Papers by Ayse Lucie Batur
Membrana, 2019
The Gezi Uprising was a wave of popular protests and horizontal
mobilizations that emerged at the... more The Gezi Uprising was a wave of popular protests and horizontal
mobilizations that emerged at the urban center of Istanbul against
the destruction of a public park at the end of May 2013 and then
quickly spread across the country. The Gezi Uprising was marked by a
revolutionary visual strategy of commoning images and repurposing them and this helped connect many protesting neighborhoods and locations, and their specific grievances. Along this synchronic imagination of the protest, the circulation of images also fostered a diachronic imagination that connected past struggles and experiences with the current ones, creating a sense of temporal connections of experiences of this newly imagined community. The photocollages by graphic designer and artist Füsun Turcan Elmasoğlu illustrate the mode through which the heightened diachronic imagination was fostered by the collective creativity during the uprising. Elmasoğlu created collages by bringing images that belong to the same place but 38 years apart; images from the large Labor Day demonstration at Taksim Square in 1977, “the Bloody May 1” together with the current images of the square.
The Islamic headscarf became an issue of controversy in Western European countries beginning in t... more The Islamic headscarf became an issue of controversy in Western European countries beginning in the late 1980s. This controversy increasingly began to include diverse issues such as the integration of Muslim immigrants into their host countries, the politicization of Islam, the ghettoization of Muslim populations, and the congruity of Islam with modernity. This article provides a history of this debate,
Türk Film Araştırmalarında Yeni Yönelimler, 2016
Darbeli Düşler: 80'li Yıllar Türk Sineması, 2011
The city is a spectacle for the modern qua tourist who turns into a stationary spectator within a... more The city is a spectacle for the modern qua tourist who turns into a stationary spectator within a home or movie theater, zapping TV channels or surfing on the Internet: the moving pictures demand a stationary spectator. On the busy streets, squares and subways of the city, the mobile spectator is exposed to commercial images s/he cannot zap. These two diametrically opposite modes of mobility/spectatorship are in fact complementing each other in the capitalist fantasy of having freedom due to having choices. The paper deals with the commercialization of public space through outdoor advertising, particularly with examples from Istanbul, and will discuss the tactics of various creative responses.
Book Reviews by Ayse Lucie Batur
Marx & Philosophy: Review of Books, 2022
The English translation of Paulo Freire mais do que nunca: uma biografia filosófica sets out to d... more The English translation of Paulo Freire mais do que nunca: uma biografia filosófica sets out to defend the name and legacy of Paulo Freire and his pedagogy against rising authoritarianism in Brazil and elsewhere. Instead, it ends up depoliticizing Freire's legacy by severing its links to its emancipatory, revolutionary interlocutors, both from its Marxist and Catholic sides. It idealizes the figure of Freire by presenting him as a hero, a patron of education, a pastor. This idealization serves as a form of dehumanization that complements the authoritarian attack instead of confronting it. The author chooses to focus on the life and thought of Freire (7) by delineating five principles that are 'gestures to inspire the political, educational, and philosophical form of any life' (12). This is a creative way of bringing together the thought and life of Freire. Thus, instead of a chronological biography, the book is structured around these themes: life, equality, love, errantry, childhood (infancy).
Book Review of Zeynep Tufekci's book: Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked ... more Book Review of Zeynep Tufekci's book: Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest (2017, Yale University Press).
Teaching Documents by Ayse Lucie Batur
The course will take a look at historical relations between communication technologies and the ex... more The course will take a look at historical relations between communication technologies and the expansion of empires after the mid-19th century which shaped both our media landscape today and the political landscape of the world. The course invites students to interrogate the role of media in changing the world, from a historical perspective, by taking a closer look on the onset of a number of communication technologies and their impact, such as telegraph to the WWW. The technological advances changed human communication in words, sounds, and images in an accelarating mode since the mid-19 th century, through the proliferation of photography, newspaper, postal services, telegraph, among others, as well as the means of transportation such as railroads and steam engine navigation. Technological inventions are not simply scientific discoveries: their widespread use were promoted by private and public interests for their commercial, political, and military-strategic potential uses. According to the historian of technology and empire Daniel R. Headrick, the technological advances and the expansionist new imperialism that emerged around the same time in mid 19 th century were intricately connected; they propelled each other. While looking at the early stages of mass communication, we will have the present condition of the media in our societies as a comparison point. Course Objectives The course will provide a historical background to the common concepts that we use today in media studies, such as network, news, information, by focusing on the development of a number of communication technologies, such as telegraph, WWW, news agencies. The objective of the course is to provide students with a curiosity in the historical beginnings, and sharpen their analysis in tracing the continuities and discontinuties. The course also aims to encourage students to analyze the various social factors and agents that shaped the widespread adoption of these communication technologies, as well as motivations and interests.
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Papers by Ayse Lucie Batur
mobilizations that emerged at the urban center of Istanbul against
the destruction of a public park at the end of May 2013 and then
quickly spread across the country. The Gezi Uprising was marked by a
revolutionary visual strategy of commoning images and repurposing them and this helped connect many protesting neighborhoods and locations, and their specific grievances. Along this synchronic imagination of the protest, the circulation of images also fostered a diachronic imagination that connected past struggles and experiences with the current ones, creating a sense of temporal connections of experiences of this newly imagined community. The photocollages by graphic designer and artist Füsun Turcan Elmasoğlu illustrate the mode through which the heightened diachronic imagination was fostered by the collective creativity during the uprising. Elmasoğlu created collages by bringing images that belong to the same place but 38 years apart; images from the large Labor Day demonstration at Taksim Square in 1977, “the Bloody May 1” together with the current images of the square.
Book Reviews by Ayse Lucie Batur
Teaching Documents by Ayse Lucie Batur
mobilizations that emerged at the urban center of Istanbul against
the destruction of a public park at the end of May 2013 and then
quickly spread across the country. The Gezi Uprising was marked by a
revolutionary visual strategy of commoning images and repurposing them and this helped connect many protesting neighborhoods and locations, and their specific grievances. Along this synchronic imagination of the protest, the circulation of images also fostered a diachronic imagination that connected past struggles and experiences with the current ones, creating a sense of temporal connections of experiences of this newly imagined community. The photocollages by graphic designer and artist Füsun Turcan Elmasoğlu illustrate the mode through which the heightened diachronic imagination was fostered by the collective creativity during the uprising. Elmasoğlu created collages by bringing images that belong to the same place but 38 years apart; images from the large Labor Day demonstration at Taksim Square in 1977, “the Bloody May 1” together with the current images of the square.