Great Lakes Ottoman Workshop @ Notre Dame: Roundtable & Poster Sessions

Vassili has kindly invited me to join her as Co-Sponsor of the GLOW workshop at Notre Dame, April 11-13, 2008. We already have a number of people interested in presenting papers, but I have been thinking about a general theme, and suggest two approaches to learning about work in progress in the field.

1) Roundtable “Who was an Ottoman?”

Each participant would contribute a portrait of his/her “favorite” or “representative” Ottoman. Time period, gender, profession, ethnicity, religion, national identity would be completely open, and of course they do not have to be the lives of the rich and famous, just someone who is considered or considers him/herself tied to the imperial system in some way. The task of the presenter would only be to answer the question “Who was an Ottoman?” The aim of the session would be to come up with a definition that answers the question, what one might call a taxonomyof imperial subjecthood.

I would encourage Ottomanists as well as Europeanists with research interests in the empire to join us at Notre Dame. Gottfried Hagen and Jane Hathaway have already volunteered. We would ask participants to submit in advance a brief biography and an initial list of references, but would not require a formal paper. Presentations would be brief, and visual representations most welcome.

2) Poster sessions for PhD students

We would also like to experiment with a poster session for graduate students. We would have free-standing bulletin boards available for the display of research in progress or close to completion. The rest is up to participants. GLOW attendees would circulate the room, and hear from the students at leisure about the work. The challenge is to make the research visually comprehensible.

If you are interested in either of these proposals, please reply to both vtsitsop@nd.edu and vaksan@mcmaster.ca with a paragraph description of your proposal.