Aslihan Akışık

Hannah Seeger Davis Postdoctoral Research Fellow, 2014-2015

  • DegreePh.D., History and Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University, 2013
    Dissertation
    Self and Other in the Renaissance: Laonikos Chalkokondyles and Late Byzantine Intellectuals
    Research Project
    Byzantium and the Antique in the Late Period

Aslıhan Akışık received her PhD from Harvard University with a dissertation titled “Self and Other in the Renaissance: Laonikos Chalkokondyles and Late Byzantine Intellectuals” (History and Middle Eastern Studies, 2013). Her research was funded by a dissertation completion fellowship from Harvard University and an Onassis Public Benefit Foundation Fellowship. She earned the MA from Bosphoros University in Byzantine and Ottoman History and the AB from Brown University. Focusing on instances of imbrication between late Byzantium, Islamic Anatolia, and the Italian Renaissance in literary and philosophical texts, she hopes to overhaul the traditional and established demarcations between fields. 

About the Research Project

Byzantium and the Antique in the Late Period

The intellectual legacy of Byzantium and its contribution to the Renaissance has been a hallmark of literature on the late period although the classicizing discourse of this period and its relevance to the political context has not been comprehensively studied.  My current research explores the revival of classical Greek learning, particularly the Herodotean paradigm, to analyze and categorize the nascent Ottoman state as oriental tyranny as well as to legitimize its counterparts. The dissertation is under serious consideration to be published with OUP. Thus, my aim for 2014-2015 is two-fold. First, I will revise the dissertation with a view to its publication. I will also embark on a project that takes its cue from the dissertation but which casts the net wide, studying the ways in which the discourse concerning the classical past, both Greek and Roman, is also a commentary on contemporary events, peoples, institutions, and ideologies.

Previous Roles

  • Postdoctoral Research Fellow
    2014 - 2015