Economy and Society on Both Shores of the Aegean: "Difference and Fusion"

The series of monthly seminars, Economy and Society on Both Shores of the Aegean, organized by the Ottoman Bank Museum in collaboration with Alpha Bank and the History Department of Boğazici University, hosts Prof. Stephanos Pesmazoglou from the Panteion University of Athens on Friday, June 23, with a presentation entitled, "Scarlatos Vyzantios' Constantinoupolis: Difference and Fusion," in which he will attempt to shed light on the themes and the structure of Constantinoupolis, the major work on Istanbul of Greek thinker Scarlatos Vyzantios.

In his work, Vyzantios gave a detailed account of Istanbul's past and the 19th century in which he lived, systematically observing events, people, and behaviors and including social differences within a broader context of cultural fusion. In his lecture, Pesmazoglou will focus on the reasons why Vyzantios' opus magnum hasremained largely ignored over the roughly 150 years since its first publication between 1841 and 1869. Vyzantios' three-volume study examined Ottomans, Europeans and Greeks from a comparative perspective, searching for continuities between Byzantines and Ottomans, and distinguished itself from other works of its epoch by the generally positive stance it adopted toward the Ottoman Empire.

The monthly seminar series, Economy and Society on Both Shores of the Aegean, focuses on the Greek Orthodox populations of the late Ottoman and early Republican periods. Seminar speakers provide comprehensive information on the subject and display special awareness of the delicate historical context. The seminar series will resume in September.

Economy and Society on both Shores of the Aegean
Scarlatos Vyzantios' Constantinoupolis: Difference and Fusion
Prof. Stephanos Pesmazoglou

Prof. Stephanos Pesmazoglou Currently a faculty member in the Department of Political Science and History at the Panteion University of Athens, Prof. Pesmazoglou was a visiting professor at Princeton University in 1999, and at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris, in 2005. Pesmazoglou, who specializes in the political theory of ideology, is co-editor of the social sciences review Synchrona Themata and has conducted research and written numerous articles, published in journals and collective volumes, on the political, ideological and educational aspects of postwar South European societies (including the Balkan South East) and Turkey.

Economy and Society on both Shores of the Aegean Scarlatos Vyzantios' Constantinoupolis: Difference and Fusion Prof. Stephanos Pesmazoglou Friday, June 23, 2006 5:00 p.m. Free admission The Ottoman Bank Museum Bankalar (Voyvoda) Caddesi 35/37 (0212) 334 22 70