A research seminar combining visual materials with textual sources. Periods and topics dealt with, and which students may choose to concentrate upon, include : (1) The Byzantine past; rituals and monuments in the making of a city. (2) Early Ottoman land tenure in and around Istanbul : tahrirs and Imperial vakıfs, kanun and canon. (3) Istanbul as a distinctive "local culture" within the Ottoman Empire. (4) Istanbul as a locus of social unrest. (5) Late Ottoman Istanbul : its changing topography; its diverging tastes and identities (or : the emergence of sub-localities within a local culture). (6) Republican Istanbul and the end of a city. Requirements : a major research paper combining multiple types of evidence. Counts towards fulfilling the seminar requirement in History. Prerequisite : An adequate command of Ottoman Turkish, through TLL 501-502 or the equivalent, and subject to the instructor's approval.
