Talk by Giancarlo Casale

Historians have long asserted the close connection between ethnology—the practice of systematically describing cultural differences—and the politics of imperial domination. But in this respect, the Ottoman Empire presents an apparent paradox. Despite expanding across a territory that encompassed all or part of nearly 40 modern nation-states, early Ottoman authors almost never attempted to describe the cultural diversity of the empire’s subject peoples. Instead, they began to do so at the end of the seventeenth century—long before the onset of Western modernity, but long after the end of Ottoman imperial expansion. How can this apparent paradox be explained? And what lessons might it hold not only for Ottoman history but for a more general understanding of the relationship between knowledge and empire in the early modern world?

Giancarlo Casale is a historian of the Ottoman Empire and its many connections with the early modern world. My current research explores intersections between the intellectual life of the Ottoman Empire and Renaissance Italy, with a particular interest in antiquarianism, cartography, cosmography, and other forms of early modern science. Casale also has a deep interest in the history of travel literature and ethnographic writing, early modern diplomacy, and the history of maritime technology, as well as the comparative study of early modern empires and early modern slavery. In addition to teaching and research, Casale is currently on the editorial boards of several scientific journals, including Renaissance Quarterly, Medieval Encounters, and Arabic Humanities. Casale is also a co-editor of the Brill monograph series Translating Cultures in the Early Modern World and, since 2011, he served as executive editor of the Journal of Early Modern History. Casale is currently on leave from the University of Minnesota through September 2023, as the research chair in Early Modern Mediterranean history at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy.