İstanΠόλις
Core Research Group
Christine Philliou
Christine Philliou, Professor in the Department of History at University of California Berkeley and Director of the Modern Greek/Hellenic Studies and Turkish, Ottoman and Post-Ottoman Studies (TOPOS) programs there, specializes in the connected histories of the Balkans and Middle East since the 17th century, focusing particularly on the emergence of the Greek and Turkish nation-states out of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th and 20th centuries. She has worked, and is interested more broadly in comparative empires and in interfaces between cultures and histories in Europe and the Middle East. Her books, Biography of an Empire: Governing Ottomans in an Age of Revolution (2011), and Turkey: A Past Against History (2021), have been translated into both Greek and Turkish, and she has published widely in scholarly journals as well as in broader forums such as PublicBooks and Jadaliyya.
Firuzan Melike Sümertaş
Firuzan Melike Sümertaş is currently a lecturer in the Department of History at University of California Berkeley and Assist. Prof. in the Department of Interior Design at Istanbul Kent University. Her research focuses on the urban/architectural/visual culture of the late Ottoman Empire and its capital city Istanbul, with a particular interest in the Greek-Orthodox community. She holds a PhD. in History from Boğaziçi University, Istanbul and B.Arch and M.A degrees from Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Department of Architecture, and Program in Architectural History. Besides IstanΠόλις, she collaborates with Namık Erkal, Haris Theodorelis Rigas and ANAMED at Koç University, Istanbul under the project entitled “Phanariot Materialities.”
Panagiotis Poulos
Panagiotis C. Poulos (BA, PhD SOAS, University of London) is Assistant Professor in Ethnomusicology at the Department of Music Studies at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. His research centres on the musical traditions of the Middle East, the cultural history of late Ottoman and Turkish music and arts, and the history of everyday life in Ottoman cities. He is author of Music in the Islamic World: Sources, Perspectives, Practices (2015, e-book), and co-editor of Ottoman Intimacies, Balkan Musical Realities (2013, with A. Theodosiou & R. P. Pennanen) and of Ottoman Monuments in Greece: Heritages under Negotiation (2023, with E. Kolovos and G. Pallis). Panagiotis C. Poulos is the principal investigator of the research project Intercommunal musical geographies of late Ottoman Istanbul (Hellenic Foundation of Research and Innovation, 2019-2022) and scientific director (with E. Kolovos) of the research project Histories, Spaces and Heritages at the transition from the Ottoman Empire to the Greek state (École française d’Athènes 2017-2021).
Ayşe Ozil
Ayşe Ozil is an Associate Professor of History in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Sabancı University, Istanbul. She received her PhD at the University of London, Birkbeck College. Before joining Sabancı University, she was a post-doctoral fellow at Princeton University and a visiting researcher at Leiden University. Her research explores the social history of the late Ottoman Empire and early Republican Turkey, focusing on Greek communities, social networks, modernization of institutions, and urbanization. She has drawn on a comparative examination of state and communal archival sources, exploring the interrelationship between the Ottoman and Greek worlds. She is the author of Orthodox Christians in the Late Ottoman Empire: A Study of Communal Relations in Anatolia (Routledge, 2013) and various articles in journals such as Turkish Historical Review, International Journal of Turkish Studies, and Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association. Her current work examines the intersection of global trade networks and the urbanization of Istanbul through commercial buildings (hans) in the Galata port in the late Ottoman and early republican periods, which resulted in a digital exhibition, co-curated with Sadettin Fidan: The “Han”s of Galata (2022) https://artsandculture.google.com/story/the-han-s-of-galata-sakp-sabanc-museum/HQWhQ-nXDqLkBg?hl=en.
Emily Neumeier
Emily Neumeier, Assistant Professor of Art History in the Tyler School of Art and Architecture at Temple University, specializes in the visual and spatial cultures of the eastern Mediterranean, with a focus on the Ottoman Empire. She has published in the Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association, History and Anthropology, and the International Journal of Islamic Architecture. Her forthcoming co-edited volume Hagia Sophia in the Long Nineteenth Century (2024) examines the making of a modern monument in the late Ottoman Empire and early Turkish Republic. She is currently preparing a book manuscript that presents an alternative history of Ottoman architecture from the view of the provinces in Greece and Albania during the age of revolutions. Her archival and field research has been supported by the Fulbright Program and the American Research Institute in Turkey. Before coming to Temple, Neumeier was in residence at the Gennadius Library in Athens as a Getty/American Council of Learned Societies Fellow in the History of Art.
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Former Collaborators
Census Register Reading Group
Research Consultants
Data Management / IT Support
Research Collaborators & Affiliates
Student Researchers
Yasmine Kaki
Yasmine Kaki is an undergraduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, and was hired through the URAP program at Berkeley. She is a History and Sociology Major concentrating on Ottoman North Africa and Central Asia. Additionally, she is an associate editor for the Berkeley Undergraduate History Journal, Clio's Scroll, and the Event Coordinator for the African Maghreb Student Union.
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Lukas Carbone
Lukas Carbone is an undergraduate at the University of California, Berkeley, and was hired through the URAP program at Berkeley. He is a History and Political Economy Major concentrating on the study of modernization, development, and underdevelopment during the twentieth century. Additionally, he is a member of the Berkeley Political Economy Student Association and a Policy Coordinator for the Berkeley Student Cooperative.
Previous Student Researchers
Our previous student researchers through the URAP program at UC Berkeley include Augustin de Jesus and George Sicner, both of whom were a part of Istanpolis from 2022-2023. Additionally, our previous student researchers through the Data Science Discovery Program at Berkeley include Emir Dinç and Taha Demirkan from 2022 to 2023 and Meltem Su, Arda Akman, Basiq Shah, and Cosmin Desmukh from 2021 to 2022. Other former student collaborators include Andreani Kyprianou, Aliki Vitsa, and Paul Karras.
Lara Oge
Lara Oge is an undergraduate student majoring in Music with a concentration in Musicology, and minoring in Digital Humanities and Medieval Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests broadly include music in 15th- and 16th-century Europe. As a native of Istanbul, she is also interested in the history of her hometown. Besides her academic work, Lara is a senior editor for the Berkeley Undergraduate Journal and a singer in the Chamber Chorus and Golden Bear Voices.
Amelia Sandgren
Amelia Sandgren is a second-year undergraduate student at the University of California, Berkeley. She is double-majoring in art history and English with a concentration in cultural heritage repatriation. Additionally, she is the Legal Events and Planning Chair for her pre-law fraternity, Kappa Alpha Pi, a member of the Philanthropy Committee for Sigma Kappa's Lambda Chapter, and on the Sustainability Committee for Fashion and Student Trends at UC Berkeley (FAST).
Yuxuan Du
Yuxuan Du is a fourth year undergraduate student at the University of California, Berkeley. He is majoring in Data Science with the domain emphasis of Economics, and his study concentrates on data mining, machine learning, and human-computer interaction. As an international student, he is strongly interested in architecture, art, and multiculturalism.
Melody Seraydarian
Melody Seraydarian is a third year undergraduate student pursuing a degree in Media Studies with a concentration in Media, Law, and Policy, as well as minors in Journalism and Science, Technology, & Society. Her research interests broadly include international press freedom and the Ottoman Empire, as well as the Middle East and the Caucuses. In addition to working with Istanpolis, Melody was previously an undergraduate researcher for the Latinx Research Center’s Democracy + Media Lab and presently works for the Daily Californian newspaper and the Armenian Weekly newspaper.
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