Özgür Balkılıç (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
Utku Öğüt (Berlin)
Between Politics and the Culture Industry: The Divergence of Lyric and Music-(Re)Production Processes in the Urban Music of Aşıks from Turkey, 1960–1980

In this guest lecture, the examination will concentrate on the trajectory of aşıks from Turkey, i.e. traditional poet-singers from Anatolia, from the 1960s onwards. It is noteworthy that this transformation encompasses their growing affinity with literature and their increasing engagement with the culture industry in urban musical milieus. Consequently, many aşıks began to diverge from conventional methods of producing and (re)producing traditional songs, while detaching the processes of lyric writing and musical composition. This shift in focus is characterized by an increased orientation towards literature and poetry, accompanied by the adoption of new roles and epithets such as 'poet', 'author' and/or 'composer'. By redefining the processes of music production in this manner, they also redefined the concept of what it meant to be an aşık in the urban context, reflecting broader political, cultural, and industrial dynamics of specialization and professionalization in the production of 'art' in the modern sense.

Consequently, this lecture will explore these processes in terms of the pursuit of more intellectualized artistic forms and, concurrently, integration into more mainstream musical spheres, each of which carries different facets of artistic and political agency.

Özgür Balkılıç is a fellow researcher at the Department of Musicology and Media Studies at the Humboldt University of Berlin with his project, funded by the Gerda Henkel Stiftung, titled “Âşık/Alevi Music Revival in Between Politics, Culture Industry and Urban Space in Turkey, 1960-1980.” He has obtained his BSc and MA degrees from the Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey and Ph D degree from Wilfrid Laurier University, Ontario Canada. His research interests and studies focus on the social and cultural history of the contemporary Turkey. He published two books, several book chapters and a number of articles in the national and international journals.

Utku Öğüt holds a PhD in Musicology from Humboldt University of Berlin, where he completed his dissertation on compositional strategies in contemporary music from Turkey, with a focus on hybridity, mobility, and cultural policies. He currently works as an independent researcher and lecturer at various universities. In parallel with his academic work, he is active as a music producer and performer in contemporary and experimental music scenes. His research interests include the political, social, and cultural dimensions of contemporary and New Music; development of musical instruments and sound technologies; techniques and aesthetics of musical composition; the interrelations between music and social transformation.