At the Crossroads of Modernity, Space, and Identity: Istanbul and the Orient Express Train

In this project, I employ the lens of railway mobility to examine the ideologies that determine the complex readings and representations of Istanbul's cityscape and culture at key moments since the late-nineteenth century. In particular, I explore the evocations of loss, nostalgia, and communitas embedded in the visual and literary intersections of the city and the Orient Express train. Istanbul has always been a place defined in terms of binaries. Its geopolitical position has for centuries dictated its identity as a multivalent "contact zone" between Europe and Asia, between First Rome and Second Rome, between the Christian West and the Islamic East, and between the Occident and the Orient. It is also a provocative palimpsest of civilizations, sumptuously exhibiting a visual interlace of the past and the present, the pre-modern and the modern in its urban and cultural landscapes. Therefore, central to this project is an analysis of the problematic [re]configurations of Istanbul's threshold identity in the visuals associated with the Orient Express as they relate to the history of modernity. In addition, I examine Istanbul's liminality as a critical and creative space for expressing resistance, empowerment, and solidarity. I have limited the scope of this study to three interconnected bodies of visuals: posters and photographs; films and ludic media; and railway architecture and heritage performances.