This year’s topic aims to explore the interaction(s) between the city and culture.

We offer the following notes with the hope that they will inspire but not limit you.

• urbanism / urbanization / new urbanism
• alternative definitions of time and space in the city
• urban space and memory / cultural memory in the city
• city reconstituted / reconstructed through memory (ies)
• urban utopias / urban dystopias
• spatialization of politics / politicization of space: ghettoization / residential segregation
• city—the great equalizer (?)
• segregation / integration as it relates to public space
• urban metaphors
• landmarks as markers of identity
• urban identity / urbanity
• public space and public life: streets, markets, parks
• gendered city / divided city / gender, race, ethnicity and class in urban landscape
• the male city / the female city
• city: reflections/ images/ landmarks/ legends / urban legends
• downtown(s) and uptown(s)
• urban semiotics / city as legible text / city as narrative and metanarrative
• improvised city
• city behind walls / city behind bars / city within a city / invisible cities, invisible borders
• city as Eden / city as Purgatory
• city: from Babylon to Boswash
• city as the spiritual site / faiths / organized religions / etc.
• urban quests
• city as masquerade
• the polarized city: city as ash heap / city as promised land
• city ethics
• cities of the mind / cognitive mapping

Co-organized by:

Ege University Department of American Culture and Literature
and Department of English Language and Literature
The American Studies Association of Turkey (ASAT)
The Cultural Office of the US Embassy
The British Council