University of Pennsylvania Museum Publications Engaging the Ottoman Empire: Vexed Mediations, 1690-1815 (Material Texts)

Daniel O'Quinn investigates the complex interpersonal, political, and aesthetic relationships between Europeans and Ottomans in the long eighteenth century. Bookmarking his analysis with the conflict leading to the 1699 Treaty of Karlowitz on one end and the 1815 bid for Greek independence on the other, he follows the fortunes of notable British, Dutch, and French diplomats to the Sublime Porte of the Ottoman Empire as they lived and worked according to the capitulations surrendered to the Sultan. Closely reading a mixed archive of drawings, maps, letters, dispatches, memoirs, travel narratives, engraved books, paintings, poems, and architecture, O'Quinn demonstrates the extent to which the Ottoman state was not only the subject of historical curiosity in Europe but also a key foil against which Western theories of governance were articulated. Juxtaposing narrative accounts of diplomatic life in Constantinople, such as those contained in the letters of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, wife of the English ambassador, with visual depictions such as those of the costumes of the Ottoman elite produced by the French-Flemish painter Jean Baptiste Vanmour, he traces the dissemination of European representations and interpretations of the Ottoman Empire throughout eighteenth-century material culture. In a series of eight interlocking chapters, O'Quinn presents sustained and detailed case studies of particular objects, personalities, and historical contexts, framing intercultural encounters between East and West through a set of key concerns: translation, mediation, sociability, and hospitality. Richly illustrated and provocatively argued, Engaging the Ottoman Empire demonstrates that study of the Ottoman world is vital to understanding European modernity. Review "Taking a truly interdisciplinary approach, Engaging the Ottoman Empire demonstrates just how prevalent the Near East was in Europe's mediascape and how constitutive it was of European identity. With originality and deftness, Daniel O'Quinn detects subtle disturbances in visual and literary representations that he uses to interrogate larger questions about political contingency, sexual desire, and intercultural mediation. O'Quinn's book is a much needed summa and an incisive work of critical analysis."—Douglas Fordham, University of Virginia "Daniel O'Quinn's great idea is to look at the ways the 'mediascape' in the Christian kingdoms of Europe directly addressed the mediation of relations with the Ottomans. Engaging the Ottoman Empire contains a wonderful set of images that opens up new possibilities for the discussion of European representation of the Ottomans."—Palmira Brummett, University of Tennessee, Knoxville "Engaging the Ottoman Empire is, in its historical rigor, the depth of its archive, and the sophistication of its readings, a monumental achievement. This is true in both a quantitative sense—in the sheer number of objects and texts surveyed—and a qualitative one, in the density of historical excavation and in the openness of the argument to surprise, ambiguity, and contradiction."—David Porter, University of Michigan From the Author Daniel O'Quinn is Professor of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph and author of Entertaining Crisis in the Atlantic Imperium, 1770-1790. About the Author Professor of the School of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Introduction Misunderstandings are the medium in which the noncommunicable is communicated. ―Theodor Adorno, Prisms It is the spring of 2013, the Rijksmuseum is still closed for renovation, but I am in Amsterdam to see a cache of paintings of Ottoman life by the French-Flemish artist Jean-Baptiste Vanmour. The curator in charge of the Calkoen collection has generously been standing by as I work painting by painting in the museum stores. On my final day s