Long-Term Advanced Research Fellowships at the American Research Institute in Turkey Overseas Research Centers

FAIN: RA-285327-22

American Research Institute in Turkey, Inc. (Philadelphia, PA 19104-6324)
C. Brian Rose (Project Director: August 2021 to August 2022)
C. Brian Rose (Project Director: August 2022 to March 2023)
Linda T. Darling (Project Director: March 2023 to present)

12 months of stipend support (1–3 fellowships) per year for three years and a contribution to defray costs associated with the selection of fellows.

The ARIT NEH fellowship program aims to support scholars who conduct long-term interdisciplinary research in the humanities in Turkey. Their fields of study include art, archaeology, literature, linguistics, musicology, religion, and all aspects of cultural, social, and political history. The ARIT centers in Istanbul and Ankara offer unique research resources. The directors facilitate access to institutions and colleagues in the country. ARIT long term fellows interact with Turkish, U.S, and other scholars at the ARIT research centers in Istanbul and Ankara, where their intellectual exchange helps promote increased understanding of ancient and modern Turkey and the region. This program will enable ARIT-NEH fellows to produce groundbreaking research that is shared with the public through teaching and community outreach. For its NEH FPIRI program, ARIT requests 12 months total fellowship funding per year for 3 years, supporting 1 to 3 fellows annually.

Associated Products

Alevi-Bektashi Digital Archive: A Project of Cultural Preservation (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Alevi-Bektashi Digital Archive: A Project of Cultural Preservation
Abstract: The Alevi and closely related Bektashi communities represent a marginalized ethno-religious minority, accounting for approximately fifteen percent of Turkey's population, with extensions in the Balkans and a significant Alevi diaspora in Europe. Their presence in historical rural settlements, along with their artistic, cultural, and religious traditions, has experienced a rapid decline since the mid-20th century due to the pressures of modernization, assimilationist policies, and the migration of Alevis to major cities and Western countries for economic or political reasons. This has put Alevi villages and sacred sites at risk of disappearing or being subject to cultural appropriation. Furthermore, Alevi written sources, preserved in the private archives of Alevi dede (spiritual leaders) families, and items of Alevi material culture, including sacred objects, are also at risk of deterioration, destruction, or loss due to various factors, including natural disasters like fires or earthquakes. The primary objective of the Alevi-Bektashi Digital Archive project is to establish a comprehensive web-based archive dedicated to documenting and safeguarding the endangered historical and cultural heritage of Alevi-Bektashi communities in Anatolia and the Balkans, making it accessible to a broader audience through a user-friendly digital platform.
Author: Ayfer Karakaya-Stump
Date: 03/11/2024
Location: online
Primary URL: https://aritweb.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Bektashi-heritage.pdf
Primary URL Description: Event announcement
Secondary URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yr9nh47nwpk
Secondary URL Description: YouTube recording

Gods and the Machine: Structure-from-Motion Recording in the Excavation and Analysis of Ritual Caches from Kaymakçı, Western Turkey (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Gods and the Machine: Structure-from-Motion Recording in the Excavation and Analysis of Ritual Caches from Kaymakçı, Western Turkey
Author: Christina Luke (former ARIT-NEH fellow)
Author: Catherine Scott
Abstract: In 2019, excavations at the 2nd millennium BCE citadel of Kaymakçı identified two ritual caches, deposited in small stone-lined pits. These deposits represent some of the only clear evidence for ritualized activity at the site and were duly excavated with great care. This included capturing the components of each feature in minute detail using structure-from-motion (SfM) recording, the result of which is a wealth of digital data including orthophotos, DEMs, 2.5D models of different layers/parts of each feature, and 3D “context volumes,” georeferenced digital representations of the material removed in each unit of the excavation. While these methods allow us to capture more data on archaeological remains than would be possible otherwise, they invariably shape the way we perceive those remains. What impact does this digital lens have on our engagement with the past, particularly with respect to ritual behaviors that are already so removed from our own experiences? In this paper, we will reflect on how we have used digital methods to record and study the ritual caches from Kaymakçı and examine how these methods mediate our engagement with the ancient past.
Date: 05/23/2023
Primary URL: https://eventsignup.ku.dk/icaane13/programme
Primary URL Description: Link to conference program
Secondary URL: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/370987743_Gods_and_the_Machine_Structure-from-Motion_Recording_in_the_Excavation_and_Analysis_of_Ritual_Caches_from_Kaymakci_Western_Turkey
Secondary URL Description: Link to Researchgate notice
Conference Name: 13th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (ICAANE)

Developing a “Born Digital” Research Project (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Developing a “Born Digital” Research Project
Abstract: Digital tools and techniques have become central to academic research. However, it is uncommon for a research project to fully replace traditional data collection methods with “born digital” alternatives. By this, we refer to materials initially created in a digital format, such as replacing paper data forms with direct entry into a database. Using the Kaymakçı Archaeological Project as a case study, we will discuss the opportunities and challenges that come with born digital data collection. We will also consider how born digital recording changes the ways we create, interpret, and share data in intended and unintended ways.
Author: Catherine Scott
Date: 11/12/2024
Location: Koc University Research Center for Anatolian Cultures Library
Primary URL: https://www.instagram.com/p/DCEceRIo6ms/
Primary URL Description: ANAMED Library Digital Scholarship Program event

Island and Empire: How Civil War in Crete Mobilized the Ottoman World (Public Lecture or Presentation)
Title: Island and Empire: How Civil War in Crete Mobilized the Ottoman World
Abstract: The Ottoman conquest of Crete in the seventeenth century materialized after one of the longest sieges in recorded history. Throughout the nineteenth century the island witnessed multiple episodes of armed struggle against the Ottoman rule, a process that resulted in the displacement of Muslim and Christian islanders and electrified European public opinion. The most sweeping of nineteenth century episodes of violence occurred in the mid-1890s, leading to a war between Greece and the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans won in the battlefield yet lost in diplomacy. Drawing on Crete’s multilayered legacy of violence and tracing the Muslims displaced from the island because of civil war in the 1890s, this talk weaves together a story of intercommunal and environmental violence, European military intervention, displacement, and mass protest. I explore the transformation of Muslim Cretans from silenced refugees in the 1890s to loud protesters after 1908, arguing that the islanders energized late Ottoman politics and society.
Author: Ugur Pece
Date: 11/20/2024
Location: Institute for Mediterranean Studies, The Foundation for Research and Technology – Hellas (FORTH), Heraklion, Crete
Primary URL: https://archive.ims.forth.gr/en/news-item/view?id=1736
Primary URL Description: lecture announcement

Kickbacks, Bribery, and Extortion in 17th-Century Ottoman Tax Farming (Conference Paper/Presentation)
Title: Kickbacks, Bribery, and Extortion in 17th-Century Ottoman Tax Farming
Author: Christopher Whitehead
Abstract: Tax farming has proven an attractive subject for historians of the Ottoman economy. Through its diligent record-keeping, the empire has supplied us with vast quantities of hard economic data, but the question of how to interpret this data is highly vexed. The present study uses archival sources to reconstruct these shadowy financial exchanges, arguing that tax farming—as well as the vast numerical data recording tax farms’ lease prices—cannot be understood without further investigation of the mechanisms by which tax farmers won their contracts and the conditions under which they worked.
Date: 06/28/2024
Primary URL: https://holylab-erc.uniroma3.it/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/EMOS-2024-Final-Program.pdf
Primary URL Description: conference program
Secondary URL: https://historiansnet.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Christopher-Whitehead-2024.pdf
Secondary URL Description: paper abstract
Conference Name: Sabanci University Early Modern Ottoman Studies Conference (EMOS)

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