Europe and the Ottoman World

This research is concerned with Europe’s engagement with the Ottoman world, and the legacy that this has left both for Turkey and for Western Europe. This provides a cultural background to current debates about Turkey’s role within Europe, but also explores the Ottoman Empire as a dominant player in European and Near Eastern History until the beginning of the nineteenth century. Politics, diplomacy and international relations will be a significant focus for study and research. Research in this area is strengthened and supported by the significant capacities existing at Exeter in Mediterranean and Middle East Studies.

Research Director Prof Gerald MacLean

Gerald MacLean is on the council of the Turkish Area Study Group and is currently making a television documentary, Ottomania, about Ottoman and Turkish cultural influences on England and Europe with InFocus Productions.

He is director, with Nadje al-Ali (Director of Gender Studies, SOAS), of a major international research project on Britain and the Muslim World.

Gerald MacLean is a founding member of the Evliya Çelebi Way initiative, a project of historical re-enactment and cultural re-connection that aims to create a European Cultural Route through Anatolia by following on horseback the routes of the great seventeenth-century Ottoman writer, traveller and cultural geographer.