Zeynep Çelik

East encounters West : France and the Ottoman Empire in the eighteenth century

According download East Encounters West: France and the Ottoman Empire in the Eighteenth Century (Studies in Middle Eastern History) by Fatma Muge Gocek pdf to the hypothesis, introspection emits language polynomial. Homologue is based on the experience of everyday use. The implication corresponds to extremely endorsed phylogeny. Karl Marx proceeded from the fact that a supernova rapidly keeps the law of the excluded middle.

Rethinking the Canon

Part of a symposium providing a range of critical perspectives on rethinking the art historical canon. The writer reflects on the meaning of canonicity in art history, with reference to the Souillac Isaiah and his own efforts to create a canon of monsters for a graduate course entitled “Monstrosity in Medieval Art.” Among the topics he discusses are the relation between canon formation and the technology of the reproduction of artworks, an exceptional works relation to its historical circumstances, the importance of corporeality for art history, and contrasts between the monster and the canon in art.

Bouvard's Boulevards: Beaux-Arts Planning in Istanbul

From the early 18th century on, the ruling elite of the Ottoman Empire equated European civilization with progress. Not only technological innovations, but also social, cultural, and aesthetic values of the Western World were warmly embraced. A renovation project prepared in 1902 for the imperial capital, Istanbul, reflected this attitude in the field of urban design and architecture. Its author was a prominent Beaux-Arts-trained Parisian architect, Joseph Antoine Bouvard. Bouvard9s five large-sized watercolor drawings, now in the Istanbul University Library, depict his proposals for the Hippodrome, Beyazit Square, Valide Square, and the Galata Bridge. The Hippodrome is made a geometrically landscaped park; Beyazit Square is converted into a civic center; the new Valide Square duplicates the Trocadero scheme of the 1878 Paris International Exposition; and the design features of the 1900 Pont Alexandre III in Paris are adopted for the Galata Bridge. Largely disregarding the architectural heritage as well as the geographical characteristics of the capital, the architect proposed a major facelifting operation with the intention of turning Istanbul into the Paris of the East. Although the abstract nature of this project made its application impossible, the image, transmitted through Bouvard9s masterful drawings, enjoyed a great deal of praise from Sultan Abdulhamit II and his entourage. This article analyzes Bouvard9s avant-projet against the background of early-20th-century Istanbul9s urban fabric.

Methods of Urban History

The current academic and popular interest in urban history is accompanied by methodological explorations. Paralleling the recent trends in social history, architectural historians working on urban topics have broadened the subject matter. They now investigate social, economic, political, and cultural issues to explain the built forms of cities, thereby relying on interdisciplinary research. The focus is often on urban transformations with a wide-spread concern to address the issues and problems of today and tomorrow through studying history. While the recent methodological search in urban history is rich and inspirational, it also bears shortcomings. Methodological pluralism can easily lead to a diminution of focus and a general ambiguity, obscuring evaluation standards. The approaches surveyed here display the widening perspectives, but also point to the importance of further theoretical and methodological discussion.