Man and Society in Early Modern Arabic Travelogues and the Res Publica Literaria between Aleppo, Istanbul and Paris

Not only European travelers, diplomats and scholars who ventured to the East, but also travelers from the Arabic provinces of the Ottoman Empire where part of the so called “res publica literaria”, an erudite network which was constituted through exchange, personal encounters and the circulation of texts. The project studies Arabic travelogues written in the 18th century by individuals from Aleppo. The complex interrelations of these authors with different groups and segments of their society will be explored from the perspective of entangled history. At the same time, ideas about the individual and his role in society as well as concepts of civilization and social order, as they are expressed in the travelogues, are investigated and related to the authors’ negotiations of their place in their own societies.

Monograph

• Krimsti, Feras. 2014. Die Unruhen von 1850 in Aleppo. Gewalt im urbanen Raum, Berlin: Klaus Schwarz.

Articles

• Krimsti, Feras. 2015. “The 1850 Uprising in Aleppo. Reconsidering the Explanatory Power of Sectarian Argumentations”, in Ulrike Freitag, Nelida Fuccaro, Claudia Ghrawi and Nora Lafi (eds.), Urban Violence in the Middle East. Changing Cityscapes in the Transition from Empire to Nation State, New York/ Oxford: Berghahn, pp. 141–163.

•  ------. 2012. “Gesellschaftliche Konfigurationen während des Aufstands 1819/20 in Aleppo nach den Aufzeichnungen des armenisch-katholischen Bischofs ’Abrāhām Kūbilyān”, Der Islam 88(1): pp. 123–146.