From Aydın Uğur’s talk Culture and Politics in Turkey. 11/24/2009. Well, i am quite late to post it but it is still valid.
Prof. Aydın Uğur, who is one of two life-saving academicians in my early academic years, gave a special lecture for our Media Studies MA program a while ago. The lecture was open to public. Prof. Uğur focused on the development of concept of culture in Turkish social sciences with particular emphasis on Communication studies. Here are my brief notes:
Culture was not in the agenda at all in the early years of Communication studies in Turkey. A sociology graduate would be accepted as a TA to the Communication faculty as sociology was alien and irrelevant to Communication studies. [This had happened 22 years ago: When our current Media dept chair Prof. Halil Nalçaoğlu applied to a teaching assistantship position in a Communication school in Ankara after graduating from METU Sociology, he wouldn’t be accepted. Then a newly PhD graduate, that is Aydın Uğur would try hard to persuade the faculty and only in the end Halil hoca would become a TA and Aydın hoca’s very first graduate student:)
Beyonce, Taylor Swift and Kings Of Leon were the stars of the 52nd annual Grammys Sunday night, but there were awards in the realm of heavy music.