 OTTOMAN
AND TURKISH STUDIES AT HARVARD
 OTHER
OTTOMAN AND TURKISH STUDIES PROGRAMS
 RESOURCES
IN OTTOMAN AND TURKISH STUDIES
 OTTOMAN
MANUSCRIPTS AT HARVARD
 NEWS
IN OTTOMAN AND TURKISH STUDIES
 CONTACT
US
|
About Ottoman and Turkish Studies
at Harvard
(Return to Turkish Studies
at Harvard)
- History of Ottoman and Turkish Studies at Harvard
-
- Resources for Ottoman and Turkish Studies Available at Harvard University
History of Ottoman and Turkish Studies at Harvard University
Harvard University has a long tradition of teaching and research in the
fields of Turkish and Ottoman studies. As early as the nineteenth century,
courses on Ottoman history were taught at the University. However, during
the past three decades, Turkish and Ottoman studies have been expanded and
integrated more thoroughly into the curriculum. The program has grown stronger
most recently with the addition of area studies faculty and the enhancement
of the Turkish language program. These developments have resulted in greater
student interest and the establishment of new research projects.
Faculty and Curriculum Resources
Harvard has been fortunate to have a history of excellence in teaching
and research in Turkish and Ottoman related disciplines. Most notably, during
the early part of this century, the prominent diplomatic historian, Archibald
Coolidge, came to Harvard where he taught Ottoman history for many years.
In particular, he left to Harvard and future scholars his valuable collection
of European books on the Ottomans, including a large number of books published
before 1700. Under his supervision, Albert Howe Lybyer published a book
in 1913 on Süleyman the Magnificent; the book's basic premise is still
discussed among historians and is called the "Lybyer thesis."
During the 1930s, two well-known Harvard professors, William Langer and
R.P. Blake, continued the tradition of teaching Ottoman history at Harvard
and published a celebrated article on the rise of the Ottomans which is
still considered a classic piece of scholarship.
After World War II, Turkish and Ottoman studies burgeoned at Harvard
under the guidance of numerous scholars and professors. Sir Hamilton Gibb,
the famous Islamist, came to Harvard in 1955; he was the co-author with
Harold Bowen of a major work on the history of the Ottoman Empire during
the eighteenth century. He was joined by Stanford Shaw several years later,
who taught Ottoman history, language, and paleography. During the early
1960s, Turkish language studies was boosted by the addition of Zekiye Eglar
and Omeljan Pritsak to the faculty. Eglar taught modern Turkish, and Pritsak
taught ancient, as well as modern, Turkish along with the comparative grammar
of Turkic languages. Another important appointment in the area of language
studies was Sinasi Tekin in 1965. Initially he taught modern Turkish but
subsequently has expanded his offerings to include Ottoman paleography and
several textual studies. After Pritsak retired, Tekin took over the teaching
of several Turkic languages, including Old Uyghur, Kokturk, and Uzbek. Dr.
Tekin also for years has been editing and publishing the Journal of Turkish
Studies., one of the most important western journals in the field of Turkish
studies
Turkish and Ottoman studies expanded into other disciplines at the University
with several important appointments during the 1960s and 1970s. Among these
were: Annemarie Schimmel, who taught courses on Turkish literature, including
Mysticism, Mevlana, and Yunus Emre; and Nur Yalman, whose specialty is Middle
Eastern social anthropology. In the 1980s, Tosun Aricanli joined the faculty
and taught courses on the economy and social history of the Ottoman empire
and Republican Turkey. Subsequently, Gülru Necipoglu, an art historian
working on the history of Ottoman art and architecture, was appointed professor
in the Fine Arts Department.
In 1997, a
generous grant by the Koc family of Turkey made it possible to establish
the first endowed professorship at Harvard, and one of the very few in the
USA, devoted to Turkish studies.
Today, Harvard continues to attract eminent scholars and teachers in
a wide range of disciplines related to Turkish and Ottoman studies. The
most important recent development was the appointment of Cemal Kafadar,
a member of the History Department since 1990, as the Vehbi Koç Professor
of Turkish Studies in 1998. Professor Kafadar has reintroduced regular courses
in Ottoman history at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Also,
in recent years, the directors of the Center
for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES), Professors Roy Mottahedeh, Edward
Keenan, William Graham and Roger Owen have been emphasizing the central
position of Ottoman studies in a complete and balanced program of Middle
Eastern and Islamic Studies. Harvard's resources in Turkish Studies now
cover a wide range of disciplines, including those already mentioned, and
the following: Turkic linguistics and language; Muscovite-Tatar relations
and Tatar diplomacy; sociology of Turkish immigrants in Europe; and medical
anthropology relating to this region.
With support from the Mellon Foundation, Harvard has taken the lead in
creating innovative programs for teaching Turkish
in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations. For example,
Engin Sezer has developed the draft of an elementary text book for Turkish,
which is used by his first-year classes. Other projects in progress include
a graded exercise book, a booklet of Turkish poems arranged in order of
increasing grammatical complexity with a glossary, audio-visual materials,
and collections of selected readings for upper-intermediate and advanced-level
courses. Professor Sinasi Tekin has also developed a summer school for Ottoman
language instruction in Ayvalik, Turkey. In addition, Wheeler Thackston,
a professor of Persian, also offers a course on Chagatay prose at Harvard.
The Islamic Legal
Studies Program (ILSP), established at the Harvard Law School in 1991,
offers courses in the fields of Islamic law and the laws of Muslim countries.
The Program, directed by Professor Frank E. Vogel, sponsors a number of
research fellows annually and undertakes speaker series, conferences and
research projects involving faculty, fellows and students. Its courses are
open by cross-registration to students from throughout the University. While
the Program does not offer any specialized degree or certificate in Islamic
law, it assists students wishing to concentrate their studies in Islamic
law and related fields to achieve their goals through coursework. The Program
works closely with other parts of the University, and welcomes the participation
of students and scholars from throughout the University and the local academic
community.
A measure of the progress of Turkish studies at Harvard since Albert
Howe Lybyer wrote his famous doctoral dissertation on Süleyman the
Magnificent in 1909 is the number of graduate students now following in
his footsteps and concentrating in these fields. During the past few years,
the number of Ph.D. candidates researching Ottoman and Turkish history,
art and culture has increased, and fully a third of the graduate students
entering the M.A. program in regional studies at CMES focus on the area
as well. In addition, a number of graduate students in other parts of the
University who have an unofficial affiliation with the Center are also studying
Turkish language, culture, and history. Equally important is the steady
increase in undergraduate enrollments in Turkish language and area studies
courses (including enrollments of over 100 in one of Professor Necipoglu's
courses)-a sure sign that Turkish Studies is becoming a more significant
component of Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard.
Research and Art Collections
Turkish and Ottoman art and manuscripts figure prominently in the collections
of the Harvard Art Museums
and the Harvard University Libraries.
Harvard's small but magnificent collection of Islamic and later Indian art
is housed at the Arthur
M. Sackler Museum. It comprises a broad range of works, from Samanid
pottery and Mamluk calligraphy to Qajar lacquers and Ottoman textiles. The
Harvard Art Museums are fortunate to hold part of the Edwin Binney III collection,
the largest private collection of Ottoman/Turkish art in North America.
(The remainder of the collection is housed at the Los
Angeles County Museum of Arts.) Included in the collection at the Sackler
Museum are works from the fifteenth through the nineteenth centuries: miniature
paintings and calligraphies; portraits of Ottoman sultans; an illuminated
ferman (decree); illustrations from Persian classics; elaborately decorated
book-bindings and illustrated manuscripts; and Ottoman textiles (pieces
of cut velvet and colored embroidery), metalwork, and ceramics (brilliantly-colored
tiles and dishes). The collection is displayed in thematically-oriented
exhibitions in the Islamic Gallery on the second floor of the Sackler Museum.
For further information about the Department
of Islamic and Later Indian Art, please call (617) 495-3345.
The Harvard College Library,
particularly the Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library, also has a large
collection of books and manuscripts in Ottoman and Turkish languages, ancient
and modern, and related subjects. Specifically, the Library holds 23,000
books in Turkish and Ottoman Turkish, 8,000 in the languages of Inner Asia,
primarily Turkic languages, and over 3,500 books about Inner Asia. Because
many divisions of the Library acquire and catalog books about Turkey in
English and other languages, their number is more difficult to estimate.
The Harvard Map Collection
holds 91 maps of Turkey, and Houghton
Library has 37 Ottoman
Turkish manuscripts. Another media
resource includes
59 videos in Turkish held in the Widener Library. In total, Harvard's collection
of Turkish-language materials is one of the largest in the United States.
The collection is searchable online through the Harvard OnLine Library Information
System (HOLLIS Plus), which also
offers access to other online research tools.
One book fund in particular, the Goelet Fund for Turkish and Central
Asian Collections, has been in used by the Middle Eastern Division of Harvard
College Library since 1991 to acquire books from Turkey, the republics of
formerly Soviet Central Asia, and the Sinkiang Uighur Autonomous Region
of China. The books are primarily in Turkish, Uzbek, Kirghiz, Kazakh, Uighur,
and Kurdish; a few are in Russian and Western European languages.
(Return to Top of Page)
|
