2026 Sakıp Sabancı Annual Lecture by Cemal Kafadar, the Vehbi Koç Professor of Turkish Studies, Harvard University
Introduced by Prof. A. Tunç Şen, Assistant Professor of History, Columbia University.
The Middle Period of Islamicate history, between the Mongols and the early modern empires, is characterized by the proliferation of various polities of relatively small scale and short lifespan. While an implicit bias for big states or empires, nurtured by centuries of triumphalist imperial history-writing, Ottoman historiography above all, fosters an understanding of this period as one of “fragmentation,” there are good reasons to reimagine it as an age of political experimentation with alternative models of governance. One of the most audacious of those non-imperial experiments was the short-lived “republic of Ankara,” enabled by enterprising akhis and the camlet industry. This talk will offer a close look at the material and ideological underpinnings of that experiment in the long and short fourteenth century in order to rethink the narrative of the rise of the Ottoman empire.
About the Speaker
Cemal Kafadar is a prominent Turkish historian and the Vehbi Koç Professor of Turkish Studies at Harvard University. Among his publications are Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State (1995); a volume of essays on four “ordinary lives” and autobiographical writing (in Turkish, Kim Var İmiş Biz Burada Yoğiken, 2011); and "A Rome of One's Own: Reflections on Cultural Geography and Identity in the Lands of Rum" in Muqarnas 24 (2007) (expanded version published as a book in Turkish, Kendine Ait Bir Roma, 2017). He has co-edited (with Halil Inalcik) Süleyman the Second and His Time (1995). His articles include: “Evliya Çelebi in Dalmatia: An Ottoman Traveler’s Encounters with the Arts of the Franks” (2014) and “How Dark is the History of the Night, How Black the Story of Coffee, How Bitter the Tale of Love: The Changing Measure of Leisure and Pleasure in Early Modern Istanbul” (2014). He has worked closely on two film projects: Bedreddin of Simavna: Inspirations (dir: Nurdan Arca, 2006); Cine-Eye Istanbul 1661 (based on Eremya Kömürcüyan’s History of Istanbul; dir: Zeynep Dadak, 2019). He has co-edited Treasures of Knowledge: An Inventory of the Ottoman Palace Library (1502/3-1503/4), 2 vols. (2019) and authored two pieces in it: “Between Amasya and Istanbul: Bayezid II, His Librarian, and the Textual Turn of the Fifteenth Century,” and (with Ahmet Karamustafa) “Books on Sufism, Lives of Saints, Ethics, and Sermons.”
Event Details:
Thursday, April 16, 2026
The Faculty House, Columbia University
Event begins at 4:30 PM
Please register here.
Registration is required for both Columbia and non-Columbia guests.
Non-Columbia guests must register by April 14th to receive a campus access QR code.
