OTUGRAD
Ottoman and Turkish Studies Graduate Workshop
June 1, 2026, Monday
CEU's Vienna Campus, B-505
Central European University
Quellenstraße 51, 1100
Workshop Program
09:00 - 09:30: Registration and Opening Remarks
09:30 - 10:45: Panel I: Body, Virtue, and Gendered Selfhoods in the Late Ottoman World
Chair: Nadia Al-Bagdadi (Central European University
A Brotherhood of Tears: Sensibility and the Reconstruction of Hegemonic Masculinity in the Late Ottoman Empire
Doğukan Oruç (Kırklareli University, Türkiye)
Triangle of Morality, Beauty and Health: Constructing Beauty Discourse through Health to Regulate Morality for Ottoman Women between 1895-1927
Ferdan Işıl Sevimli (University of Bologna, Italy)
The Kafes as a Spatial Trope: Emotional Negotiation of Shifting Subjectivities in Ottoman-Turkish Modernity
Deniz Akdeniz (Izmir University of Economics, Türkiye)
10:45 - 11:00: Coffee break
1:00 - 12:30: Panel II: Crossing Thresholds: Identity and Transformation in the Late and
Post-Ottoman World
Chair: Tobias Mörike (Weltmuseum Wien)
Dancing across Empires: “Kurdish Princess” Leila Bederkhan and the Politics of Scandal in Interwar Vienna
Bilal Akar (University of Milan, Italy, and University of Vienna, Austria)
Performing European Emotions: Acting, Cultural Transfer, and the Transformation of Emotional Expression in Late Ottoman Theatre
Dila Okuş (Istanbul University, Türkiye, and Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Germany)
Exploring the Lived Experiences of Circassian Muhajirs in the Ottoman Empire through Microhistory
Janset Nil Genç (Freie Universität Berlin, Germany)
Sharif Ali Haydar Pasha and the Lived Experience of the Ottoman Transition
Ebrar Şahika Küçükaşçı (Koç University, Türkiye
12:30 - 13:30: Lunch break
3:30 - 14:45: Panel III: Proxy and Proximity: Diplomatic Representation across Empires
Chair: Yasir Yılmaz (Austrian Academy of Sciences, ÖAW)
The Sultan Behind the Curtain: Sokollu Mehmed Pasha’s Diplomatic Construction of Murad III (r. 1574–1595)
Nilab Saeedi (Institute for Habsburg and Balkan Studies, ÖAW, Austria)
Integrating Algiers into Ottoman Diplomacy: Hüseyin Pasha and His Negotiations with European Consuls (1683-1689)
Ayşe Çiçek Ünal (Yale University, USA and Utrecht University, The Netherlands)
Envoys, Rivalry, and Civil War: The Tunisian Diplomatic Mission to France of 1727
Jonas Czaika (Central European University, Austria)
14:45 - 15:00: Coffee break
15:00 - 16:30: Panel IV: Between Allegiances: Actors, Networks, and the Margins of the Empire
Chair: Tolga Esmer (Central European University)
Flying over the Danube to Istanbul: Imperial Falcons Sent to the Sultan by the Lords of Wallachia and Moldavia (XVI-XVIII c.)
Vasile-Rareș Prodescu (University of Bucharest, Romania)
After Müsâdere: Confiscation, Capital, and Commerce in the Ottoman Morea
Safa Hamzeh (UCLA, USA)
Between Empire and Nation: Individuals, Networks, and the Making of the Greek State, 1821–1833
Ahmet Karapunar (European University Institute, Italy)
Medicine and Incarceration in the Late Ottoman Empire: The Armenian Physician of Payas General Prison
H. Hüma Yardım (City University of New York, USA)
16:45: Reception
Organizing Committee: Ahmet Baran Demir, Elli Stogiannou, Göker Giresunlu.
The organizers of the workshop would like to gratefully acknowledge the support and funding provided by the Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies at CEU.
