Jerba: an Island in Time | Renata Holod

E 353 | For the first time on the podcast, we discuss the role of archaeology and its potential to contribute to our knowledge of the Ottoman world. More specifically, we explore how the field of landscape archaeology can offer a better understanding of how different factors of religion, politics, and culture impacted the manipulation of territory over millenia. The large-scale examination of material culture and vernacular architecture in a rural setting particularly has the potential to fill in the gaps of the historical archive, providing information about communities that otherwise remain relatively unknown. In this episode, we speak with Renata Holod, who co-directed a multi-year archaeological and architectural survey of the island of Jerba, off the coast of Tunisia. Our conversation not only explains the techniques and methodologies deployed during the project, but also ranges to wider reflections on the different ways the arrival of the Ottomans on the island can be read in the landscape itself. see more at http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2018/03/jerba.html Renata Holod is the College for Women Class of 1963 Term Professor in the Humanities at the University of Pennsylvania. She is also the Curator in the Near East Section of the University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. She has done archaeological and architectural fieldwork in Syria, Iran, Morocco, Central Asia, Turkey, and Tunisia. Emily Neumeier is ACLS Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities at The Ohio State University. Her research concerns the art and architecture of the Ottoman Empire and Turkish Republic. She is co-curator of our series The Visual Past and editor of the blog "stambouline," a site where travel and the Ottoman world meet. CREDITS Episode No. 353 Release Date: 28 March 2018 Recording Location: Philadelphia, Penn. Audio editing by Emily Neumeier Music: Special thanks to Kara Günes for permission to use the composition "Istanbul." Katibim (Uskudar'a Gider iken) - Safiye Ayla Images and bibliography courtesy of Renata Holod, available at http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2018/03/jerba.html