Date:
Wednesday, March 20, 2024, 4:30pm to 6:00pm
Location:
CMES, Rm 102, 38 Kirkland St, Cambridge, MA 02138
Following a chronological arc from 1795 to 1909, The Accidental Palace shows how the site developed from a rural estate of the queen mothers into the heart of Ottoman government. Nominally, the palace may have belonged to the rarefied realm of the Ottoman elite, but as Deniz Türker reveals, the development of the site was profoundly connected to Istanbul’s urban history and to changing conceptions of empire, absolutism, diplomacy, reform, and the public. Türker explores these connections, framing Yıldız Palace and its grounds not only as a hermetic expression of imperial identity but also as a product of an increasingly globalized consumer culture, defined by access to a vast number of goods and services across geographical boundaries.
See also: Center for Middle East Studies
