The TIOL3 Seminar was held in Istanbul from 9 to 12 April 2025, with support from Sabancı University, the Association for the Study of Travel in Egypt and the Near East (ASTENE), the British Institute at Ankara (BIAA), American Research in Turkey (ARIT), Netherlands Institute in Turkey (NIT), the Swedish Institute in Istanbul (SRII) and Cornucopia magazine.
The seminar explored the vibrant cultural, political and social exchanges between the Ottoman Empire and those who visited Ottoman lands over the past 600 years. It attracted nearly 100 participants in total from as far away as Australia and the US, in addition to colleagues from colleagues from Türkiye, the UK and other parts of Europe.
The event began with a keynote address by Ahmet Ersoy from Boğaziçi University, who spoke on The Camera and the Notebook: Photographic Excursions in Late Ottoman Illustrated Images, chaired by ARIT Istanbul Director Dr Zeynep Simavi. Dr Ersoy’s paper used travel writing, stories and photography to explore the combined impact of nineteenth-century technologies of mobility (the train, the steamship, and the bicycle) and visuality (photography and photomechanical reproduction) on late Ottoman visions of imperial space and its historical past. Dr Ersoy drew on the illustrated travel diary and notebook as a new form of literature that emerged with travel and discussed how this shaped collective memory and understandings of Ottoman imperial identities.
This approach led the way for a rich day of presentations that spanned disciplines such as fashion history, art, architecture, archaeology, literature and food studies, from a dazzling array of contexts, including texts and sources written in English, Ottoman Turkish, French, Dutch, Italian, German, Persian and Arabic.
The second day opened with a keynote address from Professor Reina Lewis of University of the Arts London, chaired by BIAA Assistant Director Dr Peter Cherry. Professor Lewis’s paper explored the importance of Western and Ottoman women’s travel writing and harem literature for understanding Ottoman dress and society. Particularly innovative was her use of contemporary fashion theories and ‘aesthetic labour’ (the recruitment, management and direction of employees based on their physical appearance) to engage with how ideas of fashion were transmitted across Ottoman society and adapted for different social contexts. Professor Lewis’s talk introduced a day of talks which focused on gender, cultural heritage and memory, religion and spirituality, and diplomatic and war histories.
The day closed with a special guest presentation from Dr Nancy Micklewright, previously Head of Public and Scholarly Engagement at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art and now a Fulbright Senior Research Grant holder at the Istanbul branch of American Research in Turkey. Dr Micklewright spoke on British and American records of enslavement in Ottoman harems.
The third day began with two final panels focusing on Christian-Muslim encounters, economic and trade history and the history of academic research and writing on Ottoman regions. This was followed by three talks and a guided tour of the Feriköy Protestant Cemetery. The BIAA Assistant Director, Dr Peter Cherry, chaired introductory papers on the history of the cemetery, the foundation of the Feriköy Protestant Cemetery Initiative and two papers exploring notable figures buried in the cemetery. Dr Richard Wittman, Deputy Director at the Orient Institut Istanbul, and Dr Brian Johnson, Librarian at ARIT Istanbul, then led colleagues on a tour of the cemetery pointing out figures of interest, which included pioneers in the history of beer brewing in the Ottoman Empire, former ambassadors, translators and a drug smuggler!
For the most conscientious participants, the seminar concluded on Saturday with a guided tour of the Emirgan Tulip Gardens, where Sabancı University PhD student Mert Pekdoğdu spoke about the significance of the tulip in Ottoman history, covering its political, botanical and economic aspects. The visit provided a fitting end to highly successful event.
