Can Bilsel, PhD

History of modern architecture, history of modern urbanism, history of housing and the housing question, history of art and archaeology museum, museum studies, repatriation of material culture, history and theory of monuments and historic preservation, monuments controversy, collective memory, the art and memorialization of urban protests, postcolonial and decolonial theory.

• The Graham Foundation award for the book project Architecture and the Housing Question
  
• Research Chair at the Institut d'études de l'Islam et des sociétés du monde musulman at the Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales (School of Advanced Studies and Social Sciences) in Paris France.
  
• University Professor, awarded by the University of San Diego in recognition of “outstanding scholarly achievements in teaching and research supporting the mission and goals of the university.”
  
• Visiting Scholar, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal.
  
• Nominated by the University of San Diego for the Graves Award for teaching excellence in the humanities.
  
• The Getty Research Institute Fellow. A residential grant for research, and participation in the Scholars Program at the Research Institute in Los Angeles (for two years).
  
• Whiting Fellowship in the Humanities. A honorific fellowship awarded by Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation, a program at seven U.S. universities, upon the nomination of Princeton University “in recognition of outstanding performance and professional promise.”
  
• Princeton University, Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies grant. A special project grant for the expenses and publication of the independent research on the restitution and repatriation of archaeological monuments.
  
• The Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at Harvard University and at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1996. Independent research grant for “An Annotated Bibliography of Urban Historical Studies Published in Turkey Between 1923-1950.”

Can Bilsel has written and lectured extensively about the modern appropriation, reconstruction and reception of the architecture and material culture of antiquity. He is the author of the book Antiquity on Display: Regimes of the Authentic in Berlin’s Pergamon Museum (Oxford University Press, 2012), which explores the relationship between the history of German archaeology in the Middle East, and the reconstruction and display of the monuments of antiquity in Berlin’s Pergamon Museum (1907-1930). Examining the process through which archaeological fragments were completed into modern installations in the museum (the Pergamon Altar, the Ishtar Gate of Babylon, the Market Gate of Miletus, etc…), Bilsel shows how our vision of ancient architecture was shaped by the demands of the age and the nation that has excavated them.

Over the years this inquiry has opened a fertile ground. Can Bilsel has published or given presentations on issues concerning authenticity, reproducibility and repatriation of art and architecture. While his work can be located within a post-colonially grounded critique of the European museum and its displays, he also provides a close reading of architectural objects and museum spaces—more specifically, by focusing on the shifting relation between the ancient architecture and its modern architectural frames. Although the European museum has demonstrably intersected with the ideological projects of its patrons (most often colonialism), its architectural displays could not be reduced in any transparent manner to the intentions that constituted them. How historical audiences engaged and understood these monuments in the longue durée could not be predicted. Thus, by documenting the ways we came to imagine architecture to be antique and authentic, Bilsel shows how the museum constructed a history of art and architecture, one that was both enabled by, and reactive against an age of mass production and ubiquity of images.

Bilsel’s publications also include “Crisis in Conservation: Istanbul’s Gezi Park between Restoration and Resistance,” “Our Anatolia: Organicism and the Making of the Humanist Culture in Turkey.” Most recently, Can Bilsel co-edited with Juliana Maxim Architecture and the Housing Question (Routledge, 2022) a book that brought together 14 scholars from around the world and received a publication grant from the Graham Foundation. Bilsel is currently writing a series of essays on urban protests and memorialization including “The Aesthetics of Resistance: Taksim’s Standing Man Between Body Politic and Bare Life,” in Reinhold Martin and Claire Zimmerman eds., Architecture Against Democracy (University of Minnesota Press, forthcoming).

2023:

“In Situ: Being Halet Çambel” paper accepted for Society of Architectural Historians annual conference in Montreal, QC Canada, April 13, 2023 

2022:

“Inventing the Fertile Crescent: American Academia and Coloniality” Society of Architectural Historians annual conference in Pittsburgh, April 29, 2022.

Book talks, Architecture and the Housing Question, UCSD Urban Studies and Planning Colloquium, March 2, 2022. Kuwait University, May 1, 2022; University of San Diego Humanities Center February 7, 2023. 

“Inventing the Fertile Crescent: The Chicago Archaeology Network and Coloniality” in Decolonizing Regionalism Workshop, UCLA, organized by Manuel Shvartzberg Carrio and Ayala Levin, October 7, 2022

2021:

Session chair and co-organizer of the conference “Transgression: A New Paradigm,” the European Architectural Historians Network meeting in Rennes, France, 17-21 November 2021.

“The Afterlives of a Monument: Reflections on Cevdet Erek’s Bergama Stereo/Stereotip” paper presented at the European Architecture History Network (EAHN) Conference, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, September 30 – October 2, 2021.

Moderator and respondent, the SAH (Society of Architectural Historians) Connects Workshop, “Caregiving as Method” organized by Anooradha Siddiqi, September 24, 2021.

“The Pain of Others: the Allegory and Memorialization of the Saturday People,” an invited talk at Princeton University, Princeton-Mellon Forum, in the workshop “No Small Acts” organized by Sophie Hochhäusl and Ana María León, May 20-21, 2021.

“On Friedrich Engel’s The Housing Question” lecture in the Design Justice series organized by Clarissa Mendez and NOMAS, Clemson University, March 9, 2021.

“Istanbul’s Saturday Mothers: the Architecture of Dirty War” an invited talk at Princeton University, Princeton-Mellon Forum organized by Sophie Hochhäusl and Ana María León, May 20-21, 2021.

2020:

“In Search of Lost Time: Bergama Stereotip, Authenticity and Reproduction 1880-2020,” Arter Museum, Istabul, public lecture delivered in the context of Cevdet Erek’s Bergama Stereotip installation,” 12 November 2020.

“The Aesthetics of Resistance: Taksim’s Standing Man Between the Body Politic and Bare Life” in “Architecture Against Democracy,” Editorial Workshop, Buell Center, Columbia University, March 6, 2020.

2018:

“Architecture and the Housing Question: A Book in Progress” with Juliana Maxim, public lecture, Friends of San Diego Architecture, San Diego, 20 October 2018.

“L’anastylose: la diffusion d'une technique archéologique et le réalisme pittoresque 'aux marges' de l’Europe” [Anasytlosis: the diffusion of an archaeological technique and picturesque realism on the ‘margins’ of Europe] in the conference Construire, Restaurer, Détruire: les chantiers du XVIII^e au XX^e siècle, in INHA (National Art History Institute of France), Paris. Lecture delivered in French on 28 September 2018.

“The Aesthetics of Resistance: Public Space, Body Politic and Bare Life in an Istanbul Protest” in the Buell Center’s working group on “Nationalism, Aesthetics, and Emergency Powers,” Columbia University GSAPP, forthcoming, 14 April 2018.

“The State of Emergency since the Occupy Movements” public lecture at the Atheneum in La Jolla, California, in Joyce Cutler-Shaw Dialogues in Art & Architecture Series, forthcoming, 25 April 2018.

Lecture on Istanbul Gezi Park protests in Dr. Patricia Blessing’s course “Cairo and Istanbul: Urban Space, Memory, Protest” in Pomona College, California, forthcoming, 27 March 2018.

2017:

“Learning from Charlottesville: Monuments, Iconicity and Race” and “Transgression / Proportionality” two lectures delivered during the conference “Transgressing Normed Space” at the École Nationale Supérieure de Bretagne, in Rennes, France, 12-13 December 2017.

“Whither the Archaeology Museum?  Ex Situ / In Situ in London and Athens,” invited lecture at Columbia University GSAPP, Fitch Symposium, 27 October 2017.

“On Confederate Monuments, Race, and Counter-Monuments” with Aarynn Jones. Invited talk at the panel “Dangerous Ideas: Confederate Monuments Controversy,” University of San Diego, Humanities Center, 4 October 2017.  

“Architecture and the Housing Question: Provisional Notes from a History in Progress,” invited lecture at the University of Cyprus in Nicosia, 16 June 2017.

“Histories After Resistance: Body Politics and Bare Life in an Istanbul Protest.” Keynote, at the European Architectural Historians Network Meeting in Jerusalem, June 13, 2017.

“Architecture and the Social Frameworks of Memory: A Postscript to Maurice Halbwachs’ Collective Memory,” invited lecture at ICONARCH III Congress, Konya, Turkey, March 11-13, 2017.

2016:

“Architecture and the Housing Question” invited lecture to PhD and M.Arch students at the Middle East Technical University, Department of Architecture, Ankara, Turkey, 14 October 2016.

“Displacement and Context in Bernard Tschumi’s New Acropolis Museum (Athens)” METU Talks / Architectural History, invited public lecture at the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey, 11 October 2016.

“Taksim Gezi Park, Conservation, and the Questions of Architectural History,” paper presented in the session, “Histories in Conflict” in the annual meeting of the Society of Architectural Historians, Pasadena, CA, 8 April 2016.

2015:

“Preservation and Performance: Regimes of the Authentic,” public lecture sponsored by UCLA Architecture and Urban Design, and Critical Studies Graduate Student Association, Los Angeles, 18 November 2015.

Organizer and co-chair with Juliana Maxim of the Conference “The Housing Question: The Nomad Seminar in Historiography” at the University of San Diego, 12-13 March 2015. With keynote speaker Reinhold Martin of Columbia University, 14 participants and five respondents from numerous universities around the world.

2014:

“The Ballad of Ali of Keshan: Migration and the Shantytown in Turkish Epic Theater,” paper presented in the annual meeting of MESA (Middle Eastern Studies Association) in Washington DC, 23 November 2014.

Lecture during the conference “Archéologies nationales au Maghreb et en Méditerranée orientale” in Paris, France on 24 January 2014.

“Zeus in Exile: The Problem of Repatriation of Monuments from Western Museums as seen through the Turkish context,” lecture in the graduate conference, "Collectionner l'Autre et l'ailleurs" (Université Paris I, Sorbonne), 23 January 2014.

“Ekrem Akurgal, Archaeology and the Problem of Aesthetic Culture in Turkey” lecture at the seminar “Arts, patrimoine et culture dans le monde turco-ottoman,” EHESS, Paris, France, 15 January 2014.

“Against Architecture: Istanbul-Taksim Resistance and the Limits of Liberal Public Sphere” invited lecture at Centre d’études turques, ottomans, balkaniques, et central asiatiques  (CETOBAC) at L’Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), Paris, France, 9 January 2014.

2013:

Taksim’s “Standing Man”: Agonism, Biopolitics and the Limits of Liberal Public Sphere, in Sanart, Aesthetics Congress of Turkey, Mersin, Turkey, 24 October, 2013.

Introduction to Ideology Critique in Architecture: the Work of Manfredo Tafuri, lecture in the graduate architectural theory seminar at Istanbul Technical University, 23 October, Istanbul, Turkey.

“Antiquity on Display” invited lecture and book presentation at the Université Paris I, Sorbonne, on April 13, 2013.

“Master of the Copies: Outline of a Theory of the Authentic,” invited lecture at Princeton University School of Architecture, April 10, 2013.

2012:

“After Europe: the Authentic, the Fake and the Decolonization of Historic Monuments” invited lecture at the Bilkent University, Ankara, Turkey, November 13, 2012.

“Antiquity on Display: Regimes of the Authentic in Berlin’s Pergamon Museum” book launch and lecture at the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey, November 8, 2012.

Co-chair of the roundtable “Neither Modernism nor Avant-Garde” (with Patricia Morton, UC Riverside) at the Second International Meeting of the European Architectural Historians Network, Brussels, Belgium, May 31-June 3, 2012.

2011:

“Fait Urbain: Marcel Poëte and the Intelligence of the City,” (“Intelligence of the City: Marcel Poëte and the Origins of Urban Morphology”) invited lecture in the conference “Teaching History of Architecture” at the Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art in Paris France, July 24, 2011.

“All Men Will Be Brothers? Karl Friedrich Schinkel and the Origins of the Berlin Museum,” Friends of San Diego Architecture Lecture, The New School of Architecture and Design, San Diego, February 19, 2011.

2010:

“No Place Like Greece: The Berlin Museum, Aesthetic Ideology and the Architecture of History,” invited lecture at Maumaus, Escola de Artes Visuais, Lisbon, Portugal, June 24, 2010.

Co-chair of the session “Architecture in the Museum / Museum of Architecture” (with Alexis Sornin, Head of the Study Centre, Canadian Centre for Architecture) at the First International Meeting of the European Architectural Historians Network, held in Guimaraes, Portugal in June 17-20, 2010.

Respondent in the Buell Conference on the History of Architecture, “In-Print,” Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, New York, April 16-17, 2010.    

Professor Bilsel has designed and taught a wide array of courses at USD including “Introduction to Modern Architecture,” “Avant-Garde and Mass Culture,” “Memory, Monument, Museum,” “City and Utopia,” “Architecture and Theory Since 1945,” “Heterotopias: Architecture and Biopower,” “Critical Methods in the Analysis of Visual Culture: the Frankfurt School,” “Biographies of World Cities: Istanbul,” “Berlin Collections," “Architecture and Decolonization,” "Architecture Senior Studio Seminar” (with the emphases: Experiments with the Superblock; Analyzing San Diego; Resilience-by-design: Infrastructure Space / Emergency Powers), and Architecture Senior Thesis Studio. Professor Bilsel enjoys supervising undergraduate research projects at the University of San Diego, and takes pride in the achievements of the Architecture and Art History Majors, who have been recruited to top graduate schools and positions around the world. The courses Professor Bilsel developed and taught in the PhD and Masters Program at UCLA Department of Architecture and Urban Design include: "Architecture, Conservation and Biopolitics,” "Planetary Experts: Development, the Environment and Humanitarianism in the Postcolonial Territories” "The Crisis in Conservation: Museum, Memory, Monument” and  "Planetary Experts / Postcolonial Subjects.”