In the final presentation of the Middle East Center’s 2016-17 “Voices in Middle East Studies” series, Professor Selim Kuru, Chair of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization, gave a talk titled “Masculine Topographies: Gendering Public Spaces in Early Modern Istanbul.”
In his preliminary research, Professor Kuru is focusing on the under-examined topic of zones of masculinity within Ottoman Istanbul during the early modern era. In his presentation he explored the development of masculine spaces along a densely populated northern core of the city concentrated around the environs of the Topkapi Palace, barracks of the Janissaries, universities, mosques, marketplaces, and coffeehouses. This northern core also housed the inventory of single-men’s housing, which was allocated to large numbers of craftsmen relocated to Istanbul from the countryside.