CfP: “Ottoman Mobilities and Interactions” Symposium (Istanbul, 13–14 April 2026)

[Aytek Soner Alpan]

Dear MGSA colleagues,

I am writing to share a Call for Papers for the symposium “Ottoman Mobilities and Interactions”, to be held 13–14 April 2026 at Minerva Han (Istanbul, Turkey).

The symposium explores the Ottoman Empire as a dynamic web of circulation, focusing on how the movement of people, objects, and ideas shaped governance, social hierarchies, and trans-imperial connections. It welcomes contributions across the Ottoman era and from related fields, including history, art history, anthropology, archaeology, and beyond.

Possible themes include (among others):

• Sacred mobilities (pilgrimage, missionary networks, religious exile)

• Material culture in motion (manuscripts, luxury goods, archaeological objects, artistic styles)

• Labour and expertise (merchants, artisans, bureaucrats, scholars)

• Displacement and coercion (forced migration, captivity, slavery, refugee crises)

• Governance of mobilities (passport regimes, documentation, resistance)

• Technologies of movement (steamships, railways, telegraphs)

• Borderlands, diasporas, and spatial politics

• Knowledge and culture in transit (translation, travel writing, literary circulation)

• Urban/rural flows and port–hinterland connections

Practical details:

• Language: English

• Format: In-person only

• Fee: No fee to attend or present

• ECR funding: Limited support available for Early Career Researchers presenting (enquire for details)

• Keynote: Dr. İlkay Yılmaz (Freie Universität Berlin)

Submission (20-minute papers):
Please send a single document with a 250-word abstract and a 150-word biography (pdf/docx/doc/odt).
Deadline (extended): 23 January 2026
Notification: Early February 2026
Email submissions/enquiries: ottomanm...@biaa.ac.uk

If you know colleagues or graduate students who might be interested, I would be grateful if you could circulate this CfP more widely.

With best wishes,
Aytek Soner Alpan