Ottoman Pasts, Present Cities: Cosmopolitanism and transcultural memories

Partners and collaborators

University of London, University of Portsmouth

Description

We live in a world that emphasises conflict:  Muslims versus Jews; Christians versus Muslims -- above all, East versus West. The late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries are shaped by religious, regional and cultural nationalisms, competing claims that hinge on our differences from one another. 


This research project – which is an extensive collaboration bringing together from around the world academics, artists, and photographers; musicians and museum curators; chefs and gastronomists; and writers and journalists – intervenes in contemporary tensions by looking at what the rich cultural exchanges that characterised the past of the Ottoman Empire can teach us in the present about memorial connections between different groups. 

Visual Advisor, Leslie Hakim-Dowek, University of Portsmouth
Project Advisor, Colette Wilson, Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies, University of London

Project website

http://ottomancosmopolitanism.wordpress.com/