Off-the-Shelf: Re-discovering Yale’s Uncatalogued Ottoman Manuscripts

Event time: 
Wednesday, December 11, 2019 - 1:00pm to 4:00pm
Location: 
Sterling Memorial Library (SML) See map
120 High Street
New Haven, CT 06511
Calendar Speaker/Performer: 
Ozgen Felek (NELC), Robin Dougherty (Librarian for Middle East Studies), and the students of the “Reading and Research in Ottoman History and Literature” course
Event description: 

In addition to the 276 manuscripts under the call number “Turkish MSS Suppl”, the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library of Yale has a remarkable collection of another 188 Turkish manuscripts, dated from 1496 to 1933 A.D., which are yet uncatalogued. Priceless poetry collections of celebrated Ottoman poets, romances, occult texts, chronicles, mystical treatises, manuals of legal decisions, books on human and veterinary medicine, as well as botany, have been waiting off-the-shelf for their readers since they joined the rare books and manuscripts compilation at the Beinecke Library in the mid-50s. These texts have now found their curious readers as the collection has been added to the syllabus of the “Reading and Research in Ottoman History and Literature” course taught at the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations in Fall 2019. The instructor and the undergraduate/graduate students of the course are opening this treasure box to share these highly valuable texts with those who want to learn more about them.

Admission: 
Free

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