Enfilade

The Hyperian Fountain at Pherae, Edward Dodwell, Views in Greece (London 1821), p. 91.

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From the conference programme:

Travel and Archaeology in Ottoman Greece in the Age of Revolution, c.1800–1833
Online, British School at Athens, 16–17 September 2021

Organised by Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis

Registration due by 20 August 2021

The bicentenary of the Greek War of Independence of 1821 offers a timely opportunity for a re-evaluation of travel and archaeology in the age of revolution. The conference foregrounds diversity and small-scale engagements with the landscape and material past of Ottoman Greece at a time of political tension and explosive violence. The conference will explore the perspectives of both foreign travellers and local inhabitants in order to tease out diverse voices, keeping a sharp focus on the effects of ethnicity, race, gender, and social status.

Within this inclusive intellectual framework we will pose a series of questions to analyse the mediating role of the Greek landscape and its antiquities between travellers and local inhabitants in all their diversity. How did major intellectual and cultural developments of the late eighteenth century, ranging from revolutionary politics in France and America to scientific and museological developments, intersect with actual encounters ‘on the ground’ in Ottoman Greece, specifically with the landscape, local inhabitants, and small-scale objects and antiquities? How did the ethnic, cultural, and religious identities of Ottoman communities affect local perceptions of contemporary travel and the classical material past? How did status (including slave status) and gender shape encounters with the Greek landscape and its antiquities, not least with idealising white sculptured male bodies? How did archaeological-focused travel, with its emerging sophisticated discourses, intertwine with travel undertaken for scientific, military, and Romantic aims?

In this way the conference will give prominence to hitherto marginalised perspectives drawing on recent work to decolonise Ancient Mediterranean Studies, including sensory approaches to access silenced voices, and will develop a micro-cultural history of travel and archaeology in Ottoman Greece in this tumultuous period.

Hosted via Zoom, the conference is free and open to all who are interested, but registration is essential. Speakers’ full papers will be pre-circulated to registered participants at the end of August. To register for the conference, please email Dr Jenny Messenger at jenny@atomictypo.co.uk by 20 August. For Dr Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis’ lecture, registration is separate: a link to register will be available in the ‘Events’ section of the BSA website approximately one month in advance.

T H U R S D A Y ,  1 6  S E P T E M B E R  2 0 2 1

13.00  John Bennet and Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis, Welcome and Introduction

13.15  Panel 1: Travel as a Kaleidoscope of Perspectives
Chair: Estelle Strazdins (University of Queensland)
• Charalampos Minaoglou (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), Traveling in Europe, Exploring Greek Identity: Orientalism and ‘Westernism’ in Constantine Karatzas’ Diaries
• Federica Broilo (Universitá Degli Studi Urbino ‘Carlo Bo’), Simone Pomardi and the Rediscovery of the Modern Greek Landscape
• Jason König (University of St Andrews), Mineralogy, Ethnography, Antiquarianism: Images of Collecting in the Travel Writing of Edward Daniel Clarke
• Ayşe Ozil (Sabanci University), Local Greek Travel-Writing, Antiquities, and the Diverse Social Landscape in the Post-Revolutionary Ottoman Empire

14.15  Break

14.30  Panel 2: Ottoman Spaces and Identities
Chair: Edhem Eldem (Boğaziçi University and Collège de France)
• Nikos Magouliotis (ETH Zurich, Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture, PhD Candidate), Inside the Villager’s House: Views of European and Greek Authors on the Vernacular Architecture of Late-Ottoman Greece, ca. 1800–30
• Zafeirios Avgeris (Uppsala University, MA Candidate), From Text to Space: Mapping Sir William Gell and Edward Dodwell as Data Layers on an Ottoman Landscape
• Emily Neumeier (Temple University, Philadelphia), Orientalism in Ottoman Greece
• Elisabeth Fraser (University of South Florida), Louis Dupré in Ottoman Greece: Multiple Identities, Contradictory Encounters

15.30  Break

17.30  British School at Athens Public Lecture
• Alexia Petsalis-Diomidis (University of St Andrews), From Ottoman Smyrna to Georgian London: Travel, Excavation, and Collecting of Levant Company Merchant Thomas Burgon (1787–1858)

F R I D A Y ,  1 7  S E P T E M B E R  2 0 2 1

13.00  Panel 3: Individuals Collecting Antiquities
Chair: Ayşe Ozil (Sabanci University)
• Estelle Strazdins (University of Queensland), Imagining Ethiopians in the Age of Revolution: Arrowheads from the Marathon Sôros and the Statue of Rhamnoussian Nemesis
• Alessia Zambon (Université Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines, Paris), ‘Je vois qu’à Paris on a une bien fausse idée des Grecs…’: Fauvel’s Perception of the Greeks and of the Greek Revolution
• Irini Apostolou, (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), In Search of Antiquities: The Travels of Alexandre and Léon de Laborde during the Greek War of Independence of 1821
• Michael Metcalfe (The Syracuse Academy), Ancient Inscriptions and British Travellers to Ottoman Greece, 1800–21

14.00  Break

14.15  Panel 4: Antiquities and Official Discourses
Chair: Elisabeth Fraser (University of South Florida)
• Edhem Eldem (Boğaziçi University and Collège de France), ‘Viewing and Contemplating’ (Seyr ü Temaşa): Foreign Travelers and Antiquarians and the Sublime Porte, ca 1800–30
• Aikaterini-Iliana Rassia (King’s College London), Andreas Moustoxydes (1785–1860) and Kyriakos Pittakis (1798–1863) and the Rescue of Greek Antiquities

14.45  Break

15.15  Panel 5: Forms of Philhellenism
Chair: Jason König (University of St Andrews)
• Mélissa Bernier (Ecole Normale Supérieure de Paris, PhD candidate), Samuel Gridley Howe’s Travels: Classical, Romantic, and Philanthropic Philhellenism, 1800–30
• Fernando Valverde (University of Virginia), Greece in the Age of Revolution: An Intimate Poetics of Landscape, Travel, and Liberty

15.45  Break

16.00  Conclusions and Future Directions
• Breakout Rooms
• Roundtable Discussion