Chronometrics in the Modern Metropolis: The City, the Past and Collective Memory in A.H.Tanpınar

Abstract

responsiveness to the call of progress. A.H. Tanpınar, in Beş Şehir (Five Cities), describes small squares in Istanbul in strikingly similar terms: 2 There are very few things in the city as attractive and delightful as the little squares. These are compositions of a variety of beliefs, traditions, pleasures that turned into instincts, and they owe their existence to a great deal of coincidence and even to centuries of oblivion. There is no waste or pretension in them, other than the generosity of nature that makes thrive roses, cypress and sycamore trees. In time they came into being drop by drop. 3

Negotiating the night: creative class in a post-secular mahalle, the case of Balat

“…With the encouragement of the conservative Islamist government, the public realm has become increasingly de-secularised whilst systematically implementing neoliberal and globalist economic policies. By supporting 'neo-conservative and populist policies' (Dolcerocca, 2015(Dolcerocca, , p. 1154 and by appointing Istanbul as 'the focal point of a neo-liberal strategy' (Enlil, 2011, p. 14), the government succeeded in transforming the city through the urban transformation which have had a considerable impact on various aspects of Istanbul from landmarks to public spaces, from regulating the night-time activity to controlling access to alcohol.…”

“…It focuses on the ways in which gentrification overlaps with post-secularism and how, together, they transform, influence and shape consumer practices at night. A starting point is that the increasing number of urban transformation projects in Istanbul have had a diverse impact on the city, resulting in gentrification, change in daily life, and introduction of new lifestyles to old areas (Bozdogan and Akcan, 2012;Dolcerocca, 2015). Istanbul's transformation has intensified since the early 2000s with the election of the current government and its increasing interest in the construction sector (Can, 2013;Erdi, 2018;Ergun, 2004;Mutman and Turgut, 2018;Oz and Eder, 2018;Yetiskul and Demirel, 2018).…”

The Multiple Simultaneous Temporalities of Global Modernity: Pamuk, Tanpınar, Proust

“…This duality was apparent in multiple calendrical rhythms (Gregorian and Rumi) and, more starkly, in the skyline of Istanbul, which was dotted with Ottoman-era mosques and Western-style clocks. 13 Tanpınar's critics acknowledge these anxieties about temporality when they style him as a Benjaminian chronicler of urban palimpsests (Ertürk 2008) or a ventriloquist of Bergsonian duration (Dolcerocca 2015). In the latter camp, Özen Nergis Dolcerocca (2017: 185) makes a valuable distinction between vakit (official time) and zaman (the inner time of one's life) in an analysis of Hayri İrdal, protagonist of The Time 13 The simultaneity of secular and nonsecular temporal regimes was true of both Turkey and Iran in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.…”