Category Archives: Istanbul

Joan Baez in Istanbul

July 2, 2015 – 2:07 pm

While living in a group house in Washington in the 1990s, commuting by bicycle to the University of Maryland for my graduate studies in mathematics, I joined a discussion group of readers of the Monthly Review: An Independent Socialist Magazine. I suppose the group met as frequently as the magazine was published, though it could have been twice a month: I do not clearly recall. Neither do I recall just how I became involved with the group, though it must have been through a professor in my department who was a member.

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By David Pierce | Also posted in History, Music, Tourism | Tagged , , , | Comments (3)

Impressionism

June 17, 2015 – 3:10 pm

I went early to the office on Tuesday morning, June 17, 2015. On Harzemşah Sokağı in the Merkez (Center) Mahalle of Şişli, Istanbul, I paused to note a cafe decorated with the “Luncheon of the Boating Party.”

Reproduction of “Boating Party” on wall of an alcove; folded chairs below

That alcove from the street

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By David Pierce | Also posted in Education, Visual Art, West Virginia | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (8)

Visit to the Garbage Museum

March 23, 2015 – 12:35 pm

You have got till the Second of April (2015) to visit the Garbage Museum. Details are available on pieces of trash at the museum:

DSC03197
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By David Pierce | Also posted in Education, Nature, Turkey, Visual Art, West Virginia | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments (0)

Art on the Bosphorus

March 9, 2015 – 4:28 pm

Here are photos from a Saturday (March 7, 2015) on the European side of the lower Bosphorus. I often go there, without a particular plan. Saturday was another cloudy day; but in Istanbul, in winter, one might wait weeks for a sunny day. No rain was forecast: that was enough reason to go out.

I first got the camera out at the Bezm-i Âlem Valide Sultan Camii, a.k.a. Dolmabahçe Mosque. The date at the door is 1851. Continue reading →

By David Pierce | Also posted in Bosphorus, History, Tophane, Tourism, Visual Art | Tagged , , , | Comments (3)

The Academic Battery Cage

January 22, 2015 – 4:42 pm

The purpose of this article is to record a couple of paragraphs by Mary Midgley about academia today and its judging of people according to numbers of papers published. I have become something of a fan of Midgley. Her field is philosophy, though I think her complaint applies to mathematics or anything else:

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By David Pierce | Also posted in Mathematics, Midgley, Nature, Philosophy, Turkey | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

The Peace of Liberal Education

January 13, 2015 – 1:33 pm
The wall of Dolmabahçe Sarayı, January 11, 2015

The wall of Dolmabahçe Sarayı, January 11, 2015

The occasion of this article is my discovery of a published Turkish translation of Collingwood’s Speculum Mentis or The Map of Knowledge (Oxford, 1924). Published as Speculum Mentis ya da Bilginin Haritası (Ankara: Doğu Batı, 2014), the translation is by Kubilay Aysevenler and Zerrin Eren. Near the end of the book, Collingwood writes the following paragraph about education, or what I would call more precisely liberal education. The main purpose of this article then is to offer the paragraph to any reader who happens to stop by.

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By David Pierce | Also posted in Collingwood, Education, Euclid, History, Homer, Language, Mathematics, Philosophy, Philosophy of History, Principles of Art, Turkish | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments (3)

Interview with Mustafa Kemal

December 26, 2014 – 3:23 pm

Below are transcribed the words in the image above by the founder of the Turkish Republic.

When I first visited Istanbul, in 1998, I was too late to see old American cars used as dolmuşlar. Perhaps there were still a few around, but I did not see them. They had been described in a book published the previous year:

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By David Pierce | Also posted in History, Tourism, Turkey | Tagged , , , , | Comments (2)

Bosphorus Sky

December 19, 2014 – 4:14 pm

This is about the morning of Thursday, December 18, 2014, a morning I spent by the Bosphorus, thinking mostly about poetry, and photographing the sky.

Seagulls against clouds and a brighter sea

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By David Pierce | Also posted in Archimedes, Bosphorus, Collingwood, Descartes, Education, History, Language, Mathematics, Nature, Nesin Mathematics Village, Philosophy, Poetry, Principles of Art, Psychology, Tourism, Turkey, Turkish | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (7)

Istanbul in the Sun

December 12, 2014 – 5:13 pm

The first Saturday in December promised to be cloudy, like every other day in recent weeks; but it would probably be rainless, so I spent it outside. Sunday was supposed to be rainy, so I planned on doing mental work indoors. In fact there were showers at dawn, but there was also orange light in the clouds. The clouds eventually cleared up, and I saw that I had better go out again. I returned to the seaside park where I had been the previous weekend; but this time I brought a proper camera.

I took some photos on the way to the park; these have now been incorporated in another article, ”Taksim in Limbo.” They serve to illustrate the previous article, “The Istanbul Seaside,” on that earlier park visit; so do the photos below.

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By David Pierce | Also posted in History, Nature, Tourism, Turkey, Visual Art | Tagged , , , | Comments (1)

Taksim in Limbo

December 10, 2014 – 5:03 pm

This is a personal report on the current condition of Taksim square. I visited Taksim recently (early December, 2014) on a rare sunny day.

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By David Pierce | Also posted in Collingwood, Gezi, History, Nature, Tourism | Tagged , , | Comments (1)