Duygu Yıldırım

I don’t think AI will create equal opportunities in higher education.It’ll cause bigger inequalities.In the age of AI, universities may increasingly become spaces where interpersonal communication and small-scale learning will be more valued.Yet access to them will be limited to the most privileged.

My review of Robert G. Morrison’s “Merchants of Knowledge: Intellectual Exchange in the Ottoman Empire and Renaissance Europe,” (Stanford, 2025) at Isis

www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Wow, almost 10 years!

Our panel, “Translating Technologies and Images: a Context for Textual Knowledge-Making across Early Modern Cultural Spheres,” has been accepted for the upcoming 2026 ESHS/HSS Joint Meeting to be held at the University of Edinburgh. Who else is going to be there?

I am very delighted to share that my article, “From Abstinence to (Un)Civility: Seventeenth-Century European Engagements with the Question of Wine
Prohibition in Islam” has been accepted at the Historical Journal. Hope it stimulates further discussions on this perennial topic.

So excited to talk about my forthcoming book today!

One word in Turkish, one sentence in English.

Konuşamadığımızdandır =
It may be because we have been unable to speak to each other.

Western-style illustration of female reproductive organs in a 17th-century Ottoman manuscript on anatomy.

It is ironic how AI has turned into a fortune-telling tool in an almost occultist way.

Natural Things in Early Modern Worlds The essays and original visualizations collected in Natural Things in Early Modern Worlds explore the relationships among natural things - ranging from pollen in a gust of wind to a carnivorous pitche...

Oh, so you mean present-day exhibitions of early modern objects? I'll have a think. This volume co-edited by @mackenziecooley.bsky.social, @annatoledano.com, and @duyguyildirim.bsky.social (someone needs to encourage them to hang out here!) may have leads:

www.routledge.com/Natural-Thin...

An interesting imagery of “a Turk” in Emily Dickinson’s poem, “she died at play”

First day at I Tatti, the Harvard Center for Italian Renaissance Studies. An extraordinary place to work as an academic, or simply to be mesmerized by the atmosphere to get inspired (peak Renaissance energy)

As the new year begins, a new adventure starts for me. Beginning next week, I will be a Berenson Fellow at Harvard’s I Tatti through June. I’m honored and excited for this opportunity, and I’m looking forward to seeing old friends and meeting new ones.

A presto, Firenze!

Historians here: Anyone up for joining a panel on early modern translation practices in science and medicine with me and the wonderful Sare Arıcanlı? It’ll be for the 2026 ESHS–HSS Joint Meeting in Edinburgh. Let me know!

It seems that throughout history, highly educated people from modest origins have almost always faced the same challenge: finding financial stability—be it in ancient China, the Ottoman Empire of the sixteenth century, or our own time.

I’d heard so much praise for this book and finally found time to read it. It’s a fascinating read that pushes us to reconsider the Eurocentric nature of Marxist accounts of production that often erase the history of medieval slavery.

We don’t often think about how, after the Morisco expulsion, no free Muslim communities remained in Western Europe. For many premodern Europeans, the only Muslims they saw in their lives were enslaved ones in brutal conditions; an imprint on Europe’s memory that can’t be denied…

On day one of teaching Ottoman history, a student asked me who my favorite sultan is. I just realized I’d never actually thought about it before. 😃

I just heard from our editor that the Bloomsbury - A Cultural History of Technology is set for publication next year! I contributed with a chapter on seventeenth-century food technologies and can’t wait to see this comprehensive volume in print soon!

That would be great, thank you!

Are there any historians here working on the history of wine? I'm currently writing an article on the topic and would be glad to exchange ideas or drafts if anyone is interested. 🍇

Just submitted my book for peer review. It has grown into something quite different from my dissertation with new research, thinking, and lots of writing, supported by a postdoctoral fellowship and an ACLS fellowship. Grateful to those who believed in this project from the start.

Proofreading is basically gaslighting yourself over typos.

Historians of science and art historians: has anyone written about why some flower illustrations were left uncolored in Fuchs’ De historia stirpium? I have some hypotheses, but I'd love to know if there's already an argument or discussion on this.

In my book chapter, I wrote about the randomness of early modern knowledge exchanges. One comment captured it perfectly: “like the kind of exchange you have while picking up a bagel at your local shop, knowledge is made not just in conferences, but in everyday encounters” 🥯

The question I asked is more about how scholars of the seventeenth century envisioned the history of knowledge.

Thank you! I am revising my book manuscript so I just wanted to share this challenge for brainstorming!

Yes! Thank you!

I like that phrase!

Yes; so I think there were at least three kinds of historical thinking in the 17th century: one that thinks about lost and found, the other is more about novelties; and the last one is about writing world histories of knowledge like appreciating Arabic science, for example.