Date and Time: 02-03 April 2026, 10:00 – 18:00
Venue: FEASS, C-Block Amphi
GE 250/251: 20 Points (per day) (To earn the maximum daily allocation of
20 points, a minimum presence of one hour is required)
Dear Colleagues and Students,
You are cordially invited to the “Bilkent History Graduate Symposium”
which will take place on Thursday and Friday, April 2 and 3, 2026, at C-Block Amphi, organized by the Department of History and the Bilkent Historical Society. This year, the symposium’s theme is Tradition. The symposium’s keynote speaker is Prof. Marinos Sariyannis.
Keynote Speaker: Prof. Marinos Sariyannis ((IMS/FORTH) April 2, 2026, 10.15-11.15
Title: Tradition and Its Uses in Ottoman Culture
Abstract:
Ottoman society has often been labeled a “traditional” one (see, for instance, Halil İnalcık’s classic 1964 paper). Yet tradition only has a meaning in a given moment of time, being inextricably connected both to the past (of a given “present”) and to the perception of “the past” (by a given “present”). We now know that the Ottoman Empire was far from being a static, unchanged society; this necessarily means that what Ottomans perceived as “tradition” changed as well over time. A survey of this huge topic will examine the debates on “innovation” (bid’at) throughout the seventeenth and sixteenth centuries, including political discussions to innovative poetry or painting styles. In addition, the lecture will consider: the “invented traditions” recurrent especially (but not exclusively) in the early Ottoman centuries; the different approaches to the “new” and the “traditional” in the history of Ottoman knowledge, including the Hermetic idea of a rediscovery of some perennial wisdom; the shift to an ethnographic gaze that would collect, record and preserve folk traditions; and finally, the role of imagination and the way tradition was shaping and shaped by a repository of imaginary places, figures and events.
Bio:
Marinos Sariyannis is Research Director of the Department of Ottoman History at the Institute for Mediterranean Studies/FORTH. He studied History and Archaeology at the Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki, where he also completed his postgraduate studies (M.A.) and wrote his Ph.D. dissertation titled “Marginal Groups in Ottoman Istanbul” under the supervision of Prof. John C. Alexander (Alexandropoulos). He has authored or co-authored six books (another forthcoming), has edited or co-edited four collective volumes, and published more than ninety articles, chapters, and entries in academic journals, edited volumes, and academic encyclopedias. He has participated in almost 50 international conferences and workshops and has served on the organizing committees of 9 international conferences. His main research interests cover Ottoman social, political, and cultural history, with an emphasis on political thought and the Ottoman perceptions of nature and the supernatural, as well as the history of the Greek lands and especially Crete under Ottoman rule.
If you have any further inquiries, please contact:
historygradsymposium@gmail.com