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Artefacts and Identities

“There are people like Senhor Jose everywhere, who fill their time, or what they believe to be their spare time, by collecting stamps, coins, medals, vases, postcards, matchboxes, books, clocks, sport shirts, autographs, stones, clay figurines, empty beverage cans, little angels, cacti, opera programmes, lighters, pens, owls, music boxes, bottles, bonsai trees, paintings, mugs, pipes, glass obelisks, ceramic ducks, old toys, carnival masks, and they probably do so out of something that we might call metaphysical angst.”

José Saramago, All the Names

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The sheer quantity of literature produced on the topics of museums, collectors and their collections has the potential to create a collection of its own. To make matters even more complex, the conceptual underpinnings of the words: museum, collection and collector have always been intertwined. Even from today’s heritage legislation perspective, a private collection can become a private museum opened for the general public, a public museum has a public collection, a private collector can donate artefacts to a museum, whether private or public. Therefore, this lecture series focuses on the intricate interplay between artefacts and identities, between private collectors and museums (be it public or private), against the backdrop of complex changes in the Ottoman Empire that marked the transition from an imperial to a national framework. The case studies at the core of the lectures are representative not only of the imperial centre of Istanbul, but also follow the former Ottoman provinces Wallachia and Moldavia’s strategies to create a national heritage inventory and deal with the Ottoman legacies. The lectures analyse how the collectors’ and museum directors’ agency impacted the selection of specific artefacts, how the artefacts were (re)contextualized in their display, and especially how the entanglement of individual, collective, gender, national identities impacted the collecting practices and the added value of the collection.

Roxana Coman


Registration Information

The lecture series will be held online via Zoom. To attend, prior registration is necessary. Please send an e-mail specifying your name and academic affiliation to events@oiist.net. You can either register for the whole series or for individual lectures. For the latter, please specify the lecture you want to attend and send your e-mail at the latest two days before the respective event, i.e. by Monday (31 October, 7 November, 14 November, 21 November).

For technical reasons, the number of participants is limited. You will be informed about the organizational and technical procedure one day in advance of each lecture.

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Language Policy in Turkey: Recent Perspectives

In the case of Turkey, “language policy” is usually more or less automatically associated with the extensive language and script reform carried out for the Turkish language under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in the 1920s and 1930s. Earlier studies have focused mainly on this period, but language policy remains an important topic to this day, one that has the potential to provoke fierce debates among experts and in the public, even in recent years. Topics discussed included gender-equitable language, the substitution of foreign words (mostly borrowed from English) in Turkish, the use of language in public spaces, as well as debates about the evaluation of the reforms in the 1920s and 1930s, to name just a few examples.

This lecture series, held at the Orient-Institut Istanbul in November and December 2021, is intended to present new research findings that address the language situation in the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey, deliberate interventions in the development of language and writing, as well as the role of individuals and groups in these processes. By examining previously neglected sources, re-examining well-known ones and applying new research perspectives and methods, previous assumptions about language policy can be re-evaluated.

Registration Information

The lecture series will be held online via Zoom. To attend, prior registration is necessary. Please send an e-mail specifying your name and academic affiliation to events@oiist.net. You can either register for the whole series or for individual lectures. For the latter, please specify the lecture you want to attend and send your e-mail at the latest two days before the respective event, i.e. by Monday (1 November, 15 November, 29 November, 13 December).

For technical reasons, the number of participants is limited. You will be informed about the organizational and technical procedure one day in advance of each lecture.

Please click here for the program

Registration Information

The lectures will be held online via Zoom. To attend this virtual lecture series, prior registration is necessary. Please send an email specifying your name and academic affiliation to events@oiist.net two days before each lecture, i.e. by Monday (27 September/11 October/18 October 2021). For technical reasons, the number of participants is limited. You will be informed about the organizational and technical procedure a day before the lecture starts.

Please click here for the program.

To attend this virtual lecture series, prior registration is necessary. Please send an email specifying your name and academic affiliation to info@mappinggenderneareast.org by April 26, 2021 (Monday) at the latest.

Human, Medicine and Society: Past, Present and Future Encounters

Academic Coordinator: Dr. Melike Şahinol

The issue of Human, Medicine and Society encompasses a broad and interdisciplinary spectrum of topics. Ongoing innovations in medicine, science and technology have led to various possibilities and restructuring orders. These innovations are concerned with social and cultural aspects of illness and health, medicine, health care organizations and health policies. Hence, new practices of self-care combined with prevention and health promotion are becoming increasingly relevant. The historical constitution and effectiveness of the interrelation of medicine, science and technology is also important in this context as its transformation processes affect our present and future on various levels.

On the individual level, new forms of human-machine constellations have emerged as a result of the evolvement of bionic body parts for instance. On a social level, these changes cause modifications such as doctor-patient relationships, for example, and create new occupations or socio-technical environments influenced by the intertwining of society with technology. Along these lines, new forms of institutionalization, discrimination and also legal matters with regard to health and society occur. As medical drugs, devices and technologies are applied for non-therapeutic purposes, ‚human enhancement‘ is a highly controversial discussion topic fostering new understandings of a ‚healthy society‘. Likewise, medical innovations raise questions about the impact of these developments in shaping socio-technical, cultural, ethical, legal and political aspects of living in an ‚enhancement society‘.

These issues and questions are further discussed and elaborated on in a series of interdisciplinary lectures.

İnsan, Tıp ve Toplum: Geçmiş, Bugün ve Gelecek Buluşmaları

Akademik Koordinatör: Dr. Melike Şahinol

İnsan, Tıp ve Toplum alanı, disiplinlerarası, yenilikçi ve geniş bir konu yelpazesini kapsar. Tıp, bilim ve teknolojide görülen hızlı değişim ve gelişmeler toplumların yapısında da sürekli yeniliklere, ve düzenlemelere yol açmaktadır. Bu yenilikler, sağlık kurum ve politikalarının sosyal, ekonomik, hukuki ve kültürel yönleri ile ilgili olup ayrıca hastalık, sağlık, tıp algısındaki değişimlerle de ilintilidir. Bu nedenle yeni tıp teknolojilerinin desteğiyle, hastalıkları önleme ve sağlığın bireysel düzeyde teşvik edilip bireylere sorumluluk yüklenmesiyle ile birlikte yeni kişisel bakım uygulamaları giderek daha fazla önem kazanmaktadır. Tıp, bilim ve teknoloji ilişkisinin tarihsel anayasası ve etkinliği bu bağlamda önemlidir, çünkü dönüşüm süreçleri bugünümüzü ve geleceğimizi çeşitli düzeylerde etkiler.

Bireysel düzeyde, örneğin biyonik vücut parçalarının gelişmesinin bir sonucu olarak, insan-makine konstellasyonların yeni biçimleri ortaya çıkmaktadır. Biyoteknolojideki bu ilerlemelerin sosyal düzeydeki yansımaları olarak, doktor-hasta ilişkilerinde değişimler yaşanmaktadır ve  toplumun teknoloji ile iç içe geçmesinden kaynaklanan yeni meslekler veya sosyo-teknik ortamların ortaya çıktığı gözlemlenmektedir. Bu insan, tıp ve toplum arasındaki sınırın bulanıklaşması neticesinde, yeni kurumsallaşma biçimleri, ayrımcılık ve sağlık ve toplumla ilgili yeni hukuki konular ortaya çıkmaktadır. Tıbbi ilaçlar, cihazlar ve teknolojiler tedavi dışı amaçlar için uygulandığında “insan geliştirme” ve “sağlıklı bir toplum” gibi yeni anlayışları teşvik eden oldukça tartışmalı konular gündeme gelmektedir. Tıp ve teknolojideki bu türden yenilik ve gelişmelerin uzantısı olarak sürekli “dönüşen bir toplum” içinde yaşamanın sosyo-teknik, kültürel, etik, yasal ve politik yönlerini yeniden şekillendirmedeki etkileriyle ilgili soruları ortaya çıkarması hem sosyal ve beşerî hem de tıp bilimleri gibi pek çok bilimsel alana değen güncel tartışmaları doğurmaktadır.

Enstitümüzün “Insan, Tip ve Toplum” bilim alanı bünyesinde düzenleyeceğimiz bu konferans dizisinde, yukarıda sıralanan bu konuları ve soruları daha derin ve disiplinlerarası bir yaklaşımla tartışacağız.