[MGSA-L] Princeton Hellenic Studies Workshop: February 27, 2015

[Dimitri H. Gondicas]

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies



Workshop


A Greek and French Observer of Imperial Decline:

Eugenios Voulgaris, Constantin-François Volney, and the Ottomans


Vasileios Syros

vs6 at princeton.edu<mailto:vs6 at princeton.edu>

Academy of Finland

Stanley J. Seeger Visiting Research Fellow, Hellenic Studies



Respondent:  Molly Greene, History and Hellenic Studies



This presentation challenges earlier scholarship on the theme of Ottoman decline by looking at the ways in which the demise of Ottoman rule was perceived by political writers from the minorities of the Empire. It discusses the "Reflections on the Current Critical Condition of the Ottoman Empire," a treatise written by the leading figure of the Modern Greek Enlightenment Eugenios Voulgaris (1716-1806). Voulgaris articulates an intriguing and prescient analysis of the disintegration of Ottoman rule, based on intimate knowledge of Ottoman political realities and of the geopolitical and military situation in Europe in the eighteenth-century. The paper attempts to compare Voulgaris' political thought with the ideas on Ottoman political organization of his contemporary historian and philosopher Constantin-François Volney (1757-1820). Volney's analysis of the inner workings of the Ottoman Empire lends itself to a comparison with Voulgaris' views on the phenomena of political and economic malaise that afflicted Ottoman rule. The workshop will conclude with a discussion of how Voulgaris' and Volney's ideas relate to ongoing debates on the influence of the Ottoman legacy and recent developments in Turkey, Iraq, and Syria.



Vasileios Syros is a Senior Research Fellow at the Academy of Finland. His teaching and research interests focus on the interaction of the Christian, Islamic, and Jewish traditions of political thought. He is also engaged in the comparative study of European and Islamic empires and early modern approaches to the comparative study of diverse forms of political organization and types of government. Syros is the Principal Investigator for the research project "Political Power in the European and Islamic Worlds" (2014-18) and is involved in the Western European Research Network of the "The Search for 'Good Democracy' in Asia" research program. He has published Die Rezeption der aristotelischen politischen Philosophie bei Marsilius von Padua (Brill, 2007); Well Begun is Only Half Done: Tracing Aristotle's Political Ideas in Medieval Arabic, Syriac, Byzantine, and Jewish Sources (ACMRS, 2011); and Marsilius of Padua at the Intersection of Ancient and Medieval Cultures and Traditions of Learning (University of Toronto Press, 2012). He taught previously at McGill University, The John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought at The University of Chicago, the École Pratique des Hautes Études, the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, and the University of Helsinki. He is currently working on Eugenios Voulgaris' "Reflections on the Current Critical Condition of the Ottoman Empire (1772).


Friday, February 27, 2015

1:30 p.m.

Scheide Caldwell House, Room 103



Supported by the Christos G. and Rhoda Papaioannou Modern Greek Studies Fund

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://maillists.uci.edu/pipermail/mgsa-l/attachments/20150220/dd918e30/attachment.html>