KEMAL H. KARPAT CENTER FOR TURKISH STUDIES &
CENTER FOR East ASIAN STUDIES
present a talk by
Selçuk Esenbel
Emeritus Professor of History
Academic Coordinator of the Asian Studies Center
Boğaziçi University, İstanbul, Turkey
“Twilight Diplomacy” and the Japanese Mirror of the Ottoman Turkish World:
Yamada Torajirō’s Illustrated Observations of Turkey
1 May 2024 @ 4:30 pm
Sheldon Lubar Faculty Commons, Law School, 7th floor Room 7200
A discussion centered on Yamada Torajirō 1911 book Toruko Gakan, Illustrated Observations of Turkey, the Meiji Japanese “Mirror” of the Ottoman Turkish world, and the multi-religious culture in İstanbul. Yamada’s career exhibits the practice of informal “twilight diplomacy” with Meiji Japan to circumvent the problem of “extraterritoriality” embedded into the great power politics of international law, and geo-political strategy targeting the Russian and British Empire, intended to challenge the very distinction between reality and representation.
About the speaker: Prof. Selçuk Esenbel is an expert on Japanese and Asian history, studied at Tokyo International Christian University, and received her Ph.D. in Japanese History from Columbia University. Esenbel has been teaching at Boğaziçi University in İstanbul, and her research includes Japanese history, and Asian Civilizations, Peasant Studies; Meiji Japan; and Japanese-Ottoman-Turkish Relations. Esenbel published many articles and books on the history of Japan, such as Japan, Turkey, and the World of Islam, and Japan on the Silk Road, and received numerous awards, including the Rising Sun Imperial Order, the Japanese Foundation Special Award for Japanese Studies, and the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs Special Award for the Promotion of Japanese-Turkish Academic Relations.
FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC
Organized and Sponsored by the Kemal H. Karpat Center for Turkish Studies &
Center for East Asian Studies
Co-sponsored by the Department of History, Harvey Goldberg Center,
East Asian Legal Studies Center,
& the Middle East Studies Program