E309 | Photography came to the Ottoman empire almost as soon as it was invented in Europe. Over subsequent decades, however, techniques improved, cameras got cheaper and more portable, and photographic production, circulation, and collection in Ottoman lands moved outside of the rarefied circles of the elite studios and the state. In this episode, Ahmet Ersoy discusses one of the main media for this kind of vernacular photography--the illustrated journals of the late Ottoman empire. What can understanding the circulation of images in this form help us to understand about history, identity, and print culture in the late Ottoman Empire, as well as about how to study photography itself?
More at http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2017/03/illustratedjournals.html
Ahmet Ersoy is Associate Professor at the History Department at Boğaziçi University, Istanbul. His work deals with the history of the Late Ottoman Empire with a special focus on the changing role and status of visual culture during a period of westernizing change. He is the author of the book, Architecture and the Late Ottoman Historical Imaginary: Reconfiguring the Architectural Past in a Modernizing Empire, and he is currently pursuing research on the confluence of photography, new media technologies and print culture in the late Ottoman world
Susanna Ferguson is a Ph.D. Candidate in Middle Eastern History at Columbia University. She is currently working on a dissertation entitled "Tracing Tarbiya: Women, Gender and Childrearing in Egypt and Lebanon, 1865-1939.
CREDITS
Episode No. 309
Release Date: 30 March 2017
Recording Location: ANAMED, Istanbul
Audio editing by Onur Engin
Music: Müzeyyen Senar - Ayrılık Yaman Kelime
Images and bibliography courtesy of Ahmet Ersoy available at http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2017/03/illustratedjournals.html
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