphorus” http://pastandfuturepresents.blogspot.com/2015/12/on-bosphorus-john-berger-1979.html • John Freely and Hillary S. Bond, Strolling through Istanbul: A Guide to the City • John Freely, Galata: A Guide to Istanbul’s Old Genoese Quarter (Archaeology & Art Publications) • Jörg Fauser, Raw Material (translated by Jamie Bulloch, Serpent’s Tail Publishing) Chapter 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5) • Kenan Behzat Sharpe, “Can Turkish psychedelic music go global?” https://www.almonitor.com/originals/2018/12/turkish-psychedelic-music-goes-global.html • Martin Stokes, “Zeki Müren: Sun of Art, Ideal Citizen.” In The Republic of Love : Cultural Intimacy in Turkish Popular Music, University of Chicago Press, 2010. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/kadirhas/detail.action?docID=602622. pp.35-71. • Meral Özbek, “Arabesk Culture: A Case of Modernization and Popular Identity” • Nora Fisher-Onar; Susan C. Pearce; E. Fuat Keyman; Çaglar Keyder. Istanbul : Living with Difference in a Global City. Rutgers University Press, 2018. • Nurdan Gürbilek, “Living in a Shop Window,” The new cultural climate in Turkey: living in a shop window, translated by: Victoria Holbrook • Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul: Memories and the City (translated by Maureen Freely, Vintage Books) • Orhan Pamuk, The Black Book (translated by Maureen Freely, Vintage Books) • Pınar Yelmi,“Protecting contemporary cultural soundscapes as intangible cultural heritage: sounds of Istanbul.” • Rebeca Solnit, Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas (University of California Press) • Sait Faik, A Useless Man: Selected Stories (translated by Maureen Freely and Alexandre Dawe, Archipelago Publishing) • Stamboul Ghosts: A Stroll Through Bohemian Istanbul by John Freely • Turna Ezgi Toros, Kadiköy Sound: Local Identity Of Kadiköy’s Rockscape http://porteakademik.itu.edu.tr/docs/librariesprovider181/YayınArşivi/12.-sayı/porte_akademik-12-9.pdf • Yaprak Melike Uyar, “On Cultural Omnivorousness: Reinvention of Anatolian Pop as Turkish Psychedelic” in: TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research, 22.02.2021, https://trafo.hypotheses.org/26487. • Yonca Kösebay Erkan, “Haydarpaşa Tren Garı: Bugün, Dün ve Yarın Kentin Bedeninde Bir Yara” http://jfa.arch.metu.edu.tr/archive/0258-5316/2013/cilt30/sayi_1/99- 116.pdf |
OTHER COURSE RESOURCES
| • PPT presentation • Mobile Application: https://hrantdink.org/en/bolis/activities/projects/cultural-heritage/2177-discover-istanbul-with-kardes-mobile-application • “The Soundscape of Istanbul” http://www.soundsslike.com/ Films: • Ah Gözel İstanbul [Invisible to the Eye](Dir: Zeynep Dadak, 2020) • Adieu Istanbul by Dieter Sauter (2013 • Afghanistan on the hippie trail in the 1960s &70s - A lost paradise. https://youtu.be/Co9buL2OwTk • Ah Güzel İstanbul [O Beautiful Istanbul] (Dir: Atıf Yılmaz, 1966) • Barking Island (Dir: Serge Avedikian, 2010) • Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul (Dir: Fatih Akın, 2005) • Ecumenopolis: City Without Limits (İmre Azem, 2012) https://web.microsoftstream.com/video/f0c73981-2f2b-46b6-8b15-0fb3e67b62ef • From Russia with Love (Dir. Terence Young, 1963) • Gece, Melek ve Bizim Çocuklar [The Night, Angel and Our Gang] (Dir: Atıf Yılmaz, 1994) • Hayat Var (Dir: Reha Erdem, 2008) • İstanbul'un Plajları: Bir Nostaljinin Öyküsü / A Story of Nostalgia: Beaches of İstanbul, Pera Museum https://youtu.be/k5SHFu0HsC8 • Jazz in Turkey (Dir: Batu Akyol, 2013) • Kaybedenler Kulübü (Dir: Tolga Örnek, 2011) • L'immortelle (Dir:Alain Robbe Grillet, 1963) • Muhsin Bey [Mr. Muhsin](Dir: Yavuz Turgul, 1987) • Müslüm Babanın Evlatları(The Children of Müslüm Baba, Dir: Vuslat Saraçoğlu, 2014) • Pasaj Pasaj Beyoğlu (Yön: Ayşen Öztekin, 2016) • Sevmek Zamanı(Dir: Metin Erksan, 1965) • Tabutta Rövaşata [Somersault in a Coffin] (Dir: Derviş Zaim, 1996) • Tarlabaşı, Tarlabaşı(Dir: Hilmi Etikan, 1989) • Tetrist (Dir: Melis Bilgin, 2011) • The history of Turkish Arabesque Music | Al Jazeera World Documentary https://youtu.be/M_tMRXFjhPc • Topkapı (Dir:JulesDassin, 1964 • Whose is this song? (Dir: Adela Peeva, 2003) Podcasts: • A History of Turkey through Music, by Murat Meriç https://bi-bak.de/en/bi-bakaudio/yerli-muezik • “Echoes of The Ottoman Past: Istanbul’s Historical Soundscape” by the Ottoman History Podcast with Chris Gratien and Emily Neumeier |
ASSESSMENT METHODS AND CRITERIA
| Semester Requirements | Number | Percentage of Grade (%) |
|---|---|---|
| Project | 1 | 40 |
| Homework Assignments | 1 | 20 |
| Presentation / Jury | 2 | 20 |
| Extra-Class Activities (reading, individual study etc.) | 3 | 15 |
| Midterms / Oral Exams / Quizes | 1 | 5 |
| Total: | 8 | 100 |
WORKLOAD
| Events | Count | Duration (Hours) | Total Workload (hour) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Course Hours | 14 | 3 | 42 |
| Project | 1 | 18 | 18 |
| Homework Assigments | 1 | 11 | 11 |
| Preparation for Presentation / Jury | 2 | 5 | 10 |
| Extra-Class Activities (reading,individiual work, etc.) | 10 | 2 | 20 |
| Midterms / Oral Exams / Quizes | 3 | 8 | 24 |
| Total Workload (hour): | 125 | ||
1 ECTS = 25 Hours Workload
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN COURSE LEARNING OUTCOMES (LO) AND PROGRAM QUALIFICATIONS (PQ)
| # | PQ1 | PQ2 | PQ3 | PQ4 | PQ5 | PQ6 | PQ7 | PQ8 | PQ9 | PQ10 |
| LO1 | ||||||||||
| LO2 | ||||||||||
| LO3 | ||||||||||
| LO4 | ||||||||||
| LO5 |
Contribution: 1 Low, 2 Average, 3 High