In societies with continuous in-and-out migration in relatively short periods the formation of dominant culture comes into shape as "popular". Continental theories for defining people's culture mostly assume some permanent structures (cultural preferences of elites or classes) in modern societies, yet not so successful for explaining the rise of popular cultures in societies like the USA. Turkey, as a country of migratory waves from its birth, is a pristine example of such a process and unique for its elites' interventions into the cultural sphere. The talk is broadly concerns with three dynamics on the formation of Turkish popular culture - demographic transition, elitist cultural policies, and partly oppositional character of people's taste.

Orhan Tekelioğlu is Chair of Department of New Media at Bahçeşehir University (Istanbul, Turkey) and Visiting Scholar at the University of Pennyslvania’s Annenberg School of Communication.  He is a scholar of cultural sociology including such research fields as media consumption, the history of Turkish popular music, the sociological features of Turkish literature, and the cultural politics of the Republican period. He received his Ph.D. in Sociology from the Middle Eastern Technical University (Ankara, Turkey) and his Magisterartium degree in Sociology from the University of Oslo. He taughted in Departments of Political Science and Turkish Literature at the Bilkent University in Ankara, in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at Ohio State University, and acted as Acting Dean of the Faculty of Communication at the Izmir University of Economics. Dr. Tekelioğlu conducts field studies on popular television dramas and reality shows, and history of jazz and popular music in Istanbul. He has published articles in Turkish and in English and submitted papers to numerous national and international congresses. Among his publications are Pop Ekran [Pop Screen, 2013], Pop Yazılar, [Pop Essays, 2006], Foucault Sosyolojisi [Sociology of Foucault, 2003], Şerif Mardin’e Armağan, [A Festschrift for Şerif Mardin, 2005), "Modernizing reforms and Turkish music in the 1930s"  (Turkish Studies, 2001), and “Two Incompatible Positions in the Challenge Against the Individual Subject of Modernity” (Theory& Psychology, 1997).

Co-sponsored by the Mediterranean Studies Forum, Program on Urban Studies, the Europe Center, and Turkish Students Association

Baron Frans van Daele has had a long and distinguished career as a Belgian diplomat. He was Ambassador to Italy, the EU, the US and NATO. In 2009 he joined Herman Van Rompuy, the first President of the European Council, to become his Chief-of-Staff. He held this position until his retirement at the end of 2012. During his tenure at the European Council he witnessed the unfolding of the Euro-crisis and was an active participant in the negotiations for successive rescue packages for member states in need. In his seminar Ambassador van Daele will give a first-hand account of his experiences fighting the Euro-crisis, and elaborate on the effects of the crisis on the EU.

This event is part of The Europe Center's series on the "European and Global Economic Crisis."

In his State of the Union address on February 12 President Obama announced that the US will set up a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the European Union. The US and the EU will soon start negotiations to create the world’s largest free trade area. The agreement will eliminate tariff barriers and harmonize regulatory and technical standards. It is argued that this will add up to two percent to GDP. The US and the EU already trade goods and services worth $ 2.7 billion per day. This seminar will discuss the politics and economics of such an agreement.

This event is part of The Europe Center's series on the "European and Global Economic Crisis."

Is the Eurozone crisis undermining European democratic socialism? Why the current economic and fiscal crisis is cause for concern and opportunity, not alarm nor decline, for the future of the European Left.

This is part of the Europe Center's series on the "European and Global Economic Crisis". 

Pia Olsen Dyhr was appointed Minister for Trade and Investment in  October 2011. Pia Olsen Dyhr became member of the Danish Parliament (Folketing) for The Socialist People’s Party in 2007. Before joining Parliament, she worked with policy, international relations, trade, and environmental issues at the non-governmental organizations CARE Denmark and the Danish Society for the Conservation of Nature. She carries a MA in Political Science from University of Copenhagen.