Cemal Kafadar

Vehbi Koç Professor of Turkish Studies
Cemal Kafadar speaking at podium indoors, wearing dark blazer, serious expression, audience setting.
617-495-2556
history@fas.harvard.edu

Prof. Kafadar is interested in the social and cultural history of the Middle East and southeastern Europe in the late medieval/early modern era. He teaches courses on Ottoman history, urban space, travel, popular culture, history and cinema, coffee and nighttime. His recent essays include:

“How Dark is the History of the Night, How Black the Story of Coffee, How Bitter the Tale of Love: the Changing Measure of Leisure and Pleasure in Early Modern Istanbul;”
"Between Amasya and Istanbul: Bayezid II, His Librarian and the Textual Turn of the Late Fifteenth Century;"
"Green Reading: Books and the Outdoors in the Early Modern Ottoman World;"
"Rhodes Illibrated: In Celebration of the Revival of the Hafız Ahmed Library as a Repository of Learning and a Site of Cross-Cultural Conversations."

He has curated a program of twelve films, titled "Rebels, Saints and Troubadours," for the Istanbul International Film Festival in 2009 and worked closely on the conception and production of two historical documentaries: "Inspirations" (dir. Nurdan Arca, 2005) on Sheikh Bedreddin, an Ottoman intellectual executed for his ideas ca.1417; "Invisible to the Eye" (dir. Zeynep Dadak, 2020) on the mid-17th century account of Istanbul by Eremya Chelebi Kömürjian.

Selected Publications

  • Treasures of Knowledge: an Inventory of the Ottoman Palace Library (1502/3-1503/4)  (co-edited, 2019)
  • Kendine Ait Bir Roma : Diyar-ı Rum'da Kültürel Coğrafya Ve Kimlik Üzerine (2017)
  • Kim Var Imiş Biz Burada Yoğ Iken : Dört Osmanlı : Yeniçeri, Tüccar, Derviş ve Hatun (2009).
  • "The Question of Ottoman Decline" in Harvard Middle East and Islamic Review (1999)
  • Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman State (1995, translated into Arabic, Greek, Persian and Turkish)
  • Suleiman the Second and His Time, co-edited with Halil Inalcik (1993)

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