ASLI NİYAZİOĞLU Assistant Professor in History Koç University History Department Rumeli Feneri Yolu 34450 Sarıyer, Istanbul Turkey (90) 212-338-1869
Research and Teaching Interests Ottoman Cultural History, Early Modern Urban History, Life Writing Studies, History of Dreams, Sufism and Islamic History, Urban Studies and Public History. Academic Positions Koç University, Assistant Professor, History Department, since September 2006. Associate Professor, title by Higher Education Council, since June 2013. Harvard University, Visiting Scholar, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, AugustSeptember 2015, July-September 2011, February-July 2010, June-August 2008. University of Oxford, Departmental Lecturer in Ottoman History, Oriental Institute, January 2005-September 2006. Wissenschaftskolleg, Berlin, Fellow at “Working Group Modernity and Islam” with a project on nineteenth-century Ottoman life writing, October 2003-January 2005. Harvard University, Ph.D., History and Middle Eastern Studies, November 2003. Boğaziçi University, B.A. History, June 1996. Publications Books Early Modern Istanbul Imagined: A City of Poets, Scholars and Sufi Sheikhs (Manuscript under preparation). Dreams and Lives in Ottoman Istanbul: A Seventeenth Century Biographer's Perspective, Surrey and Burlington: Ashgate/Routledge, Forthcoming in 2016. Aşık Çelebi ve Şairler Tezkiresi Üzerine Yazılar (Studies on Aşık Çelebi and his Biographical Dictionary of Poets), co-edited with Hatice Aynur, (İstanbul: Koç University Press, 2011). Articles “Practices of Remembrance and Sites of Violence in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul: The Beheading of Sheikh İsmā‘il Ma’şūkī (d.1539)” in Realms of Transformation in Ottoman History, Essays in Honor of Metin Kunt, Akşin Somel and Seyfi Kenan (eds), London, I.B. Tauris, forthcoming.
“Literary Networks and their Publics” in Early Modern Istanbul, Brill Companion Series on Early Modern Cities, Shirine Hamadeh and Çiğdem Kafescioğlu (eds.), (Leiden, Boston, London: Brill, forthcoming in 2017.) [Manuscript under preparation].
“How to Read an Ottoman Poet's Dream? Friends, Patrons and the Execution of Fiġānī (d.938/1532)” Middle Eastern Literatures 16.1. 2013: 48-60.
“Secrets of the Ottoman Lives?” in The Uses of First Person Writings Africa, America, Asia, Europe, François-Joseph Ruggui, ed. (Peter Lang, Brussels: 2013), 191-201. Turkish Translation: “Rüya Aynasında Erken Modern Osmanlı Biyografi Yazarları” Doğu Batı Düşünce Dergisi Rüyalar 76 (2016): 137-51.
“In the Dream Realm of a Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Biographer: Taşköprizade and the Sufi Sheikhs” in Sufism and Society: Arrangements of the Mystical in the Muslim World, 1200-1800 C.E., ed. John J. Curry and Erik S. Ohlander (London and New York: 2011), 243-58. “Ottoman Biography Writing and the Halveti-Sünbüli Sheikhs of Sixteenth Century Istanbul” in Many Ways of Speaking About the Self, Middle Eastern Ego-Documents in Arabic, Persian and Turkish (14th-20th Century), Ralph Elger and Yavuz Erköse eds. (Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden: 2010): 171-185. Turkish Translation: “Halveti Sünbüli Şeyhleri ve Osmanlı Biyografi Yazıcılığı” Osmanlılar III Doğu Batı Düşünce Dergisi 53 (2010): 21-39. “Dreams of the Very Special Dead: Nevizade Atai’s (d.1635) Reasons for Composing His Mesnevis” Archivum Ottomanicum 25 (2008): 221-33. “The Sixteenth Century Ottoman Poet in Reclusion,” in. Poetry’s Voice, Society’s Norms: Forms of Interaction Between Middle Eastern Writers and Their Societies, Angelika Neuwirth, Barbara Winckler, Andreas Pflitsch eds. (Reichert, Berlin: 2006): 225-37. Turkish Translation: “Uzlet ve On Altıncı Yüzyıl Osmanlı Şairi” Kritik 1 (2008):102-115. “Lives of a Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Sufi: Sheikh Bali Efendi and his Biographers,” in Uygurlardan Osmanlıya Şinasi Tekin Armağanı, Fatma Büyükkarcı Yılmaz and Günay Kut eds. (Simurg, İstanbul: 2006): 607-20. Encyclopaedia Articles
“Fighānī” Encylopedia of Islam, Third Edition. Kate Fleet, et.al, (Brill, Boston and Leiden: 2014), vol 4, 103-104; available online from Brill Publications.
"The Ruling Institution in the Ottoman Empire." World History Encyclopedia, Era 6: The First Global Age, 1450–1770. Alexander Mikaberidze et al. (CA:ABC-CLIO, 2011): 175-176; available online ABC-CLIO eBook Collection. 2
Publications (In Turkish) “Babalar ve Oğullar: Evliya Çelebi Babasını Neden Sözlü Kaynak Olarak Kullandı?” Evliya Çelebi ve Sözlü Kaynakları, Ankara: UNESCO, (2012): 107114. (“Fathers and Sons: Why did Evliya Çelebi use his Father as an Oral Source?” in Oral Sources of Evliya Çelebi) “Aşık Çelebi’ye Rüyaların Söyledikleri” in Aşık Çelebi ve Şairler Tezkeresi Üzerine Yazılar, co-edited with Hatice Aynur, (İstanbul: Koç University Press, 2011):71-85. (“Dreams and Aşık Çelebi” in Studies on Aşık Çelebi and his Biographical Dictionary of Poets) “On Altıncı Yüzyıl Sonunda Osmanlı'da Kadılık Kabusu ve Nihânî’nin Rüyası” (“Nightmares of the Judges and Nihânî in the Late Sixteenth Century Ottoman Empire”) Journal of Turkish Studies 31/II (2007): 133-143.
Book review: Özgen Felek (haz.), Kitābü’l-Menāmāt, Sultan III. Murad’ın Rüya Mektupları, Osmanlı Araştırmaları/Journal of Ottoman Studies 46 (2016): 495.
Select Scholarly Presentations (invited) German Historical Institute Symposium, “Spaces and Places of Leisure and Sociability in Early Modernity”: “Gardens of Pleasure and the Ottoman Imagination in the Seventeenth-Century Istanbul”, London, 2016. Jamia Millia Islamia Conference “Indo-Turkic Relations,” Delhi: “Connected Ottoman and Mughal Cultural Histories?: A Proposal for Collaborative Research,” 2015. Oxford University, Oriental Institute, “Dreams and Ottoman Sufi Lives: A Study of a Seventeenth Century Biography Project,” 2013. Princeton University Symposium “Belief and Unbelief: An Interdiciplinary Symposium,” Princeton: “Whom to Believe? Ottoman Biographers and Initiation,” 2013. Université de Paris-Sorbonne Symposium “Les usage de l’écrit du for privé,” Paris: “What do Dreams Reveal about the Secrets of the Ottoman Lives?”2011. Harvard University CMES Cambridge, “How to Read Aşık Çelebi’s Biographies: A Study of the Executed Poet Figani (d.1537),” 2010. Harvard University CMES, Cambridge, “What Haunted the Ottomans: Living and the Dead in a Seventeenth Century Biographical Work,” 2009. Ludwig-Maximilian University Symposium, “Convention and Innovation in Ego Documents” Munich: “This-Worldly Engagements, Other-Worldly Concerns: Yusuf Sinan (d. 1579) and Writing the Lives of the Sufi Sheikhs,” 2007. Harvard University Symposium “Sebeb-i Telif: A Symposium on Ottoman Primary Sources” Cambridge: “The Very Special Dead and Nevizade Atai’s (d.1635) Reasons for Composing His Mesnevis,” 2006. SOAS University of London, “And He Woke up in Terror: Nightmares of the Late Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Ulema,” 2005. 3
University of Cambridge, TSG Symposium: “Imperial Visions: Mehmed II and his Topkapı Palace,” 2005. Wissenschaftskolleg Summer Academy in Alexandria: “Literatures and BordersDelimitations, Transgressions” “Images of Youth in the Late Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Novel and Biography,” 2004. Freie Universitaet Berlin, “Ottoman Biographers, Life Stories They Remembered and Revised,” 2004. Freie Universitaet Berlin, Conference “Poetry’s Voice, Society’s Norms,” “Dreaming of the Dead, Partying with the Living,” 2003. Scholarly Presentations (invited, Turkey) Suna & İnan Kıraç Research Center for Mediterranean Civilizations (Akmed) “İstanbul Tarihine Bahçelerinden Bakmak: On Yedinci Yüzyıl Osmanlı Mesirelerine Seyr ü Temaşa”, (Writing the History of Istanbul through its Gardens: A Study of Seventeenth Century Garden Culture), Antalya, 2016. Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations (Anamed), Istanbul “Landscapes of Memory in Early Modern Istanbul,” 2015. Vehbi Koç Ankara Studies Research Center (Vekam), Ankara “Erken Modern Osmanlı Rüyalar Tarihi ve Biyografiler: Kaynaklar, Sorunlar, Yöntemler,” (History of Early Modern Ottoman Dreams and Biographies: Sources, Problems, Methods), 2014. Sakarya University, Sakarya, “Tarih Yazıcılığında Rüyalar,” (Historiography and Dreams), 2013. Bilim ve Sanat Vakfı, İstanbul, “Menakıbnameler 4: Tezkiretü’l Halvetiyye,” (Hagiographies 4: Tezkiretü’l Halvetiyye), 2012. Harvard-Koç Ottoman School, Cunda, “A World Turned Upside Down? A Study of Hüdai’s (d. 1628) Initiation” 2012. İstanbul Şehir University Workshop “17. Yüzyılda Osmanlı İmparatorluğu: Kriz ve Dönüşüm” Istanbul, “On Yedinci Yüzyıl Osmanlı Biyografilerinde Rüyaları Okumak,” (Reading Dreams in Seventeenth-Century Biographical Collections), 2012. Sabancı University, Istanbul, “The Ottoman Dream Mirrors and the Ulema” 2012. CHEP Conference“The Cultural History of Emotions in Pre-Modernity II,” Istanbul: “Fear and Pleasure at a Sixteenth Century Ottoman Garden,” 2011. Gazi and Bilkent Universities Symposium “Evliya Çelebi’nin Sözlü Kaynakları,” Ankara: “Babalar ve Oğullar: Evliya Çelebi Babasını Neden Sözlü Kaynak Olarak Kullandı?” 2011. (Symposium Oral Sources of Evliya Çelebi “Fathers and Sons: Why did Evliya Çelebi use his Father as an Oral Source?”) American Research Institute in Turkey, İstanbul: “Dreams, Biography Writing, and the Halveti-Sünbüli Sheikhs in Late Sixteenth Century İstanbul,” 2008.
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Select Conference Presentations and Participation Chairperson, Sabancı University and İstanbul Şehir University Conference, “18. Yüzyıl Osmanlı Kitap Koleksiyonerleri: Bilgi Üretimi ve Dağılımı,” 2015. Chairperson, RCAC Mini-Symposium, New Approaches in Intellectual History: From the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic, 2015. Presenter, Leiden University Eurasian Empires Summer School, “Integration Processes and Identity formations in Eurasian Empires,” Amsterdam, “Empire-Building and Biography Writing” 2012. Chairperson, CHEP Istanbul, Conference “The Cultural History of Emotions in PreModernity II,” “Passions and Impressions,” 2011. Chairperson, Koç University Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations, Istanbul, Annual Symposium “Istanbul and Water,” “Ottoman Waterways and the City,” 2010. Commentator and Chairperson, Koç University Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations, Istanbul, Mini-Symposia “Towards an Understanding of Ottoman Early Modernity: Transformations in State, Society, Culture,” 2011. Presenter, World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies, at the panel “Emotional Communities in the Middle East and North Africa: Historical and Anthropological Approaches”: “Fear and Pleasure at a Sixteenth Century Ottoman Party,” Barcelona, 2010.” Presenter, Symposium “The Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Biographer Aşık Çelebi and His Work)”: “Aşık Çelebi’ye Rüyaların Söyledikleri,” (Aşık Çelebi and Dreams), Netherlands Institute, Istanbul, 2009. Presenter, Medieval & Renaissance Forum “Dreams, Imagination, Fantasy”: “Dreams and Sufi Lives in Late Sixteenth Century Istanbul,” Plymouth New Hampshire, 2009
Symposium and Workshop Organization History Seminars, Orient Institut and Koç University, Istanbul, co-organizer, 2011- 2012. Symposium “Aşık Çelebi and his Biographical Dictionary,” the Netherlands Institute, Istanbul, co-organizer, 2009. Workshop “Narratives of Motion,” Wissenschaftskolleg Berlin, organizer, 2004. Research Projects International Consortium “The Religious History of Anatolia,” since 2015. Member of the research group organized by the Orient Institut Istanbul with an aim to build collaborative interdisciplinary project on religious history of Anatolia with 5
participants from the universities of Oxford, St. Andrews, Bochum, Bilgi and research centers IFEA, CETEBAC and DAI. Collaborative Project "The Many Poems of Baki: New Approaches to the Study of Ottoman Manuscripts," since 2016. Member of the research group organized by the Near Eastern Languages and Civilization, University of Washington, Seatle, with an aim to produce a model modern multi-media edition of the collected poems of early modern Ottoman poets. Ottoman Biography Studies Group, 2009-2014. Co-founder of an interdisciplinary group that brought together historians and literary historians with an aim to develop new approaches to the study of the early modern Ottoman life writing. Organizer, bi-weekly seminars on the Ottoman chronicler Naima (d.1716) with RCAC fellows, Istanbul, 2012. Co-organizer with Himmet Taşkömür, Harvard University, Workshop on the sixteenth-century Ottoman biography writing, İstanbul, 2011. Co-organizer with Jan Schmidt from Leiden University and Hatice Aynur from İstanbul Şehir University, Symposium on Aşık Çelebi’s Biographical Dictionary at the Netherlands Institute, Istanbul, 2009. Professional Service Editorial Board Member: Middle Eastern Literatures, since 2014. Reviewer: Journal of Near Eastern Studies; New Perspectives on Turkey, Koç University Press.
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Honors and Fellowships Science Academy, Turkey, Young Scientist Award, (BAGEP), 2014-2016. Koç University Teaching Innovation Grant, 2012. Koç-Harvard University Summer Research Grant, 2015, 2011 and 2008. Harvard University Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Visiting Scholar, Spring 2010. British Institute at Ankara Research Grant, 2005. Wissenschaftskolleg, Berlin, Fellowship, 2003-2004. Harvard Grant for Tuition 1996-2003 and Full Stipend 1996-1998. Harvard University CMES Research Travel Grant, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002. P.E.O. International Peace Scholarship, 1998-1999, 1999-2000. Harvard University Mellon Summer Language Study Grant, 1997. Boğaziçi University Alumni Association Award, 1992-1996; Awarded upon History Department entrance in the first rank. University Service at Koç University Administrative Positions Member of the Faculty Executive Council, College of Social Sciences and Humanities, elected by the faculty, 2012-15. History Department Coordinator, College of Social Sciences and Humanities Dean’s Office, appointed by the dean, 2008-2012. Graduate Student Coordinator, Comparative Studies in History and Society Master’s Program, 2009. Member of the Graduate School of Social Sciences Executive Council, 2009. Coordinator, Bologna Process for the History Department, 2013. Coordinator, Harvard-Koç Ottoman Summer School, since 2011. Committee Memberships and Advisory Boards Member of Anatolian Civilizations Research Center Advisory Board, since 2016. Member of Vehbi Koç Ankara Research Center Advisory Board, since 2015. Member of Stanford-Koç University Committee, since 2015. Member of University Library Committee, since 2014. Member of Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations Fellowship Advisory Board, 2008-2014. Member of the University Archives Project, 2012-2013. Member of Koç University Strategic Planning Committee, 2011. Other Koç University Service University Lectures Research Presentation, elected by the president, 2014. Board of Trustees Research presentation, elected by the president, 2010. 7
Graduate Thesis Supervised Görkem Özizmirli “Fear in Evliya Çelebi’s Seyahatnâme: Politics and Historiography in a Seventeenth Century Ottoman Travelogue” M.A. Thesis, June 2014. Deniz Zorlu, “Remembering the Social Movements of the 1968 Era in Turkey,” M.A. Thesis, September 2011. Ayşe Nur Sülüş, “Administration of Ottoman Public Dept, Providing a Sense of Security and Fighting Against Tax Evasion?” M.A. Thesis, January 2010. Courses Taught Koç University: Undergraduate History of Istanbul from Ancient to Contemporary History of the Ottoman State, 1300-1566 Society and Culture in the Early Modern Europe Society and Culture in the Ottoman Empire History of the Turkish Revolution Graduate Ottoman Imagination: A Cultural History Advanced Topics in the History of Culture and Society Summer School Istanbul Throughout the Ages Stanford-Koç Program at Koç University: Travels in Ottoman History with Evliya Çelebi (Undergraduate) University of Oxford History of the Ottoman Empire 1300-1700 Ottoman Historical Texts (both graduate and undergraduate levels). Freie Universitaet Berlin The Ghazal in Arabic, Persian, and Turkish Literature (Co-Lecturer) Harvard-Koç Ottoman Language Summer School Academic Turkish (graduate)
Teaching Projects History Workshop, Founder and organizer, 2015-2016. Monthly gatherings that brought together Koç University students and professors to discuss the current research projects of the faculty with a particular focus on historiography, method, and sources.
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History Book Club, Founder and organizer, 2009-2015. Monthly gatherings that brought together Koç University students, staff, and faculty interested in history. Topics included leisure and pleasure, new forms of socialization, and the social history of imagination in the early modern Istanbul. History Book Club with the Alumni, Founder and organizer, 2013. Monthly gatherings which brought together alumni and students. Topics included “Writing History/Writing Lives” with for Spring 2013 and “Remembering and Forgetting” for Fall 2013. History Workshop with the Koç University Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations Fellows, Founder and organizer, 2010. Workshop series for undergraduate and graduate students; Sixteenth century Istanbul as a city of plague (workshop directed by Nükhet Varlık) and as a city of poets (workshop directed by Zeynep Altok).
Digital Humanities Teaching Projects Geographic Information Systems Map Project co-taught with Dr. Ali Erkan, Ithaca College, Fulbright Affiliate Koç University, Spring 2012. Students created online maps of the seventeenth century Istanbul providing textual and visual information from primary sources using the ArcGIS software for the course “Travels in Ottoman History with Evliya Çelebi.”
KU Ottoman History Podcasts co-taught with Emrah Gürkan and Chris Graiten, Georgetown University, supported by Kolt Teaching Innovation Grant, Fall 2012. Students recorded podcasts where they discussed selected topics and presented their research for the course “History of the Ottoman State.”
Community Outreach and Media Presentations Interviews, Turkish newspapers Akşam and HaberTürk: 2009-2012. Interview for Turkish Television TRT: 2011 https://vimeo.com/31475921 Interview for Ottoman History podcast, 2012. http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2012/08/dreams-in-ottoman-society-cultureand.html 9
Interviews for “KUtalks” for Koç University, 2012. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLOb6nOwkn0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10ZpGpCw1zw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9vIACTbGLE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0IQ9Rjuo7V Languages Turkish (native), English (fluent), Ottoman Turkish and Paleography (advanced reading knowledge), Classical Arabic (intermediate reading knowledge), French (intermediate reading knowledge), Spanish (intermediate), German (elementary), Persian (elementary).
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