Port Cities of the Eastern Mediterranean. Urban Culture in the Late Ottoman Empire, lecture by ​Malte Fuhrmann (Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient), Byzantium at Ankara Spring Seminar Series 2020/21 via Zoom, February 25, 2021, 6:00 pm (Istanbul Time Zone)

This study investigates vital changes in the histories of space, consumption, and identities in the port cities of Smyrna, Constantinople, and Salonica (Izmir, Istanbul, and Thessaloniki) in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. It aims to create a more stringent narrative of what urban culture meant and what role the impact of “Europe” played in pre-World War I port cities. What people in Smyrna, Salonica, or Constantinople considered European often followed ostensible forms from elsewhere on the continent, but these forms became suffused with meanings the local residents projected onto them.

I investigate these interpretations of Europeanness through a focus on changes in the urban texture, such as the construction of modern quays and representative buildings; leisure practices such as balls, operas, and beer drinking; class, gender, and identity discourses; as well as campaigns targeting foreign prostitutes or vagabonds.

​Malte Fuhrmann is a research fellow at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO). He is the author of Imagining a German Orient: Two German Colonies in the Ottoman Empire 1851–1918 (2006, in German), Constantinople - Istanbul: Sultans and Rebels (2019, in German) and coeditor of The City in the Ottoman Empire: Migration and the Making of Urban Modernity (2011) with Ulrike Freitag, Nora Lafi, and Florian Riedler."

The Byzantine Seminar Series “Byzantium at Ankara” is an event organized and hosted in collaboration by the Department of History at Bilkent University and the Department of History of Art at Hacettepe University which will be held over the entire 2020/21 academic year. It is organized by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Sercan Yandim (Hacettepe University) and Asst. Prof. Dr. Luca Zavagno (Bilkent University).

The object of the series of talks is to engage Byzantine scholars from different backgrounds and areas of expertise in a conversation on issues which relate and resonate with the current socio-political and economic situation. The importance of building these connections should put Byzantium in a global, modern and historical perspective.

All the sessions will be broadcasted via Zoom. Pre-registration at byzantiumatankara@hotmail.com is required. A link to attend the seminar will be sent one hour before the start of the meeting.