Skip to main content

Publications

Zeynep Akçakaya

 

Tunahan Durmaz

 

Nükhet Varlık

Book

Edited Volumes

Edited Journal Issues

Journal Articles

Book Chapter

  • “Colours of Disease and Death in the Early Ottoman Cultural Imagination,” in Death and Disease in the Medieval and Early Modern World: Perspectives From Across the Mediterranean and Beyond, edited by Lori Jones and Nükhet Varlık (York Medieval Press, 2022), 123-47
  • “The Rise and Fall of a Historical Plague Reservoir: The Case of Ottoman Anatolia,” in Disease and the Environment in the Medieval and Early Modern Worlds, edited by Lori Jones (Abingdon: Routledge, 2022), 159-183
  • “Why Is Black Death Black? European Gothic Imaginaries of ‘Oriental’ Plague,” in Plague Image and Imagination from Medieval to Modern Times, edited by Christos Lynteris (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021), 11-35
  • “Death in Istanbul: Plagues, Fires, and Other Catastrophes,” Early Modern Istanbul: Brill’s Companion to European History, edited by Shirine Hamadeh and Çiğdem Kafescioğlu (Leiden: Brill, 2021), 420-45 [Turkish translation in progress]
  • Expanded Turkish translation: “İstanbul’da Ölüm: Veba, Yangın ve Diğer Felaketler,” Memento Mori: Ölüm ve Ölüm Uygulamaları, edited by Ali Metin Büyükkarakaya and Elif Başak Aksoy (Istanbul: Ege Yayınları, 2019), 483-514
  • “Geçmiş Pandemileri Anlamak Neden Önemli?” Salgın: Tükeniş Çağında Dünyayı Yeniden Düşünmek, edited by Didem Bayındır (Istanbul: Tellekt Yayınları, 2020), 15-43
  • “Plague Epidemics in Istanbul,” in From Antiquity to the 21st Century: History of Istanbul, edited by Akif Aydın, et al. (Istanbul: ISAM, 2019), vol. 4, 146-51
  • Turkish translation: “İstanbul’da Veba Salgınları,” Büyük İstanbul Tarihi, edited by M. Akif Aydın, et al. (Istanbul: İSAM Yayınları, 2016), vol. 4, 146-51
  • “Books on Medicine: Medical Knowledge at Work,” Treasures of Knowledge: An Inventory of the Ottoman Palace Library (1502/3-1503/4), 2 vols., edited by Gülru Necipoğlu, Cemal Kafadar, and Cornell H. Fleischer, Muqarnas, Supplements 14 (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 527-55
  • “Between Local and Universal: Translating Knowledge in Early Modern Ottoman Plague Treatises,” in Knowledge in Translation: Global Patterns of Scientific Exchange, 1000-1800 CE, edited by Patrick Manning and Abigail Owen (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018), 177-90
  • “Dead(ly) Uncertainties: Plague and Ottoman Society in the Age of the Renaissance,” in The Routledge History of the Renaissance, edited by William Caferro (London: Routledge, 2017), 259-74
  • “‘Oriental Plague’ or Epidemiological Orientalism?: Revisiting the Plague Episteme of the Early Modern Mediterranean,” in Plague and Contagion in the Islamic Mediterranean, edited by Nükhet Varlık (Kalamazoo, MI: Arc Humanities Press, 2017), 57-87
  • “Conquest, Urbanization, and Plague Networks in the Ottoman Empire, 1453-1600,” in The Ottoman World, edited by Christine Woodhead (New York: Routledge, 2011), 251-63
  • Turkish translation: “Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda Fetih, Kentleşme ve Veba Ağları, 1453-1600,” Osmanlı Dünyası (Istanbul: Alfa Yayınları, 2018
  • with Nil Sarı, “Tütün Tiryakiliği ve Besim Ömer Paşa’nın Görüşleri” (An Ottoman Physician’s Views on Tobacco Addiction) in Tütün Kitabı (The Book of Tobacco), edited by Emine Gürsoy Naskali (Istanbul: Kitabevi, 2003), 459-73 (in Turkish)

Encyclopedia Entries

  • “Christian and Muslim Responses to Epidemics and Diseases in West Asia,” in World History Encyclopedia, Era 6: The First Global Age, 1450–1770, edited by Alexander Mikaberidze, Dane A. Morrison, Jeffrey M. Diamond, D. Harland Hagler (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2011)
  • “Tâûn,” (Plague) in Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı İslam Ansiklopedisi (The Turkish Religious Foundation’s Encyclopedia of Islam) (Istanbul: İSAM Yayınları, 2011), vol. 40, 175-77 (in Turkish)
  • “Contagion Theory of Disease, Premodern,” in Encyclopedia of Pestilence, Pandemics, and Plagues, edited by Joseph P. Byrne (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2008), 133-36
  • “Flight,” in Encyclopedia of Pestilence, Pandemics, and Plagues, ed. Joseph P. Byrne (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2008), 213-15
  • “Islamic Disease Theory and Medicine,” in Encyclopedia of Pestilence, Pandemics, and Plagues, edited by Joseph P. Byrne (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2008), 331-33
  • “Plague in the Islamic World, 1500-1850,” in Encyclopedia of Pestilence, Pandemics, and Plagues, edited by Joseph P. Byrne (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2008), 519-22
  • “Public Health in the Islamic World, 1000-1600,” in Encyclopedia of Pestilence, Pandemics, and Plagues, edited by Joseph P. Byrne (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2008), 576-78

Book Reviews and Other Essays

  • Tauras P. Vilgalys, Jennifer Klunk, Christian E. Demeure, Xiaoheng Cheng, Mari Shiratori, Julien Madej, Rémi Beau, Derek Elli, Maria I. Patino, Rebecca Redfern, Sharon N. DeWitte, Julia A. Gamble, Jesper L. Boldsen, Ann Carmichael, Nükhet Varlık, Katherine Eaton, Jean-Christophe Grenier, G. Brian Golding, Alison Devault, Jean-Marie Rouillard, Vania Yotova, Renata Sindeaux, Chun Jimmie Ye, Matin Bikaran, Anne Dumaine, Jessica F Brinkworth, Dominique Missiakas, Guy A. Rouleau, Matthias Steinrücken, Javier Pizarro-Cerdá, Hendrik N. Poinar, and Luis B. Barreiro, “Reply to Barton et al: signatures of natural selection during the Black Death,” (preprint) bioRxiv, April 7, 2023
  • “From Black Death to COVID-19, pandemics have always pushed people to honor death and celebrate life,” The Conversation, October 26, 2021
  • “New Questions for Studying Plague in Ottoman History,” in TRAFO – Blog for Transregional Research, June 29, 2021
  • Migration and Disease in the Black Sea Region: Ottoman-Russian Relations in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries, by Andrew Robarts, International Journal of Turkish Studies (forthcoming)
  • Roads to Health: Infrastructure and Urban Wellbeing in Later Medieval Italy, by Guy Geltner, Speculum 96: 3 (2021): 822-24
  • Histories of Post-Mortem Contagion: Infectious Corpses and Contested Burials, edited by Christos Lynteris and Nicholas H. A. Evans, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 76:2 (2021): 217-19
  • “Pandemic Amnesia,” Breakthrough (Fall 2020): 22-24
  • “Osmanlılarda Veba: Osmanlı Devleti’nin İnşasında Beden Siyaseti,” Din ve Hayat 41 (2020): 82-85 (in Turkish)
  • “How do pandemics end? History suggests diseases fade but are almost never truly gone,” The Conversation, October 14, 2020
  • Spanish translation: “¿Cómo acaban las epidemias? La historia nos dice que las enfermedades remiten pero es raro que desaparezcan,” The Conversation, October 18, 2020
  • Japanese translation: “新型コロナは撲滅できるのか,” Newsweek Japan special issue 14, April 2, 2021, 64-65
  • “Beyond Eurocentric Histories of Plague,” review essay on Plague Hospitals: Public Health for the City in Early Modern Venice, by Jane Stevens Crawshaw; Plague and Public Health in Early Modern Seville, by Kristy Wilson Bowers; Expelling the Plague: The Health Office and the Implementation of Quarantine in Dubrovnik, 1377-1533, by Zlata Blažina Tomić and Vesna Blažina, Early Science and Medicine 22:4 (2017): 361–73
  • Disability in the Ottoman Arab World, 1500-1800, by Sara Scalenghe, International Journal of Turkish Studies 22:1-2 (2016): 101-4
  • Writing History at the Ottoman Court: Editing the Past, Fashioning the Future, edited by H. Erdem Çıpa and Emine Fetvacı, Journal of World History 26:2 (2015): 400-2
  • “An Empire of Plague?” in Empire of Dirt, exhibition catalogue, Jan. 20-Apr. 1, 2015, Paul Robeson Galleries, Rutgers University-Newark (2015), 42-45
  • Plague and Public Health in Early Modern Seville, by Kristy Wilson Bowers, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 92:6 (2015): 721-22
  • Brokering Empire: Trans-imperial Subjects between Venice and Istanbul, by Natalie Rothman, Journal of World History 24:2 (2013): 431-34
  • “Attitudes Toward Plague Epidemics in Ottoman Society of the Nineteenth Century,” Proceedings of the 37th International Congress on the History of Medicine, edited by Chester R. Burns, et al. (Galveston, TX: The University of Texas Medical Branch, The Institute for the Medical Humanities, 2002), 359-64

Invited Talks and Conference Presentations

  • “Premodern Perspectives for Studying Death and Disease,” at “Feeling the Pulse of the City,” December 11, 2024, Kadir Has University, Istanbul
  • “New Directions to Explore Death, Disease, and Healing in Early Modern Ottoman History,” at the Mediterranean Intersections Conference, November 17-18, 2024, San Francisco Theological Seminary & University of Redlands, San Anselmo, California
  • “New Directions to Explore Death, Disease, and Healing in Early Modern Ottoman History,” CMES Farouk Mustafa Memorial Lecture Series, the University of Chicago, October 25, 2024, Chicago, IL
  • “Death and Disease in the Middle East,” “Applied Workshop: Ottoman Pharmacy,” Center for Middle Eastern Studies Master Class Events, the University of Chicago, October 24, 2024, Chicago, IL
  • “History of Death and Disease in Anatolia: New Discussions, New Directions,” by the SHIFA-ANA Project Team (Zeynep Akçakaya, Akarsu Melike Demirkol, Tunahan Durmaz, Nükhet Varlık), October 2, 2024, Koç University-ANAMED, Istanbul, Turkey
  • “History of death and disease: a methodological discussion,” at the “Şifalandıran Anadolu Şifalanan Tarih,” July 2, 2024, Arkhé History Village, Şirince, Izmir, Turkey
  • “Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu’s contributions to the making of new generation of historians of Ottoman science,” The Ottoman Scientific Heritage: A Book Launch and Symposium in Honor of Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu, Harvard University, April 26-27, 2024, Cambridge, MA
  • “Traveling Roots: New Pharmaceuticals in Early Modern Ottoman Medicine,” at the 18th ANAMED International Annual Symposium “Anatolian Cornucopia: Drugs, Elixirs, and Spices between Leisure, Medicine, and Morality,” December 7-8, 2023, Istanbul
  • “The Ottoman Pharmacy: A Practical Workshop,” at the 18th ANAMED International Annual Symposium “Anatolian Cornucopia: Drugs, Elixirs, and Spices between Leisure, Medicine, and Morality,” December 7, 2023, Istanbul
  • “Yerelden Evrensele Salgın Hastalıkları Deneyimlemek I: Tanı, Şerh ve Kayıt,” lecture at the “Tecrübeyle Sabit: Osmanlı Biliminin Teori ve Pratiği,” August 3, 2023, Arkhé History Village, Şirince, Izmir, Turkey
  • Ottoman pharmacy workshop at the “Tecrübeyle Sabit: Osmanlı Biliminin Teori ve Pratiği,” August 4, 2023, Arkhé History Village, Şirince, Izmir, Turkey
  • “Ecological Transformations in the Early Modern Mediterranean: Humans and the Environment,” Keynote lecture at the International Graduate Conference “Human and Nature in Mediterranean Landscape,” Central European University, Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies, May 30-31, 2023, Vienna, Austria
  • “Kara Veba’dan Covid-19’a Pandemiler Tarihi,” invited lecture for History+, Boğaziçi University, December 7, 2022, Istanbul
  • “Plagued Legacies: Rethinking Black Death Narratives,” invited lecture for “Environment in the Middle East” seminars at New York University Abu Dhabi Institute, October 26, 2022
  • “Rethinking the History of Premodern Health,” Plenary lecture at the workshop “Public Health in the Preindustrial World: Sites, Sources and Methodological Synergies,” September 30, 2022, Amsterdam
  • “Imagined Healthscapes: Early Modern Ottoman Cities as Places of Health and Disease,” at the workshop “Public Health in the Preindustrial World: Sites, Sources and Methodological Synergies,” September 29, 2022, Amsterdam
  • “Osmanlı’da hastalık, sağlık ve ölüm tarihi ve tarihçiliği,” lecture at the “Türk-Osmanlı Tarihyazımı Toplantısı,” August 9, 2022, Arkhé History Village, Şirince, Izmir, Turkey
  • “İslam dünyasında bilim-tıp tarihi çalışmaları,” lecture at the “Türk-Osmanlı Tarihyazımı Toplantısı,” August 10, 2022, Arkhé History Village, Şirince, Izmir, Turkey
  • “Rethinking the Pandemics of the Medieval Mediterranean: Disruption and Resilience,” Keynote lecture at the International Conference of the Society for the Medieval Mediterranean, “Interruptions & Disruptions in the Medieval Mediterranean, 400–1500,” July 13, 2022, Crete, Greece
  • “Plague, Climate, and Migration: Rural Depopulation in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire During the Little Ice Age,” at the Spring 2022 Mediterranean Seminar Workshop, May 6-7, 2022, Rutgers University–Newark, NJ
  • “Perilous Narratives: How Telling Wrong Stories About Past Pandemics Hurts Us Today,” NJIT Honors Colloquium Series, April 26, 2022
  • “Rethinking Past Plagues in an Age of Pandemics: The Black Death and Its Legacy,”15th Annual Joan Coffey Memorial Lecture, Sam Houston State University, Department of History, April 21, 2022, Huntsville, TX,
  • “Invisibility of Death in Istanbul’s History” at the symposium of “Empires of Memory,” Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, March 3-5, 2022, Berlin, Germany
  • “Vebalı Miraslar: Kara Ölüm Anlatılarını Yeniden Düşünmek,” History Talks: Pandemi Günlerinde Tarih Konuşmak, Bilgi Üniversitesi, December 24, 2021, Istanbul, Turkey
  • “Pandemiler Çağında Geçmiş Salgınları Yeniden Düşünmek,” Galatasaraylılar Derneği, December 21, 2021, Istanbul, Turkey
  • “Rethinking Pandemic Narratives: Death and Disease in Ottoman and World History,” Sabancı University, December 15, 2021, Istanbul, Turkey
  • “Rethinking Plague’s Second Pandemic: The Ottoman Empire and Global Ecological History,” at the History and Sociology of Science Workshop, University of Pennsylvania, February 3, 2020, Philadelphia, PA
  • “Bodies Hale, Bodies Ill, Bodies Dead: Limitations of the History of Early Modern Ottoman Medicine,” at the workshop “Current Trends in the History of Science in Muslim Societies: Debates, Approaches, and Stakes,” New York University, December 11-12, 2019, NY
  • “Governing Bodies and Souls: Death and Burial in Early Modern Ottoman Society,” at the 53rd Annual Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association, November 14-17, 2019, New Orleans, LA
  • “Rethinking Plague’s Second Pandemic: The Ottoman Empire and Global Ecological History,” at the “Premodern Bodies and Health” lecture series, Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies (CEMERS), Binghamton University, SUNY, October 16, 2019, Binghamton, NY
  • “New Methods for Governing Death in Early Modern Istanbul,” at the workshop “Death and Afterlives in the Middle East,” Brown University, September 27, 2019, Providence, RI
  • “Multiple Temporalities of Plague Pandemics,” at the workshop “Time and Epidemics,” University of Oslo, August 26-27, 2019, Oslo, Norway (Skype presentation)
  • “Recalibrating Medical Knowledge in Early Modern Ottoman Plague Treatises,” at the “Interdisciplinary Approaches to Medieval Infectious Disease” Contagions panel, 54th International Congress on Medieval Studies, May 9-12, 2019, Kalamazoo, MI
  • “Making the Self: Death and Burial in Early Modern Ottoman Society,” Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Symposium, “Death and Dying in Medieval Judaism, Christianity, and Islam,” University of Tennessee, April 5-6, 2019, Knoxville, TN
  • “Changing Plague Ecologies in the Ottoman Empire: Rethinking the Second Pandemic (ca.1340s-ca.1940s),” at the Ottoman and Turkish History Lectures, History Department, Ohio State University, March 5, 2019, Columbus, OH
  • “Five-Hundred Years of Plague in Ottoman History: Rethinking the Second Pandemic,” invited lecture at the Minnesota Colloquium for the History and Philosophy of Science, Technology, and Medicine, University of Minnesota, March 1, 2019, Minneapolis, MN
  • “Empire, Ecology, and Plague: Rethinking the Second Pandemic (ca.1340s-ca.1840s),” Historical Studies Lunchtime Colloquium Series, Institute for Advanced Study, November 29, 2018, Princeton, NJ
  • “Imagining and Narrating Plague in the Ottoman World: A Conversation with Orhan Pamuk and Nükhet Varlık,” invited lecture, Sakıb Sabancı Center for Turkish Studies, Columbia University, November 12, 2018, New York, NY
  • “Five-Hundred Years of Plague in Ottoman History: Re-thinking the Second Pandemic,” invited Historia Medica Lecture, Center for History of Medicine at Washington University School of Medicine, November 8, 2018, St. Louis, MO
  • “Making the Self: Death and Individuality in Early Modern Ottoman Society,” Near Eastern Studies Seminar, Institute for Advanced Study, October 31, 2018, Princeton, NJ
  • “Plague and Death in the Early Modern Mediterranean World,” invited campus talk at the University of South Carolina, History Department, August 1, 2018, Columbia, SC
  • “The Formation of the Ottoman Medical Hierarchy and Professionalization of Medical Practice in the Late Sixteenth Century,” at the World Congress for Middle Eastern Studies, July 16-22, 2018, Seville, Spain
  • “Coloring Plague: Images, Emotions, and History Writing in Ottoman Society,” at the conference “Visual Representations of the Third Plague Pandemic,” University of St. Andrews, July 12-14, 2018, St. Andrews, UK
  • “Death, Body, and Health: Making of the Self in Early Modern Ottoman Society,” invited lecture at the “Contextualizing The Self: An Interdisciplinary Workshop,” May 22, 2018, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel
  • “Empire, Ecology, and Plague: Rethinking the Second Pandemic (ca.1340s-ca.1840s),” invited lecture, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, May 21, 2018, Jerusalem, Israel
  • “Variation in Plague Mortality during the Second Pandemic,” at the “Interdisciplinary Approaches to Medieval Infectious Disease” Contagions panel, 53rd International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, May 10-13, 2018, Kalamazoo, MI
  • “Colors of Plague: Images, Emotions, and History Writing in Early Modern Ottoman Society,” at the conference “The Worlds That Plague Made: Disease and Society in the Middle Ages and Renaissance,” New York University, April 13-14, 2018, New York, NY
  • “The Black Death and its Long-Term Political Consequences in the Ottoman Empire,” at the European Social Science History Conference, April 4-7, 2018, Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK
  • “Life and Death in Early Modern Istanbul,” Keynote lecture at the Great Lakes Ottomanist Workshop (GLOW), the University of Chicago, March 30, 2018, Chicago, IL
  • “The Disappearance of Plague and the Ottoman Empire,” invited lecture at the Middle East and North African History Seminar Series, Georgetown University, March 16, 2018, Washington, DC
  • “Ecology, Extinction, and the End of the Second Pandemic: Plague in the Ottoman Empire,” invited lecture at the Environmental History Working Group Seminars, Harvard University, February 15, 2018, Cambridge, MA
  • “Plague, Ecology, and Empire: Re-thinking the History of the Second Pandemic,” invited History of Science and Medicine Lecture, Yale University, October 9, 2017, New Haven, CT
  • “Plague, Ecology, and Empire: Re-thinking the Black Death Pandemic,” invited Presidential Dream Course Lecture, The Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies at the University of Oklahoma, September 21, 2017, Norman, OK
  • “Empire, Ecology, and Plague: Re-writing the History of the Second Pandemic,” invited lecture at Koç University-ANAMED, July 26, 2017, Istanbul
  • “The Myth of the ‘Disappearance of Plague’: Re-writing the History of the Second Pandemic,” at the annual meeting of the American Association for the History of Medicine (AAHM), May 4-7, 2017, Nashville, TN
  • “The Science of Bodies: Healers, Medicine, and the Early Modern Ottoman State,” at the workshop “ʿIlm wa ʿAmal: Acting Bodies-Conceiving Space in Medieval and Early Modern Islamicate Sciences,” Stanford University, April 14-15, 2017, Stanford, CA
  • “Rethinking the History of the Second Pandemic: Plague, Society, and Environment in the Early Modern Mediterranean,” at the conference “Medicine, Environment and Health in the Eastern Mediterranean World, 1400-1750,” Christ’s College, University of Cambridge, April 3-4, 2017, Cambridge, UK
  • “Climate, Biodiversity, and Epidemics: The Ottoman Plague Experience During the Second Pandemic,” invited lecture at the Climate Change and History Research Initiative (CCHRI), March 15, 2017, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
  • “Healing and Healers in Early Modern Ottoman Society,” at Hannah History of Medicine and Medical Humanities Speaker Series, McMaster University, January 18, 2017, Hamilton, ON, Canada
  • “Plague and Contagion in the Islamic Mediterranean,” at the Early Modern History Seminar, November 30, 2016, Saint Mark National University (UNMSM), Lima, Peru (Skype presentation)
  • “Ecological Crisis in Fourteenth-Century Anatolia: Climate, Society, and Disease,” at the workshop “Causation and Consequence: Natural Disasters in Mamluk Egypt and Syria,” Annemarie Schimmel Kolleg of Bonn University, October 10-11, 2016, Bonn, Germany
  • “Plague’s Second Pandemic and the Ottoman Empire,” invited lecture given at the Division of Infectious Diseases, New Jersey Medical School, October 5, 2016, Newark, NJ
  • “The Ottoman Plague Experience During the Second Pandemic,” invited lecture given at the Department of Anthropology, McMaster University, August 9, 2016, Hamilton, ON, Canada
  • “The Arts of Healing and Entertainment in Early Modern Ottoman Society,” at the conference “The Ottomans and Entertainment,” The Skilliter Centre for Ottoman Studies, Newnham College, University of Cambridge, June 30 – July 2, 2016, Cambridge, UK
  • “The Rise and Fall of a Historical Plague Focus: The Case of Ottoman Anatolia,” at the Medica panel “Epidemic Diseases in the Middle Ages: Twenty-first Century Understandings,” at the 51st International Congress on Medieval Studies, May 12-15, 2016, Kalamazoo, MI
  • “Dead(ly) Uncertainties: Plague and Ottoman Society in the Age of the Renaissance,” at the annual meeting of the American Association for the History of Medicine (AAHM), April 28-May 1, 2016, Minneapolis, MN
  • “Plague Ecology in the Highlands of Ottoman Anatolia,” at the workshop “Medicine and Knowledge in the Middle East,” The Graduate Center, CUNY, April 1, 2016, New York, NY
  • “Plague Ecology in Ottoman Anatolia,” at the conference “Disease and Disaster in Ottoman Anatolia,” The Skilliter Centre for Ottoman Studies, Newnham College, University of Cambridge, March 18-19, 2016, Cambridge, UK
  • “Between Local and Universal: Translating Knowledge in Early Modern Ottoman Plague Treatises,” at the “Found in Translation: A Conference on the World History of Science, ca. 1200–1600 CE,” October 10-11, 2015, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA
  • “‘Oriental Plague’ or Epidemiological Orientalism?: Revisiting the Plague Episteme of the post-Black Death Mediterranean,” at the annual meeting of the American Association for the History of Medicine (AAHM), April 30-May 3, 2015, New Haven, CT
  • “A Natural History of Plague,” at the Rutgers Center for Cultural Analysis (CCA) Totality seminar, March 11, 2015, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
  • “Plague and Medicine in the Early Modern Mediterranean World,” invited campus talk at Washington University in St. Louis, History Department, January 23, 2015, St. Louis, MO
  • “The Curious Case of Saliha Hatun: Patients, Healers and the State in Early Modern Istanbul,” University Seminar in Ottoman and Turkish Studies, Columbia University, October 31, 2014, New York, NY
  • “‘Shall Do No Harm to the Health of the Muslims’: Healers and the State in Early Modern Ottoman Society,” at the Johns Hopkins Program in the History of Science, Medicine, and Technology Colloquium Series, Johns Hopkins University, September 25, 2014, Baltimore, MD
  • “Ecological Encounters of the Imperial Kind: Plague and the Ottoman Empire,” at the Delaware Valley Medieval Association (DVMA) meeting on “Movement and Exchange,” September 20, 2014, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA
  • “Health, Medical Knowledge, and Governance: Healthscaping in Early Modern Istanbul,” at the 12th International Conference on Urban History: Cities in Europe, Cities in the World, organized by the European Association for Urban History (EAUH), September 3-6, 2014, Lisbon, Portugal (in absentia)
  • “Medical Pluralism or Labor Pains of Professionalization?: The Ottoman Healing Arts Revisited,” at the annual meeting of the American Association for the History of Medicine (AAHM), May 8-11, 2014, Chicago, IL
  • “The Ottoman Healing Arts: Health, Medicine, and the State,” at New York University Ottoman Studies Lecture Series, April 17, 2014, New York, NY
  • “Medicine and Allied Sciences,” at the TOROK workshop, Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture, Harvard University, April 4-6, 2014, Cambridge, MA
  • “Healing the Community: State, Medicine, and Contesting Voices,” at the Medieval Studies Spring Symposium “The Healing Arts Across the Mediterranean: Communities, Knowledge, and Practices,” Rutgers University, March 28, 2014, New Brunswick, NJ
  • “Plague Knows No Boundaries: Situating the Ottoman Epidemiological Experience in the Mediterranean Context,” at the Annual Meeting of The Sixteenth Century Society Conference, October 24-27, 2013, San Juan, Puerto Rico
  • “Imagined Healthscapes: Places of Health and Disease in Early Modern Ottoman Cities,” at the conference “The Ottomans and Health: A Comparative Perspective,” The Skilliter Centre for Ottoman Studies, Newnham College, July 3-6, 2013, Cambridge, UK
  • “Reconsidering Disease in History: The Early Modern Ottoman Example,” at the roundtable “A Prospectus for Global Health History,” at the Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association, January 3-6, 2013, New Orleans, LA
  • “Contagious Metaphors: Ideas of Disease Transmission in Early Modern Ottoman Society,” at the Second International Congress on the Turkish History of Medicine, December 10-13, 2012, Istanbul, Turkey
  • “Networks of Disease Exchange and Empire Building in the Early Modern Mediterranean,” at the Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis (RCHA), “Networks of Exchange” Fall 2012 seminars, October 16, 2012, New Brunswick, NJ
  • “Plague, Conflict, and Negotiation: The Jewish Weavers of Salonica and Ottoman Central Administration in the Late Sixteenth Century,” at the International Workshop on The Jews of Salonica in the modern period, 1492-1950, June 25-26, 2012, Thessaloniki (Skype presentation)
  • “Plague Epidemics in the post-Black Death Mediterranean and the Ottoman Empire,” at the Ohio State University, Center for Historical Research Program for 2011-2012: Health, Disease, and Environment in World History, April 6, 2012, Columbus, OH
  • “Medical Knowledge and ‘Public Health’ Services in Early Modern Istanbul,” at the 45th Annual Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association, December 1-4, 2011, Washington, DC
  • “Regional Empires as Agents of Epidemic Expansion: The Case of the Early Modern Ottoman Empire,” at the International Workshop on Epidemics and Pandemics in Historical Perspective, October 27-29, 2011, Düsseldorf, Germany
  • “Empire of Plague: Epidemic Disease and the Early Modern Ottoman State,” invited lecture given at the Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies (CEMS), Central European University, May 25, 2011, Budapest, Hungary
  • “Networks of Plague and Imperial Expansion: The Case of Early Modern Ottoman Cities,” invited lecture given at the American Research Institute in Turkey (ARIT), May 2, 2011, Istanbul, Turkey
  • “Yeni Çağ Osmanlı Devleti ve Veba Salgınları (The early modern Ottoman state and plague epidemics),” invited lecture given at the Department of Medical History and Ethics at Istanbul University Cerrahpaşa Medical School, April 21, 2011, Istanbul, Turkey (in Turkish)
  • “Plague Naturalized: Ottoman Medical Knowledge and State Formation in the Sixteenth Century,” at Koç University Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations (RCAC) Fellows’ Mini-Symposia, March 18, 2011, Istanbul, Turkey
  • “Islamic Legal Theory and Ottoman Administrative Practice: The ‘Flight-Dilemma’ in Sixteenth-Century Plague Treatises,” at the 44th Annual Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association, November 18-21, 2010, San Diego, CA (in absentia)
  • “Living in the Shadow of Plague: Health and Hygiene in Early Modern Ottoman Cities,” at the 5th International Congress of the International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine, October 25-28, 2010, Istanbul, Turkey
  • “Plague and Empire in the Early Modern Mediterranean World: The Ottoman Experience, 1347-1600,” at Koç University Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations (RCAC), October 20, 2010, Istanbul, Turkey
  • “The Early Modern Ottoman State and Its Health Institutions,” at the Congress on Health, Culture, and the Body: Epidemiology, ethics, and history of medicine, perspectives from Central Europe and Turkey, September 17-19, 2010, Mainz, Germany
  • “Conquest, Urbanization, and Plague Networks in the Ottoman Empire (1453-1600),” invited lecture given at the University of North Carolina – Greensboro, April 9, 2010, Greensboro, NC
  • “The Role of Plague in Ottoman State Formation,” at the 2010 Conference of Southern Association for the History of Medicine and Science, March 5-6, 2010, Louisville, KY
  • “Conquest, Urban Space, and Networks: Plague Epidemics in the Ottoman Empire (1453-1600),” invited campus talk at Northeastern Illinois University, History Department, December 10, 2009, Chicago, IL
  • “Conquest, Urban Space, and Networks: Plague Epidemics in the Ottoman Empire (1453-1600),” invited campus talk at Rutgers University-Newark, Federated Department of History, December 7, 2009, Newark, NJ
  • “Medicine and the State in the Early Modern Ottoman World,” at the 43rd Annual Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association, November 21-24, 2009, Boston, MA
  • “Plague, Medicine, and the State in Early Modern Istanbul (1520-1600),” at the 42nd Annual Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association, November 22-25, 2008, Washington, DC
  • “Plague, Medicine, and Urban Space: Public Health in the Early Modern Ottoman State,” at the 41st International Congress on the History of Medicine, September 7-12, 2008, Mexico City, Mexico
  • “Disease and Empire: A History of Plague Epidemics in the Early Modern Ottoman Era (1453-1600),” invited lecture given at the Orient-Institut Beirut, July 23, 2008, Beirut, Lebanon
  • “Extending the Boundaries of the Imperial Project: Experimentation for Public Health,” at the Western Mediterranean Cultures Workshop, the University of Chicago, May 9, 2008, Chicago, IL
  • “Conquest, Urban Space, and Networks: Plague Epidemics in the Ottoman Empire (1450-1600),” invited campus talk at Auburn University, History Department, February 4, 2008, Auburn, AL
  • “Conquest, Urban Space, and Networks: Plague Epidemics in the Ottoman Empire (1450-1600),” invited campus talk at the University of Southern Mississippi, History Department, February 1, 2008, Hattiesburg, MS
  • “Conquest, Urban Space, and Networks: Plague Epidemics in the Ottoman Empire (1450-1600),” invited campus talk at James Madison University, History Department, January 28, 2008, Harrisonburg, VA
  • “The Rise of the Ottoman Empire and Changing Disease Balances in the Old World of the Mediterranean (1300-1600),” at the 41st Annual Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association, November 17-20, 2007, Montreal, Canada
  • “Texts, Myths, and Imagery: The Revival of Istanbul and Taming of the Plague (1453-1600),” at the 22nd Annual Middle East History and Theory Conference, the University of Chicago, May 11-12, 2007, Chicago, IL
  • “Ottoman Expansion and the Emergence of Networks for Plague Outbreaks (1453-1517),” at the Early Modern Workshop, the University of Chicago, April 30, 2007, Chicago, IL
  • “Ottoman Plague Treatises as a Literary Genre (the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries),” at the “From the Cradle to the Grave: Future Perspectives on the Social History of Health and Healthcare,” the Centre for the Social History of Health and Healthcare (CSHHH), Glasgow Caledonian/Strathclyde Universities, January 11-12, 2006, Glasgow, UK
  • “Quarantine: A Misreading of History?” at the Transfert de paradigmes et les sciences sociales: apories et apports: Troisième Journée d’Etudes Organisée par le GERIT (Groupe d’études et de recherches interdisciplinaires sur la Turquie), École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, June 3, 2005, Paris, France
  • “The Issue of Contagion in Ottoman Plague Treatises of the Sixteenth Century,” at the 20th Annual Middle East History and Theory Conference, the University of Chicago, May 13-14, 2005, Chicago, IL
  • “Disease and Society: Plague Epidemics in the Ottoman Empire,” invited lecture given at Galatasaray University, January 25, 2005, Istanbul, Turkey (in Turkish)
  • “Plague and Its Perception in the Ottoman World,” at the Joint Workshop in the History and Philosophy of Science, the University of Chicago, January 30, 2004, Chicago, IL
  • “Plague Epidemics in the Ottoman Empire (1450-1600),” at the 38th Congress of the International Society for the History of Medicine, September 5-10, 2002, Istanbul, Turkey
  • “Attitudes Toward Plague Epidemics in the Ottoman Society of the Nineteenth Century,” at the 37th Congress of the International Society for the History of Medicine, September 10-15, 2000, Galveston, TX

Other Talks and Conference Presentations 

  • Panelist, “SHIFA-ANA & Muteferriqa Joint Workshop,” December 9, 2024, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul
  • Discussant, “Premodern Practices,” at the Voices of Emerging Scholars Roundtable, Columbia Global Centers, Istanbul, July 12, 2024
  • Discussant, “Institutions,” Building the Turkish Republic: The Early Decades, Columbia University, October 27-28, 2023
  • Panelist, at the roundtable of online conference “Epizootics Beyond the Farm: Historical and Ethnographic Approaches,” Department of Social Anthropology, University of St Andrews, June 15-16, 2023
  • Panelist, “Death and Disease in the Long Middle Ages: Why “Beyond Europe” Matters (A
    Roundtable),” at the 58th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, May 9-11, 2023, Kalamazoo, MI
  • Discussant, “Understanding Race, Health & Death,” Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice seminar, Rutgers University – New Brunswick, March 23, 2023
  • Panelist, “Genetics, Evolutionary Biology and Ottoman History: An Interdisciplinary Conversation across the Mediterranean” roundtable, Johannes Gutenberg-University in Mainz, Germany, February 17, 2023
  • Panelist, “Book Launch: Death and Disease in the Medieval and Early Modern World,” January 13, 2023
  • Discussant, “Rules of Science,” Voices of Emerging Scholars webinar, Columbia Global Centers Istanbul, November 17, 2021
  • Participant, “What Would an Ottoman Renaissance Look Like?” Renaissance Society of America roundtable, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, November 5, 2021
  • Participant, “Journal of World History Roundtable,” at the World History Association Conference: Health, Globally, July 5-9, 2021
  • Participant, “Black Death Digital Archive: A Multidisciplinary Portal for Researching and Teaching the Second Plague Pandemic,” at the roundtable “New Ways to Teach Medieval Medicine,” at the 56th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, May 13-15, 2021, Kalamazoo, MI
  • Participant, “Epidemiology,” at the conference of the Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK (ASA 2021 Lab: Intersections of Medical Humanities and Animal Studies: Methodological and Interdisciplinary Dialogues and Challenges), March 31, 2021
  • Participant, “Islam and Science in Afro-Eurasia: New Directions Workshop,” November 14 & 20, 2020
  • Participant, Panel discussion on “Pandemic in Premodern Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia,” University of California–Davis, Medieval and Early Modern seminars, November 18, 2020
  • Discussant, Shireen Hamza “How Islamic is Islamic Medicine? Text and the Body in Tibb” at the Early Sciences Working Group workshop, Harvard University, November 17, 2020
  • Participant, Roundtable, “Medical Knowledge Crossing Boundaries: A Round Table Discussion,” International Medieval Congress, July 6-9, 2020, Leeds, U.K. (canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic)
  • Discussant, “After the Golden Age: Narrating the History of the Natural Sciences in the Muslim World Before 1800,” a discussion with Justin Stearns, at the Federated Department of History, Rutgers University-Newark, March 23, 2020, Newark, NJ (canceled due to the Covid-19 pandemic)
  • Participant, Roundtable “Sources,” at the workshop “Current Trends in the History of Science in Muslim Societies: Debates, Approaches, and Stakes,” New York University, December 11-12, 2019, NY
  • Participant, Roundtable “An Encyclopaedic Collection of Early Modern Knowledge: The Library Inventory of Bayezid II,” at the 53rd Annual Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association, November 14-17, 2019, New Orleans, LA
  • Participant, Roundtable “Comparative insights on plague pandemics: Justinianic Plague and the Black Death,” at the 54th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, May 9-12, 2019, Kalamazoo, MI
  • Participant, Exploratory Seminar, “Biraben 2.0: A Black Death Digital Archive,” Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, April 11-12, 2019, Cambridge, MA
  • Participant, Workshop on “Shared Practices, Common Legacies: Ottoman Science from a Global Perspective,” University of Pennsylvania, April 5-6, 2019, Philadelphia, PA (in absentia)
  • Participant, Roundtable “Medicine and Science: Geography, Periodization, Rupture, Continuity I,” at the 52nd Annual Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association, November 15-18, 2018, San Antonio, TX
  • Participant, “Rewriting Plague’s Second Pandemic: History Meets Science,” SSHRC-funded research meeting I, October 25-27, 2018, McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
  • Guest Lecturer, “Empire, Environments, and Health,” at Keith Wailoo’s graduate seminar on “The Cultural Politics of Medicine, Disease, and Health,” Princeton University, Department of History, October 17, 2018
  • Participant, “Between Death and Disease: A Roundtable in Honor of Ann G. Carmichael,” at the annual meeting of the American Association for the History of Medicine (AAHM), May 4-7, 2017, Nashville, TN
  • Participant, History Department Teach-in, “Islamophobia,” Rutgers University-Newark, November 29, 2016, Newark, NJ
  • Participant, Roundtable “The Middle East and Global Environmental Historiography,” at the 50th Annual Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association, November 17-20, 2016, Boston MA
  • “Introduction,” Panel on “Commerce and Contagion: Vectors through Time and Space,” Rutgers University-Newark, February 4, 2015, Newark, NJ
  • Participant, Workshop on “The Mediterranean as a Site of Interaction Among Diverse Political Cultures,” Remarque Institute at New York University, November 21-22, 2014, New York, NY
  • Presenter, Faculty Roundtable “Science, Technology, and Medicine in the Humanities,” organized by “Natura: Science and Epistemology Working Group,” Rutgers University, October 21, 2014, New Brunswick, NJ
  • “Islam, Medicine, and Science,” a panel discussion of “Bridging Cultures: Muslim Journeys Bookshelf” program at the John Cotton Dana Library, Rutgers University–Newark, November 13, 2013, Newark, NJ
  • “History of Coffee and Coffee Houses in the Ottoman Empire,” at the Coffee Night organized by Rutgers-Newark Turkish Student Association, October 29, 2013, Newark, NJ
  • “The Vaccine: Smallpox as a Turning Point in Immunization,” 2013 National History Day documentary by Allison Chen, February 12, 2013
  • “İstanbul: Vebanın Kenti (Istanbul: the city of plague),” at the History Workshop, Koç University, October 27, 2010, Istanbul, Turkey (in Turkish)
  • “Western Misconceptions and Islamic Civilization,” invited lecture given at the Rotary Club of Harrisonburg, November 18, 2008, Harrisonburg, VA
  • “Türkiye’de ve Dünya’da Kuş Gribi (Avian flu pandemic: the case of Turkey),” at the Turkish Circle (for the Turkish National Radio and Television Corporation), May 16, 2008, the University of Chicago, Chicago, IL (in Turkish)
  • “Osmanlı’da bir Veba Risalesi (An Ottoman plague treatise),” at the Turkish Circle, September 29, 2000, the University of Chicago, Chicago, IL (in Turkish)
  • “Galatasaray Tıbbiyesi’nden Kalanlar (Historical remnants and artefacts of Galatasaray Medical School),” invited lecture given at the Department of History of Medicine, Istanbul University, June 2, 1999, Istanbul, Turkey (in Turkish)
  • “Tütün Tiryakiliği ve Besim Ömer Paşa’nın Görüşleri (An Ottoman physician’s views on tobacco addiction),” at the International Symposium on Tobacco, October 22-23, 1998, Istanbul, Turkey (co-author; in Turkish)