Echoes of Colonial Knowledge Production: Early Sonic Ethnography and Field Recording in the Ottoman Empire (Dr Nazan Maksudyan, Freie Universität Berlin)

This research is situated at the intersection of Ottoman studies, sound reproduction technologies, and the history of the (colonial) sciences. I examine the collections of the Phonogrammarchiv in Vienna and the Berlin Phonogramm-Archiv, with a specific emphasis on the earliest recordings made during ethnographic fieldwork in the Ottoman Empire. In line with the existing scholarship on postcolonial histories of science and global knowledge production, I argue that these earlier and less well-known cases of sonic ethnography demonstrate the emergence of field recording as a viable technological adjunct to colonial scientific research. By analyzing Paul Kretschmer’s (1866-1956) study trip to Lesbos in 1901 and Felix von Luschan’s (1854-1924) expedition to Zincirli (Sendschirli, Aintab) in 1902, I aim contribute to Ottoman history of science from the perspectives of sound studies and auditory history, as well as decenter the history of knowledge production towards the “native” and gendered margins.

Biography

NAZAN MAKSUDYAN is a Senior Researcher at the Centre Marc Bloch (Berlin) in the ERC project, ‘Ottoman Auralities and the Eastern Mediterranean: Sound, Media and Power, 1789–1914’ (PI: Peter McMurray) and a visiting professor at the Freie Universität Berlin. Her research mainly focuses on the social and cultural history of the late Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey, with special interest in children and youth, gender, sexuality, exile and migration, sound studies, and the history of sciences. She is the author of Türklüğü Ölçmek (Metis, 2005), Orphans and Destitute Children in the Late Ottoman Empire (Syracuse UP, 2014), and Ottoman Children & Youth During World War I (Syracuse UP, 2019). She is Editorial Board Member of Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales, Journal of Women's History, Journal of European Studies, and First World War Studies.