Call for papers

Europe and Turkey in the Eighteenth Century

Annual Conference of the German Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies
(DGEJ)
October 9-11, 2008, Bonn

Against the background of the current transformations of Europe's identity
structures and the debate surrounding Turkey's accession to the European
Union the conference is pursuing questions encompassing the intercultural
contacts and the reciprocal perceptions between Turkey and Western Europe in
the eighteenth century.

'The dangerous Turk', one of the most antagonistic narratives in early
modern times, loses impact after the Ottoman defeat in the second siege of
Vienna 1683. The image of the Turk changes from the menacing, invincible
terror of Christendom to that of a quaint and exotic neighbour. Fashion,
music and architecture, as well as the expanding trade with the Ottoman
Empire, which brings fabrics, perfume and spices to Europe, express an
increasingly positive reception of Turkey. The general curiosity towards the
Ottoman Empire is manifested in a variety of travelogues and surveys.
Conversely, the European impact on the socio-political and cultural life of
the Ottoman Empire increases at the beginning of the eighteenth century,
although the Ottoman interest in Europe remains considerably weaker.

The broad, partly euphoric acceptance and blending of Ottoman culture into
the political, scientific, economic and aesthetic discourses of the
eighteenth century is a form of imaginative world acquisition, which should
not obscure the fact that it often lacked the proper knowledge of the other.
Critical attention needs to be devoted to the argument occasionally advanced
by scholars that the eighteenth century was marked by a relative openness
towards other ways of life, compared to the seventeenth century which, in
the case of the Ottoman Empire, seldom goes beyond a negative stereotyped
apprehension, or, compared to the nineteenth century, which due to European
imperialism and a more exclusive eurocentrism reverts to a more limited
perception. What possibilities were there to gain an idea of the "other" and
to what extent was this idea founded on autistic self-assertion on the one
hand, on curiosity and creative appropriation on the other? What forms of
intercultural contacts existed and how have they been documented?

Contributions are invited on the following topics:

1. Constructions of Otherness: Encounters with the Turks as the
fundamentally "other" in visual arts, music, literature;
orientalism/exoticism

2. Basic antagonisms: Turcophobia - Philhellenism; Christianity - Islam;
Antiquity - the eighteenth-century present; Greece - the Ottoman Empire

3. Media of information transfer: diplomats, interpreters, traders,
pilgrims, prisoners of war; travelogues and letters, journals, dictionaries,
libraries

4. History of the academic field: Ottoman Studies in the eighteenth century
from d'Herbelot and Rycaut to Hammer-Purgstall; asymmetry of scholarly
perception

5. Cultural transfer, intellectual and material: from studies abroad and
architecture to merchandise and military technique; 'Turquerie'

Abstracts should be sent to schmidt-haberkampuni-bonn.de before 15
September 2007.

Convenor:
Professor Barbara Schmidt-Haberkamp
University of Bonn, Dept. of English, American and Celtic Studies
Regina-Pacis-Weg 5, 53113 Bonn, Germany
Tel.: ++49 (0)228 735724
e-mail: schmidt-haberkampuni-bonn.de