Ottoman gentlemen placed great value on the art of conversation. From a young age, they watched their fathers cultivate it; they read and wrote books on it; and above all, they spent hours engrossed in it. This was true across the Ottoman Empire in the sixteenth century. And yet, the particulars of gentlemanly conversation varied from locale to locale. This talk, which is based on Pfeifer’s new book Empire of Salons, examines conversational practice in the rapidly expanding empire of the sixteenth century, especially in the wake of the 1516-7 conquest of the Mamluk Sultanate. It suggests that while Turkish and Arabic speakers shared many conversational ideals, there were also significant differences that could sometimes make encounters strained.

Helen Pfeifer is University Associate Professor in Early Ottoman History at the University of Cambridge and a fellow of Christ’s College. Her first book, Empire of Salons: Conquest and Community in Early Modern Ottoman Lands came out with Princeton University Press in 2022.

The meeting will be held on ZOOM through the following link, https://bit.ly/helenpfeifermondaytalks, on monday 31 October, at 18.00.