Cosmopolitan Aesthetics of Empire: Arts, Politics, and Commerce in the Construction of Sultan Süleyman's Magnificence’

A perspective of Sultan Süleyman’s (r. 1520-1566) empire, viewed from the lens of visual material presents a rather different picture from that of official Ottoman written sources, enabling readings that are not explicitly stated in texts. The lecture explores this proposition by focusing on the less familiar first half of the sultan’s reign, when expansion into Central Europe and Italy constituted the main priority. During this period,...

Participants:

Professor Cemal Kafadar, Vehbi Koç Professor of Turkish Studies, History Department, Harvard University

Professor Gülru Necipoğlu, Aga Khan Professor and Director Aga Khan Programme for Islamic Architecture, Harvard University

Professor Sanjay Subrahmanyam, Distinguished Professor and Irving and Jean Stone Endowed Chair in Social Sciences, UCLA

There has been considerable historiographical interest in rethinking the ‘Early Modern’ outside developmental paradigms of the industrialised world. The IESHR and the Centre for Advanced...

“Drawings and Models: Architectural Processes in a Seventeenth Century Book on Ottoman Architecture”

“The Concept of ‘Persianate’ as Applied to Delhi Sultanate Architecture and Décor”