Prof. Alev Erkilet has published a new article titled “Tevhidden Yararcılığa, Muvakkithanelerden Saatleri Ayarlama Enstitüsü’ne Kentlerin ve Zihinlerin Dönüşümü” in the 23rd issue of the journal Düşünen Şehir in December, 2025. In this study, Prof. Erkilet analyzes the transformation of mentality and space during Türkiye's modernization process through the lens of Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar’s seminal novel “The Time Regulation Institute” (Saatleri Ayarlama Enstitüsü).
The article explores the transition from the Ottoman Empire to the Republic era not merely as a political shift, but as a fundamental rupture in the perception of time. Prof. Erkilet argues that the replacement of traditional "muvakkithanes" (timekeeping houses)—which represented a "tawhidi" understanding of reality and linked daily life to the sacred—with the secular and rational Time Regulation Institute is the most concrete indicator of this change. The study examines how time was detached from nature and divine meaning, becoming an isolated unit of measurement serving the utilitarian principles of capitalism.
Relating this transformation to Georg Simmel’s “sociology of the metropolis”, Prof. Erkilet emphasizes how the punctuality, calculability, and impersonal relations of modern urban life replaced traditional neighborhood culture. By highlighting Tanpınar’s depiction of a rootless bureaucracy characterized by a lack of meritocracy, the author offers a poignant critique of Turkish modernization as an "imitative and hollowed-out" process.
We congratulate Prof. Erkilet on this significant scholarly contribution.
