Latter-day Levantinism, or in the Libretti of Bernard de Zogheb (original) (raw)

From Compradors to Cosmopolitans: Historiographic Currents in Contemporary Levantine Studies

Levantines of the Ottoman World: Communities, Identities and Cultures, 2024

Who were, and are, the Levantines? What constitutes the Levant — both for our purposes, and in their eyes? Finally, as historians and scholars of Levantine Studies, are we interested in a Levantine past, a Levantine present, or some Levantine future? This introductory chapter traces how these questions have been variously posed and explored within the last forty years of Levantine Studies, and proposes that the dominant analytical frames of the field have largely emerged in response to more general political concerns. The chapter summarizes the transition between the earlier “comprador paradigm” of Levantine sociality, espoused by scholars influenced by Marxist theory and world system analysis, and the subsequent focus on modes of cosmopolitanism and conviviality during the post-Cold War era. It then details the deconstruction and critique of the “cosmopolitan paradigm” by a new generation of scholars, and the search for a novel historiographic narrative more responsive to the analytical concerns of the present moment. The chapter highlights several promising approaches before proposing that the correct and necessary response, in our current era of “polycrisis,” may instead be a diversity of methodologies and historical frames. Finally, the chapter situates the current volume within this scholarly context, noting the important role of edited volumes in the definition of the field and detailing the various subject matter and approaches examined in each contribution.

“Arabesques”: The Making and Breaking of a Concept in Renaissance Italy

The Art Bulletin, 2023

“Arabesques” (arabeschi) took shape as a term and concept in sixteenth-century Italy to describe motifs deriving from Islamic art. The formation of the concept reflects a complex interplay between art making and art theory, which played out differently across different media. In metalwork, the arabesque was conceptualized in tandem with conscious projects of imperialist appropriation, whereas in needlework, it furnished a theoretical basis for a highly conflicted affirmation of female artists. In the long term, these countervailing developments laid the groundwork for increasingly racialized identifications between the arabesque and the grotesque.

Levantines of the Ottoman World: Communities, Identities, and Cultures

This book project aims to go beyond the borders of formalistic narratives and to juxtapose a multiplicity of approaches, methodologies, and perspectives in the study of Levantine lives in the Ottoman Empire. We welcome chapters that engage in the current body of scholarship on topics such as Levantine cosmopolitanism, hybridity, marginality, ambiguity, and transnationalism, but we also encourage submissions that critique the centrality of such terminology and theoretical frames in historical scholarship. Ultimately, it is hoped that these chapters will contribute to a deeper understanding of processes of communal and identity-formation in the Ottoman world, and highlight the possibilities of Levantine studies in challenging entrenched disciplinary boundaries. Proposed chapters might pursue, but are not limited to, the following topics: ● panoramic approaches to Levantine communities or publications ● Levantine families, households, and domestic culture; labor, intimacy, and consumption ● Levantine institutions, clubs, schools, and churches, and other social organizations ● Levantine publications, companies, and commercial enterprises; engaging with port-cities studies and the questions of class formation in the Ottoman Mediterranean ● Cosmopolitanism, transnationalism, and internationalism as a Levantine analytic ● Levantine religious spaces and architecture; Levantine life in urban space and traces/hauntings in the built environment of contemporary cities ● Levantine social and cultural interactions with other communities of the Ottoman world; ambiguities, exchanges, passing, and crossings