Dr. 脺nver R眉stem
Dr. 脺nver R眉stem will explore art and fashion of the Ottoman Empire in a talk on Tuesday, March 4.
鈥淪hown in a Lifelike Way鈥 (or 鈥楴o Great Art Therein鈥): Ottoman Costume Albums and the Art of Self-Representation,鈥 will be given in the Juliet J. Rosch Recital Hall at 11 a.m. and is free and open to the public.
Dr. R眉stem鈥檚 talk will address the link between sartorial choices and politics in the Ottoman Empire and discuss how Ottoman rulers and subjects used clothing to express, and in some cases transgress the hierarchical, religious and communal distinctions defining their society.
In the presentation, R眉stem will refer to his current research on costume albums made by Ottoman painters for European buyers during the 18th century, and how and why dress became such a charged site of cross-cultural interaction, posturing and self-assertion in the empire鈥檚 dealings with the West.
A Second Decade Society Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins University, R眉stem is a historian of Islamic art and architecture, with a focus on the Ottoman Empire in its later centuries and on questions of cross-cultural exchange and interaction. He is the author of 鈥淥ttoman Baroque: The Architectural Refashioning of Eighteenth-Century Istanbul.鈥
R眉stem has written articles and chapters on subjects as diverse as the reception of illustrated Islamic manuscripts, the ceremonial framing of Ottoman Mosque architecture and the distinctive burial art of Ottoman Cyprus. A new book project he鈥檚 working on explores the role of costume in Ottoman interactions with Western Europe during the Early Modern and Modern periods.
Support for the campus presentation has been furnished by the Mary Louise White Visiting Writers Series through the Fredonia College Foundation and the departments of English and Visual Arts and New Media.
