Al-Tikriti, far right, joins the panel
Professor of Middle East History Nabil Al-Tikriti presented a paper entitled “All My Children – Assessing the Ego Documents of Bayezid II’s (d. 1512) Family” on Wednesday, June 15. Following a brief statement in Turkish, Prof. Al-Tikriti continued in English, surveying the available “Ego-Documents” covering the family of the Ottoman Empire’s 8th ruler, Bayezid II. This presentation was offered as part of the “Ottoman Ego Documents/Ben-Anlatıları” Symposium hosted by a number of public and private Turkish institutions, including Istanbul Medeniyet Üniversitesi, TÜBİTAK, İSTEV, Eyüpsultan Municipality and Tuzla Municipality. The conference, which took place on June 15 to 17, after twice being postponed due to the recent pandemic, was held in a hybrid format and included a number of scholars presenting remotely from Europe, as well as an in-person keynote address by Harvard University’s Cemal Kafadar.
In the course of his presentation, Prof. Al-Tikriti advocated for use of the term “family corpus” of ego-documents, while clarifying that such documents are specific forms of “life writing,” as nearly all surviving 16th-century Ottoman documents are in effect public statements, as opposed to private musings.
The symposium website includes further information, and the complete symposium program. Prof. Al-Tikriti would like to especially thank the UMW Finance Department for facilitating such conference travel right before the end of the current fiscal year.