Part of Qatar Museums’ latest initiative, Lusail Museum Conversations, is an ongoing series of public lectures and events. The inaugural season, titled The Late Ottoman World: At the Roots of the Modern Middle East, runs from January to April 2026 and takes place at Georgetown University in Qatar. Across five in-depth talks, the series explores questions of authority, artistic expression, reform, and belonging during the 19th century, revealing the foundations of many dynamics that continue to shape the region today. This season marks the first in a longer cycle of thematic programmes.
In this lecture, historian Edhem Eldem explores the paintings of the last Ottoman caliph, Abdülmecid (1868–1944), examining how he used his own art to project a self-image of modernity and responsibility following the Young Turk Revolution of 1908. Through the lens of palace culture and visual production, his practice sheds light on the paradoxes of Ottoman modernisation and the often-overlooked role of imperial figures in shaping cultural narratives.
Edhem Eldem is a historian of the Ottoman Empire, presently the Sakıp Sabancı visiting professor at the History Department, Columbia University. He has taught at Boğaziçi University, Berkeley, Harvard, and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris and has held the International Chair of Turkish and Ottoman History at the Collège de France.
Among his fields of interest are the Levant trade in the 18th century, Ottoman funerary epigraphy, the Imperial Ottoman Bank, the history of archaeology and photography in the Ottoman Empire, late Ottoman first-person narratives, Ottoman Westernisation and Orientalism, and Osman Hamdi Bey.
Contact information:
nelhajj@qm.org.qa
