On October 24, the Department of History hosted a day-long conference titled \u201cGe\u00e7mi\u015fi Anlamak: \u00d6zer Ergen\u00e7 ve Osmanl\u0131 Tarih\u00e7ili\u011fi, Nereden Nereye\u201d (Understanding the Past: \u00d6zer Ergen\u00e7 and Ottoman Historiography, Then and Now). The event brought together leading scholars and former students to celebrate the contributions of Prof. \u00d6zer Ergen\u00e7 to Ottoman historiography and to reflect on the evolving approaches to history writing in T\u00fcrkiye and beyond. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
After Mehmet Kalpakl\u0131\u2019s welcoming speech, \u0130lhan Tekeli delivered the opening remarks of the symposium. Tekeli\u2019s collaboration with Prof. Ergen\u00e7 has been instrumental in bridging history and urban studies, marking a key moment in the development of Ottoman social historiography. The first session began with Prof. Mehmet \u00d6z, who shared how Prof. Ergen\u00e7\u2019s mentorship shaped his own scholarship, followed by Prof. Filiz Yeni\u015fehirlio\u011flu, who emphasized the importance of interdisciplinary collaboration between art history, archaeology and history. She highlighted the need for more comprehensive, theme-based and comparative studies across disciplines. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prof. Fikret Y\u0131lmaz discussed the transformation of \u0130zmir and the Ottoman Mediterranean in the mid-sixteenth century, tracing shifts in urban life through port activity and architectural surveys. Several former colleagues and students joined remotely to share personal reflections and research perspectives, including Tadashi Suzuki, who highlighted Prof. Ergen\u00e7’s influence of Japanese-Ottoman scholarship; Ceren Ergen\u00e7, who explored the relationship between global history and political science; and Cemal Kafadar, who offered insights into Ankara’s historical layers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The afternoon sessions covered a wide range of topics inspired by Prof. Ergen\u00e7\u2019s work. H\u00fclya Ta\u015f Erdo\u011fan opened the session and later spoke about Ottoman socio-economic history and the significance of studying the Ottoman city within its own conceptual framework. Yunus Ko\u00e7 stressed the importance of geography in historical studies, while Berrak Bur\u00e7ak Della Fave analyzed representations of women and beauty in Ahmet Mithat Efendi\u2019s writings as reflections of modernization and morality in the late empire. Duygu Ergen\u00e7 discussed the intersections of historical preservation, architecture and politics, raising questions about what and how societies choose to preserve. \u0130senbike Togan reflected on conceptual thinking in social sciences, and Ali Yayc\u0131o\u011flu examined the agency of \u201cthe people\u201d in Ottoman and early Republican contexts. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On October 24, the Department of History hosted a day-long conference titled \u201cGe\u00e7mi\u015fi Anlamak: \u00d6zer Ergen\u00e7 ve Osmanl\u0131 Tarih\u00e7ili\u011fi, Nereden Nereye\u201d (Understanding the Past: \u00d6zer Ergen\u00e7 and Ottoman Historiography, Then and Now). The event brought together leading scholars and former students to celebrate the contributions of Prof. \u00d6zer Ergen\u00e7 to[Read More…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9474,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,80,200,193],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bilkentnews.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9471"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bilkentnews.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bilkentnews.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bilkentnews.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bilkentnews.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9471"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bilkentnews.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9472,"href":"https:\/\/bilkentnews.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9471\/revisions\/9472"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bilkentnews.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bilkentnews.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bilkentnews.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bilkentnews.bilkent.edu.tr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}