Back	At the Voyvoda Street Lectures: Is an historical past a new product of globalization? Prof. Ayşe Öncü will be joining us at the Voyvoda Street Economic History Lectures this month, with a presentation titled, "Globalization and Consumerism of the Past", scheduled for Wednesday, November 3, at 6:30 p.m. Illustrating her lecture with relevant examples in Istanbul, she will discuss how theme parks, in urban centers around the globe today, synthesize and simplify history, turning it into just another commodity ready for consumption. According to Prof. Ayşe Öncü, present cultural industries work at the global and local levels to blur national identities and cultures, and produce a standardized cultural environment.Themed amusement parks, which nowadays dominate the cultural discourse of urban centers throughout the world, offer a reconfigured and simplified historical past for consumerism. This "marketing" and "consumption" of history has inevitably triggered debates about whose past and which past is being presented. Ayşe Öncü, who holds a Ph.D. from the Department of Sociology at Yale University, is currently a faculty member of the Department of Cultural Studies at Sabanci University. Her research interests include, cultural politics in Turkey, medias and public spheres, city cultures and spaces, and transcultural spaces of migrancy. The Voyvoda Street Economic History Lectures will revolve around globalization issues this season. For information on the free lectures program organized by the Museum, please call, (212) 334 22 70. A robust program of lectures is offered by the Ottoman Bank Museum under the general heading, Voyvoda Street Lectures. Every Wednesday, a lecture is presented on one of 4 main themes - music and politics, objects and rituals, economic history, and Istanbul. The Making of Modern Turkey Seminars, organized by the Museum in association with Boğaziçi University, are held every third Saturday of the month. This season, the seminars focus on the transition from Empire to nation-state and the legal, individual and economic variables of this process