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CFP: Ottoman Pasts, Present Cities (London, 26-27 Jun 14)Birkbeck College, University of London, June 26 - 27, 2014Deadline: Jan 1, 2014Ottoman Pasts, Present Cities: Cosmopolitanism and Transcultural MemoriesAHRC Research NetworkInternational two-day conference26- 27 June 2014, Birkbeck College, University of LondonPlenary speakers include Professor Ulrike Freitag, Freie UniversitätBerlin; Susan Meiselas, documentary photographer; Claudia Roden, chef,writer and cultural anthropologist; Professor Gayatri Spivak, ColumbiaUniversityCall for papers:One of the largest and one of the longest, the Ottoman Empire is stillrelatively understudied. Running from the early 1300s to 1922 andstretching East to West, it included key sites of present or recentconflict, such as Baghdad, Beirut, Cairo, Gaza, Istanbul, Jerusalem,Nicosia, Sarajevo and Belgrade. Yet for centuries these cities werelargely characterised by dynamics mostly forgotten: cultural exchange,ethnic cohabitation, and religious tolerance.  These transculturalexchanges manifested themselves in fusion and cross-pollination inarchitecture, art, food, music, literature, language, family stories,memories and lives. The network through a series of three workshops –‘How was the Ottoman Empire Transcultural’, ‘Ottoman Memories:Transculturalism and Empires in Comparison’, and ‘Visualising theOttoman City’ – brought together rich examples of transculturalmemories spearheaded by Gayatri Spivak’s contention that modernnationalism ‘now effaces the incessantly negotiated multinationalitythat was the Ottoman Empire’ (1993). Our time frame is mostly from the1780s to the present: a time of transformation and of multiplecolonialisms, resulting in the end of the Ottoman Empire in the 1920s,and the mandates, post-colonialisms, nation states and conflicts thathave followed.  This is a particularly rich period for excavating therange of artefacts that show the ‘incessantly negotiatedmultinationality’ that was the Ottoman city.Ottoman scholarship has so far largely been organised by thehistorical, political, philosophical, archaeological and linguistic,often concentrating on Edward Said’s ‘orientalist’ representations ofthe Ottoman Empire.  The project and conference aims to further therevaluation of orientalism by engaging different disciplines to readthe legacies of Ottoman cities.This two-day international conference aims to investigate these themesfurther through an inter-disciplinary approach. We are invitingproposals for twenty-minute papers that explore all aspects of theex-Ottoman city and its many intercultural encounters, and whoseapproaches to these encounters may include, for example: culturalhistory, city and architectural studies particularly in relation toindividual and transcultural memory; cultural studies includingliterature, autobiography and life-writing, the visual arts(photography, cinema, painting); anthropology, Middle-Eastern and NorthAfrican studies as well as the study of all the Ottoman lands per se(including also the Balkans, Greece, Cyprus, Armenia, Eastern Europe);Jewish studies, colonial and postcolonial studies; French/francophoneand Italian studies (many ex-Ottoman cities had French or Italian astheir lingua franca).Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:Representations of the ex-Ottoman city in literature and life-writingPhotography, film, painting, architectureHybridity and transculturalismTranscultural memoryMemory and identityFused or borrowed languages – language and identityIntertextualityReappropriationTravel writingTravel and empireMusic, food, artefactsCultural history, political historyEx-Ottoman cities and the European powersThe conference also includes an exhibition entitled ‘East and West:Visualising the Ottoman City’ which features the work of fourlens-based artists representing the Ottoman city through a perspectiveof transcultural memory. The exhibition will explore key ideas from thenetwork’s research within a contemporary art framework.Closing date for submissions of abstracts (250 words):  1 January 2014Please email abstracts together with a short biographical note to:ottoman.cosmopolitanism@leeds.ac.ukConference Organisers/Network Members: Principal Investigator, JayProsser (University of Leeds), Co-investigator, Gabriel Koureas(Birkbeck College, University of London), Visual Advisor, LeslieHakim-Dowek (University of Portsmouth), Project Advisor, Colette Wilson(University of Westminster), Research Assistant, Henghameh Saroukhani(University of Leeds)For more information on the network, visit our website:http://ottomancosmopolitanism.wordpress.com/Join our facebook page:https://www.facebook.com/OttomanCosmopolitanismNetworkOr follow us on twitter: https://twitter.com/Ottoman_Cosmo