COL - Colloquium on Ottoman Literature

Ottoman Literature Through the Centuries 

Fourth Colloquium on Ottoman Literature (20 November 2025)

Participants

Elif Sezer (Sabancı University, Istanbul)

Şerife Yalçınkaya (Ege University, Izmir)

Ercan Akyol (University of Vienna)

Edith Ambros (University of Vienna)

 

Organizers: Gisela Procházka-Eisl, Ercan Akyol

Dean, Faculty of Philological and Cultural Studies: Stephan Müller

3nd Colloquium on Ottoman Literature (June 6, 2024)

15:00-16:30
Şeyma Benli (Medeniyet University, Istanbul): Women as Plaintiffs, Defendants, and Pseudo-Regents in the Ottoman laṭīfe Corpus

İpek Hüner (Boğaziçi University, Istanbul): Possibilities of Ottoman Fiction: Hikayet-i Yahya Çelebi

Gisela Procházka-Eisl (University of Vienna): Poetry from the Provinces: Vaṣfī Efendi and his Largely Unknown Œuvre

16:30-17:00 Coffee Break

17:00-18:30
Ercan Akyol (University of Vienna): Ġazels in Progress: Drafts from Muḥibbī’s (Süleymān I) Poems

Hakan Yerebakan (Central European Universiy, Vienna): Early Modern Ottoman Humor and Invective: Theoretical Framework and Context

Aslıhan Gürbüzel (McGill University, Montreal): On Ottoman Love: Conversations between Political Thought, Sufism, and Literature

 

Organizers: Gisela Procházka-Eisl, Ercan Akyol

Dean, Faculty of Philological and Cultural Studies: Stephan Müller

2nd Colloquium on Ottoman Literature (April 20, 2023)

15:00-15:30
Sooyong Kim (Koç University, Istanbul): Ottoman Engagement with Persian Poetry across the 17th Century 

15:45-16:15
Ercan Akyol (University of Vienna): Taming the thugs and protecting the peace: The professional experiences of a disappointed ḳāḍī   

16:15-16:45 Coffee and Tea 

16:45-17:15
Edith Ambros (University of Vienna): Centripetal and centrifugal structures and tendencies in Ottoman poetry 

17:30-18:00
R. Aslıhan Aksoy Sheridan (TED University, Ankara): Taming the Nefs: Reading a 17th-century Ottoman Turkish Mecmū’a Inside Out

1st Colloquium on Ottoman Literature (May 19, 2022)

15:00-15:30
Ali Emre Özyıldırım (Yıldız Technical University): Osmanlı Şiirinde Özeleştiriden Sosyal Eleştiriye: Mihnet-keşan Örneği (18th/19th cent.) 

15:45-16:00
Nazlı Vatansever (University of Vienna): Sahhaflarşeyhizade Es'ad Efendi’s (1789-1848) Text Compilation Practices and Intellectual Curiosities Through His mecmuas (19th cent.) 

16:15-16:30
Aysu Akcan (University of Vienna): Could We Talk About Ego-Documents When We Talk About Ottoman Letters? Lāmiʿī Çelebi and His Letter-Collection, Kitābu Niṣābi’l-Belāġa (16th cent.) 

16:45-17:00
Edith Ambros (University of Vienna): Turkish Soldiers’ Oral Dialectal Reminiscences of the Balkan Wars, the First World War and the War of Independence: a Genre of Ego-Document (20th cent.) 

17:15-17:45 Coffee Break 

17:45-18:00
Ercan Akyol (University of Vienna): Understanding the Intricacies of Persian Literature in the Ottoman Context: Meḥmed Riyāżī Efendi and His Dictionary of Poetry, Düstūru l-ʿamal (17th cent.) 

18:15-18:30
Gisela Procházka-Eisl (University of Vienna): With Friends Like This You Don’t Need Enemies: The Ottoman Poet Sürūrī and His  Polemics. (18th cent.) 

18:45-19:15
Michael Sheridan (TED University, Ankara): Demonic Hermaphrodites, Infidel Catamites, and Poetaster Pimps: Sociocultural Tensions in the Early 17th-century Ottoman Elite as Seen through Invective Verse (17th cent.)