Graduate Seminars
From 2007 to 2010, the Skilliter Centre ran a series of graduate seminars. Papers given at the Skilliter Centre Graduate Seminar in Ottoman Studies Butrus Abu-Manneh (Haifa), “The Reform Edict of 1856 and its antecedents”. James Baldwin (NYU), “Petitioning the sultan in Ottoman Egypt.” Erol Baykal (Cambridge), “The cholera epidemics in Istanbul”. Erol Baykal (Cambridge) “A quantitative look at the 1908 press boom” Doris Behrens-Abouseif (SOAS), “The Takiyya of Sultan Mahmud in Cairo”. Maurits van den Boogert (Leiden), “The ‘Smyrna affair’ of 1853: international diplomacy and law in the Ottoman empire in the 19th century”. Marianne Boqvist (Skilliter Centre), “Interpreting the integration of the Ottomans in early Ottoman
Excursion to Ankara
In March 2009, four of the undergraduates taking Dr. Fleet's course on the history of modern Turkey - Ivan Gladstone, Bayan Parvizi, Isobel Spaven-Donn, and Adam Williams - visited Ankara, with bursaries from the Skilliter Centre. Whilst in Ankara, they stayed in the guesthouse of the Middle East Technical University. On Monday 16th March, they visited Anıtkabir, the mausoleum of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and the Museum of Anatolian Civilisations, with lunch in a restored Ottoman mansion in the castle overlooking the city. On Tuesday, they had an architectural tour led
The changing city: Istanbul at the end of empire
On Sunday 28th September 2008, the Skilliter Centre hosted a talk, "The changing city: Istanbul at the end of empire", as part of Cambridge University's alumni weekend. The talk, given by Kate Fleet and Ebru Boyar, covered a range of aspects of Istanbul life in the nineteenth century, from the adoption of sea-bathing to the changes in the way the city's inhabitants dressed. The talk was accompanied by a handout illustrated with images taken from the items in the Centre's rare books collection. There was also a small display of some of the books from the collection.
Summer Gathering
The Skilliter Centre held a Summer Gathering for Patrons, Friends and supporters of the Skilliter Centre on 2 July,2006. Ebru Boyar and Kate Fleet gave a talk on “The Ottoman Garden”. The food for the buffet lunch was given by Mr Hüseyin Özer, the owner of the Özer restaurant in Langham Place, London and of the Sofra restaurants in London.
The Ottoman Experience Tour
From 1-10 September 2005 there was a Skilliter Centre tour organised for a group of 26 Newnham alumnae and friends and led by Ebru Boyar and Kate Fleet to Istanbul, Bursa and Edirne. Over the ten days of the tour, the group visited sites ranging from a 15th-century mental hospital in Edirne to the 19th-century palace of Dolmabahçe in İstanbul, ate in a hamam, a konak, and a soup kitchen, and drank tea in a former abattoir of a mosque complex. Ebru Boyar and Kate Fleet gave 11 lectures during the tour on various aspects of Ottoman history and culture. The Skilliter