PODCAST – Episode 69: Restoration Histories

Peter Hill talks to Charles Ough about Dr Mikha’il Mishaqa, the Mount Lebanon-born polymath and US Vice Consul in Damascus whose long life encompassed some of the most important events of the tumultuous nineteenth-century in Syria and Egypt, culminating in the 1860 massacre of the Christians of Damascus in which Mishaqa narrowly escaped with his life.

Bariş Altan introduces Julia Secklehner to Cahide Tamer, a pioneer in architectural restoration and one of the first women architects in Turkey. Recently rescued, her archive fills a gap in the story of Istanbul's historic landmarks, while her example of courage gives inspiration to today's preservationists.

Long before the Turkish State Opera opened in 1949, Halide Edip Adıvar was mong those imagining what Turkish opera might sound like. In this conversation Jonathan Conlin asks Ici Vanwesenbeeck to explain how this remarkable polymath conceived of an opera that was neither "alla franca" nor "alla turca".

Can Eyüp Çekiç and Enno Maessen revisit liberal internationalist David Davies' 1919 proposal to establish the League of Nations in Constantinople, making that city the seat of a truly international order, an order that the League failed to establish in Geneva.

Jonathan Conlin invites Samuel Foster to explain the rationale behind his new module on "Europe in the Era of the Great War" and report on how students have engaged with imagology and uncomfortable analogies with their own times.

Ozan Ozavci talks with Ismee Tames about her ongoing research into stateless people after World War I, uncovering the communities of care that stateless individuals created to rebuild their lives.

Eugene Rogan and Ozan Ozavci discuss the 1860 massacres in Damascus, the subsequent restoration of peace in Syria, and the insights this turbulent history may offer to Syrians navigating today's challenges.

Anna Enepekidou looks back at a project that turned high schoolers into curators as well as students of history.

Şahin Yeşilyurt introduces Giorgio Ennas to his research on the relationship between the late Ottoman Empire's public health and fiscal regimes.

Laura Almagor talks to Ozan Ozavci about how revisiting a supposed "Founding Father of Zionism" might open new avenues into alternative pasts and futures for Israel-Palestine.