An Ottoman Mosaic: Cultural Pluralism in Early-Modern Ottoman Artistic Production” December 17, 2007

An Ottoman Mosaic: Cultural Pluralism in Early-Modern Ottoman Artistic Production”

Dr. Tamer el-Leithy is an assistant professor in the Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies Department at New York University, a Harvard Society of Follows junior research fellow and an adjunct professor at Fordham University. He has won numerous academic awards and participated in conferences and workshops in the , Europe and the Middle East . He has also published and presented several works on Mamluk society, various aspects of Islam, and dress and costumes of the region. Dr. el-Leithy holds a Ph.D. in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton University







Ottoman objects of art can be viewed as windows onto cultural pluralism in early-modern Ottoman society, especially the interaction between ethnic and religious groups as well as gender relations. The truth of this can be explored on three levels: influences and creative adaptation, its biography, and, finally, historical uses.





The style and other internal features of a piece are evidence of influences and the creative adaptations of cultural styles. This will be discussed in the context of Ottoman ceramics and carpets, including those designed for European courts, for example, as diplomatic gifts, a mainstay of early-modern political culture. The second level of analysis examines the biography of the object. In the third and final level of analysis, these micro-historical biographies will be used to explore consumption, i.e. the historical use of these objects by their owners.





Thus a handful of pieces of Ottoman costume and furniture serve as prisms for understanding larger cultural and social structures; they throw into sharper relief contemporaneous attitudes towards, and practices of, ethnicity, community, aesthetics, gender, and trade

Official Website: http://www.darmuseum.org.kw/cultural_season_detail.php?lang=e&id=94