Wednesday, April 29, 2015

Call for Papers for an academic Conference on:

Ottoman Municipalities Governing the late Ottoman Cities
6-7 November 2015, Istanbul
The conference seeks to engage with a number of questions that will provide a forum for
academic discussion on the question of Ottoman municipalities and its institutional
development. Throughout the last century of the Ottoman Empire through intensive actions of
reforms in the army, administration, legislation, economy and education, as well as introduction
of modern technological innovations, known in the historiography for the Ottoman Empire as
Tanzimat, a complex network of institutions was developed. The municipal institution belediye
was one of the very important aspects of the reform of the provincial administration. The
municipality represented one of the instruments for the promotion of modernity in the Empire.
Until present days the question of modernization is one of the leading motives in the research of
different aspects of municipal reforms. From this perspective most of the researches focuses on
the transitional period from the old forms of urban governance to the foundation of the
municipalities as well as to the changes in public space and urban governance in the context of
migration, cosmopolitanism, nationalism, etc. Therefore, the aim of the conference is to
approach the history of Ottoman municipalities from different angles and to provide a more
internal perspective to this question.
Namely we would like to discuss the question of the municipal reform and the effects of
the reforms on the Ottoman cities. We seek answers to the question of how the reforms
were perceived by Istanbul the center and by the local elites the province; what was
the role of the local elites in the urban governance and how the municipalities functioned
mechanisms of politics by which the cities of the late Ottoman Empire were governed.
The conference will also seek to improve the debate on the methodology of research of
urban history and the question of sources.
We expect that the conference will contribute to the debate on the urban history of the
late Ottoman Empire and will help us to better understand the results of the reforms on
the ground, and the actions undertaken by the state and the local actors. Also, we
believe that this will help us to understand better the urban governance in the context of
urbanism, cosmopolitanism, migration, and all other important aspects of urban life in
the Late Ottoman Empire.
Applicants should submit an abstract (max. 500 words) of their paper and short CV in English.
Limited funding for covering travel/accommodation costs may be available.
Date and venue: 6-7 November 2015, Istanbul Sehir University, Center for Urban Studies
Language: English
Application deadline: 30 June 2015
Organizer responds: 15 July 2015
Please send your application to: sam@sehir.edu.tr
http://sam.sehir.edu.tr
Organizers:
Petar Todorov
Abdulhamit Krmz
Yunus Uur

Altunizade Mh. Kubak Cd. 27, skdar, Istanbul, Turkey T 44 44 034, F 0216 474 53 53 http://sam.sehir.edu.tr