Orin and Ayse at Sabanci University

This is near the entrance to the university where Ayse is a professor of cultural studies and Orin will be teaching. Only 6 years old, Sabanci was founded by the Turkish equivalent of the Dukes (except the Sabancis are very much still alive and in control of a growing fortune). The university is private and located about an hour outside central Istanbul, on the Asian side. As Ayse explained to us, Sabanci is committed to academic freedom and critical inquiry, something that can irritate or enrage nationalists and the religious fundamentalists. Recently, this tension erupted over the fact that Sabanci, unlike other universities, did not have a bust of Ataturk, the Turkish George Washington (times a million), on prominent display. Crafty minds at Sabanci then thought up this wall, which features a profile of Ataturk (to the left of Orin) and a quote from one of his writings essentially saying that the Great Leader was leaving his people no dogmas to follow, no absolutes to defend. Touche.