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Sabev investigates the first Ottoman/Muslim printer Ibrahim Müteferrika and his printing activity in the first half of the 18th century. By focusing on Müteferrikäs western-formed mind-set, the book analyzes the influence of his printing enterprise on the transition from scribal tradition to print culture in the Ottoman Turkish/Muslim milieu.
List of contents
Acknowledgments Note on the Front Cover Image Note on Transliteration List of Tables List of Figures Introduction: In Search of Lost Time? Chapter 1. The Strange Arts: Printing and Other “Oddities” Chapter 2. Out of the Ordinary: İbrahim Müteferrika’s Mind-set Chapter 3. Deus ex Machina: The Müteferrika Press Chapter 4. They Hadn’t Read My Prints: Success or Failure? Chapter 5. Virgin or Poison: The Making of Ottoman Print Culture Conclusion: Waiting for Godot? Bibliography Index
About the author
Orlin Sabev is Associate Professor at the Institute of Balkan Studies with Centre for Thracology of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (Sofia). He has published six books and over a hundred articles in Bulgarian, Turkish, and English on various topics in the field of Ottoman education, print culture, social history and sexuality, in particular: on the history of Ottoman/Muslim education (2001), on the first Ottoman Turkish/Muslim printing press in Constantinople in 1726-1746 (2004 and 2006), on the history of Robert College, founded in Constantinople in 1863 by American missionaries (2014 and 2015), and on the history of Ottoman libraries (2017).
Summary
Offers a study of the first Ottoman/Muslim printer Ibrahim Müteferrika and his printing activity in the first half of the eighteenth century. By focusing on Müteferrika's western-formed mindset the book detects the influence of his printing enterprise upon the transition from scribal tradition to print culture.
Additional text
“As the first English language monograph dedicated to early
Ottoman printing, Orlin Sabev’s Waiting for Müteferrika: Glimpses of
Ottoman Print Culture offers an informative and thoroughly researched
assessment of how print technology and culture permeated the Ottoman book
market and society in the eighteenth century. … One of the book’s great
strengths is the broad and creative expanse of these sources, which present an
assortment of insights into Ottoman attitudes toward printing and printed
books. … Waiting for Müteferrika: Glimpses of Ottoman Print Culture
stands tall as the first English language scholarly work devoted solely to the
Müteferrika press. It is a book that Ottoman historians and Turkologists alike
have been waiting for, and it will also prove valuable for scholars of early
print, incunabula, modernization, Islamic studies, and Middle East studies.”
—Yasemin Gencer, Indiana University, Journal of Near
Eastern Studies
