Edward Mitchell

Bio

Edward Mitchell recently retired from Boğaziçi University, where he was an Assistant Professor teaching courses in social thought. He directed and taught Boğaziçi’s core Humanities program during the program’s formative years. In 2020–2021 he was a visiting scholar at Columbia University’s Institute for Comparative Literature and Society. His current work involves the interface of utopian thought with the secular imaginary

Contributions

Metrics of Modernity: Art and Development in Postwar Turkey by Sarah-Neel Smith

From the Print Journal

In 1973, the Municipality of Istanbul and the State Academy of Fine Arts sponsored a competition among Turkish sculptors. Fifty sculptures, each by a different artist, were to be erected in public spaces throughout the city. The purpose was to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Republic of Turkey. Due to practical constraints, the number of winning sculptures was reduced to twenty, which were then commissioned and erected in the specified locations. Of these twenty, only four remain in their original sites today. Three were stolen for the value of their metal. Three more were lost due to road work. Several were removed and lost when their sites were redesigned. Another was declared “meaningless” by a district mayor and jackhammered into oblivion.

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