Why Istanbul?

Strangely, the trip to Istanbul was suggested by a group of faculty who ... didn't expect to go to there. At least, it was imagined that other Mediterranean sites would most likely be chosen instead. It was surprising, therefore, when Istanbul arose as the obvious best-destination for a seminar of this type. We are delighted that this is our destination, and look forward to learning an enormous amount from our visit.

This trip emerged from a CIS-sponsored faculty workshop, in the summer of 2008, on the subject of "The Mediterranean as an Interdisciplinary Study Site." The workshop was, not surprisingly, fairly interdisciplinary. This was part of a College-wide effort, called the Expanded Knowledge Initiative (EKI), to encourage more interdisciplinarity in the curriculum. So a group of about 10 of us spent 5 days discussing what sites in the Mediterranean region would best serve visiting scholars and students from a wide range of disciplines. First we identified some interesting topics. Some literature on each subject was proposed and presented by one or two participating faculty. We sifted the various topics to isolate a list of 6 that could of interest to a multidisciplinary group. Finally, we identified the best Mediterranean sites to study these or similar questions of interest.

The first choices of sites to visit were predictable: Venice, Florence, Cairo, Marseilles, and any number of places in Greece, for example. Yet, Turkey appeared on almost everyone's list. Usually not at the top of the list but almost always there. The final sets of topics and sites are listed below:

TOPIC AREA: RELEVANT SITES

• Religious Tolerance and Intolerance: Venice, Turkey, Greece, Marseilles

• Water Use: Scarcity and Conflict: Tunisia, Turkey, Egypt, Grenada

• Identity and Nationalism: Turkey, Greece, Venice

• Migration: Marseilles, Turkey, Greece

• Trade and Commerce: Venice, Turkey, Greece

• Development of Art and Sciences: Venice, Greece, Turkey

• Human Rights, Status of Women: Egypt, Turkey

So to which, and to how many, of these places should we plan visits. In addressing this question CIS director David Harrison and I decided to take an interesting and unique perspective. "Let's pretend," we said to ourselves, "that we're planning a trip for a college whose endowment has just lost more than half a billion dollars." That sounded like a fun way to approach the question. Travelers from this hypothetical institution couldn't possibly visit some extravagantly large number of sites, like, say, two. One site would have to do. So, because Turkey appeared in all of the site lists in the table above, Istanbul made an obvious choice.