In this article, the author focuses on how cultural studies has been translated into the Turkish context in terms of modernization, and how the process of remaking it has raised some interesting questions about interdisciplinarity. Should it exist or should it be rejected on the grounds that it seeks to abandon established disciplinary models (and thereby prompt questions as to the future of university departments)? First, the author suggests that the notion of "culture" in the Turkish Republic--for government representatives and policy-makers alike--is inextricably bound up with the idea of an indivisible Kemalist society based on secularism, democracy and modernity, in which everyone is given equal rights regardless of race, sex or class. An ideal "cultural studies" program should introduce students to the "best" cultural products of the west (literary texts, historical documents, newspapers, media, etc.) which reinforce these values, and thereby ensure the continued development of the Republic. He also suggests that an increasing concern to preserve this culture has led to the rejection of pluralism and individuality in favour of the "common interest". Through case studies of versions of cultural studies practiced in university departments of humanities, he subsequently discusses how these notions have been instrumental in determining the ways in which the "discipline" has to date been imported and subsequently developed. He concludes by suggesting that the future of cultural studies in Turkey is intimately related to the material technologies of power and cultural policy, demonstrating how the relations of culture and power which most typically characterize modern societies are best understood in the light of the respects in which the field of culture is now increasingly governmentally organized and constructed (Bennett 1998, 61). (Contains 1 note.)