Event Description
Forgotten Experts offers a history of Ottoman court astrologers and traces their shifting authority and prestige over the long sixteenth century. These individuals served the Ottoman court with their expertise in mathematical, astronomical, and astrological sciences, distinguishing themselves from other occult practitioners and esoteric specialists. While both prophecy and prognostication are attempts to map the terrain of the future, the astrologers' work did not claim spiritual weight as a prophecy but relied instead on methods of prediction developed from data and patterns elaborated through technical and scientific writings.
A. Tunç Şen writes a history of science, state formation, and bureaucracy within the overarching tale of Ottoman imperial formation and protocols. He invites readers to follow Ottoman court astrologers' fluctuating careers as practitioners of a contentious science and shows how this class of learned individuals constructed its scientific authority despite numerous cultural, societal, and epistemic challenges. In understanding the expertise of court astrologers, we gain insight into the intricate social relations established and maintained between the men of knowledge and the men of rule, between expertise and statecraft, in the early modern Ottoman imperial context.
Event Speaker
A. Tunç Şen, Assistant Professor of History at Columbia University
Event Information
Free and open to the public; registration required for in-person and online attendance. For more information, please visit the event webpage or email [email protected]. Please visit the Heyman’s Center website for directions.
Hosted by the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy at Columbia University.
