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Duygu Yıldırım

@duyguyildirim.bsky.social

8.5K followers 1.1K following 290 posts

Assistant Professor of History at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. PhD from Stanford. Exploring the intersections of knowledge, medicine, and natural history in the early modern Mediterranean. Istanbulite.

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Duygu Yıldırım @duyguyildirim.bsky.social · Nov 14

Hello everyone! I’m a historian of science and medicine focusing on the botanical encounters between the Ottoman Empire and early modern Europe. I am currently completing my first monograph, and you can find some of my publications here:
utk.academia.edu/DuyguYildirim

Duygu Yildirim | University of Tennessee Knoxville - Academia.edu

I am a historian of science and medicine specialized in the early modern Mediterranean and in the Ottoman Empire. Broadly, my work focuses on cross-cultural…

utk.academia.edu

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Duygu Yıldırım @duyguyildirim.bsky.social · 17h

I’d heard so much praise for this book and finally found time to read it. It’s a fascinating read that pushes us to reconsider the Eurocentric nature of Marxist accounts of production that often erase the history of medieval slavery.

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Duygu Yıldırım @duyguyildirim.bsky.social · 7d

We don’t often think about how, after the Morisco expulsion, no free Muslim communities remained in Western Europe. For many premodern Europeans, the only Muslims they saw in their lives were enslaved ones in brutal conditions; an imprint on Europe’s memory that can’t be denied…

Duygu Yıldırım @duyguyildirim.bsky.social · Aug 18

On day one of teaching Ottoman history, a student asked me who my favorite sultan is. I just realized I’d never actually thought about it before. 😃

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Duygu Yıldırım @duyguyildirim.bsky.social · Aug 11

I just heard from our editor that the Bloomsbury - A Cultural History of Technology is set for publication next year! I contributed with a chapter on seventeenth-century food technologies and can’t wait to see this comprehensive volume in print soon!

Duygu Yıldırım @duyguyildirim.bsky.social · Aug 5

That would be great, thank you!

Duygu Yıldırım @duyguyildirim.bsky.social · Aug 5

Are there any historians here working on the history of wine? I'm currently writing an article on the topic and would be glad to exchange ideas or drafts if anyone is interested. 🍇

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Duygu Yıldırım @duyguyildirim.bsky.social · Aug 3

Just submitted my book for peer review. It has grown into something quite different from my dissertation with new research, thinking, and lots of writing, supported by a postdoctoral fellowship and an ACLS fellowship. Grateful to those who believed in this project from the start.

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Duygu Yıldırım @duyguyildirim.bsky.social · Jul 31

Proofreading is basically gaslighting yourself over typos.

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Duygu Yıldırım @duyguyildirim.bsky.social · Jul 30

Historians of science and art historians: has anyone written about why some flower illustrations were left uncolored in Fuchs’ De historia stirpium? I have some hypotheses, but I'd love to know if there's already an argument or discussion on this.

Duygu Yıldırım @duyguyildirim.bsky.social · Jul 24

In my book chapter, I wrote about the randomness of early modern knowledge exchanges. One comment captured it perfectly: “like the kind of exchange you have while picking up a bagel at your local shop, knowledge is made not just in conferences, but in everyday encounters” 🥯

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Duygu Yıldırım @duyguyildirim.bsky.social · Jul 23

The question I asked is more about how scholars of the seventeenth century envisioned the history of knowledge.

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Duygu Yıldırım @duyguyildirim.bsky.social · Jul 22

Thank you! I am revising my book manuscript so I just wanted to share this challenge for brainstorming!

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Duygu Yıldırım @duyguyildirim.bsky.social · Jul 22

Yes! Thank you!

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Duygu Yıldırım @duyguyildirim.bsky.social · Jul 22

I like that phrase!

Duygu Yıldırım @duyguyildirim.bsky.social · Jul 22

Yes; so I think there were at least three kinds of historical thinking in the 17th century: one that thinks about lost and found, the other is more about novelties; and the last one is about writing world histories of knowledge like appreciating Arabic science, for example.

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Duygu Yıldırım @duyguyildirim.bsky.social · Jul 22

But also invention was not innovation because they thought they were rediscovering. So this is the tricky part…

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Duygu Yıldırım @duyguyildirim.bsky.social · Jul 22

But what about “lost and found” discourse? Like they were not “inventing” but “rediscovering?”

Duygu Yıldırım @duyguyildirim.bsky.social · Jul 22

And I’d say in the 17th century, but there has been a disagreement :)

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Duygu Yıldırım @duyguyildirim.bsky.social · Jul 22

Maybe some historians (and philosophers) contribute: I’m discussing with a colleague (based on my book chapter) when knowledge began to be presumed as progressing linearly. One answer is the late 19th century, another says post-1750s. But what about the 17th century?

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Duygu Yıldırım @duyguyildirim.bsky.social · Jul 21

“Life is short
And the art long;
The occasion is instant,
Experiment perilous,
Decision difficult.”

Duygu Yıldırım @duyguyildirim.bsky.social · Jul 21

The new academic year starts in less than a month and I’ve yet to experience this so-called “summer break.”

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Duygu Yıldırım @duyguyildirim.bsky.social · Jul 15

In the early modern Ottoman Empire, the most valued tulips featured long, pointed petals and slender forms in contrast to the rounded varieties preferred in Europe. 🌷

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Duygu Yıldırım @duyguyildirim.bsky.social · Jul 12

The argument, I think, is clear from the title: we can’t fully understand Ottoman and European knowledge interactions without recognizing the role of uncertainty and the art of making relevance.

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Duygu Yıldırım @duyguyildirim.bsky.social · Jul 12

The book’s intro is ready to go…

The final title might still change slightly, but for now it’s:

“Uncertain Knowledge: The Science of Making Relevance between the Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe”

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Reposted by Duygu Yıldırım

Nurcin Ileri @nurcinileri.bsky.social · Jul 4

My review of Zozan Pehlivan’s book, "The Political Ecology of Violence: Peasants and Pastoralists in the Last Ottoman Century," has just been published in the Journal of Social History: academic.oup.com/jsh/advance-...

The Political Ecology of Violence: Peasants and Pastoralists in the Last Ottoman Century. By Zozan Pehlivan

What if the unraveling of a multiethnic rural society in Ottoman Kurdistan had as much to do with distant ocean currents in the Pacific as with imperial re

academic.oup.com

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