Ph.D. Theses
Permanent URI for this collection
Browse
Browsing Ph.D. Theses by Author "Kafesçioğlu, Çiğdem."
Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Isfahan and Istanbul in the early seventeenth century : Masjed-e Shah and Sultan Ahmed complexes(Thesis (Ph.D.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2022., 2022) Gürkan Anar, Damla.; Kafesçioğlu, Çiğdem.This dissertation investigates the urban, architectural, and ceremonial formations of the Sultan Ahmed and Masjed-e Shah complexes, erected in early seventeenth century Istanbul and Isfahan by rival monarchs, Ahmed I (r.1603–1617) and Abbas I (r.1587–1629) respectively. This study conceptualizes these Friday mosque complexes as platforms manifesting their patrons’ comparable imperial agendas and analogous confessional policies through monumental architecture and theatrical rituality to different audiences, including each other’s representatives. It argues that besides corresponding religio-political flows at two rival courts, shared urbanistic, architectural, and aesthetic currents of the era played a significant part in their convergence as mosque complexes characterized by architectural grandeur, extravagance, decorative splendor, confessional ethos, and theatrical rituality. Combining the methods of architectural history with those of social and cultural history, this thesis delves into various textual and archival sources besides architectural evidence. It contributes to the comparative literature on the Safavid and Ottoman architectural cultures by presenting the first comprehensive comparative and connected analysis of two contemporary Friday mosque complexes erected in the Safavid and Ottoman capitals in the early seventeenth century.Item The 1720 imperial festival in Istanbul: Festivity and representation in the early eighteenth-century Ottoman Empire(Thesis (Ph.D.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2017., 2017.) Erdoğan, Sinem.; Kafesçioğlu, Çiğdem.This dissertation focuses on the 1720 imperial circumcision festival that was held in Istanbul during the reign of Ahmed III (r. 1703-1730). It intends to present the first comprehensive monograph on an Ottoman imperial festival through a holistic approach. This study addresses the ideological motives behind the Ottoman court’s commissioning of this massive scale festival at this particular period, as well as exploring in-depth how it was planned, organized, staged and represented. Due to its holistic approach, this dissertation combines the methodological tools of history, art history and performance studies, and, thus offers an interdisciplinary perspective to the subject. For the first time in the field it introduces a wide range of archival source basis to the study of an imperial festival. These sources are considered with the textual and pictorial narratives of the festival that are analyzed in terms of their codicology, iconography and narratology. The scrutinized analysis of the rites of the 1720 circumcision festival and its representation in illustrated festival books brings to light hitherto unknown material, social, financial and semiotic aspect behind the planning of an imperial festival. At the same time it foregrounds substantial information on the Ottoman bureaucracy’s organizational capacities as well as mobilization of human and material resources across the empire. In addition, this study illustrates the fascinating social dimension of the event, by unearthing the modes of involvement of ordinary people as contributors and as beneficiaries of the festival. This challenges the strictly state centered approach towards court commissioned festivals in the Ottoman Empire.Item The Han in eighteenth- and early nineteenth- century Istanbul: a spatial, topographical and social analysis(Thesis (Ph.D.) - Bogazici University. Institute for Graduate Studies in Social Sciences, 2016., 2016.) Yaşar, Ahmet, 1978-; Kafesçioğlu, Çiğdem.This thesis aims to examine the han in Ottoman Istanbul in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. By thinking on history in its spatial dimensions, it attempts to analyze early modern Istanbul hans within the framework of four main concepts: space, construction, conviviality, and surveillance. Through the focus on urban hans, this thesis endeavours to offer new perspectives on a number of issues regarding the city. These issues include the spatial topography of the urban hans within the city, the construction of the urban commercial infrastructure, everyday interaction in public spaces, and the morality-centered surveillance mechanisms of the political power over these spaces. This thesis argues that the commercial spaces of the early modern Ottoman capital took their ultimate form in the eighteenth century. This process started with the closing of the market region with a roof in 1701, quickened by the construction of the Nuruosmaniye Complex near the Bedestan in 1755, and continued with the construction of Büyük Yeni Han in 1763 and multitude of others in the commercial district. By focusing on the new han projects in the eighteenth century with their transformative consequence on the landscape of Istanbul and their revitalized role, this thesis claims that the Ottoman sultan, by getting involved in the economic and spatial realms, reestablished the presence of the dynasty in the commercial district of the Ottoman capital. This thesis also attempts to make new contributions to the study of Istanbul hans particularly focusing on their use and the political authority’s control over them. In this manner, it spatializes the public realm within the context of early modern Istanbul, as a domain where conviviality, sociality, and theatricality are embedded. By analyzing the Ottoman political language that dealt with the public manifestations shaped in and around the han as mefasid (evils), it also examines the surveillance mechanisms of the political authority over the hans in the context of public order.