Urban Parks in Late Ottoman Istanbul
Mustafa Emir Küçük People have used green spaces for recreational purposes throughout history, yet the concept of the park as a designed green space for people’s recreation in the middle of the city developed...
The OIBlog from Beirut and Cairo
Mustafa Emir Küçük People have used green spaces for recreational purposes throughout history, yet the concept of the park as a designed green space for people’s recreation in the middle of the city developed...
Ayşe Nur Akdal Today, one can find it bizarre to come across a rural element in cities. However, historically, there was not a clear distinction between urban and rural. Agricultural and urban space existed...
Georgios C. Liakopoulos The first extant Ottoman taxation cadastre of the Morea TT10-1/14662, dated 1460-63, divides the recorded settlements into Greek and Albanian on the basis of different rates of taxation, which favoured the latter ethnic...
Graham Auman Pitts Capitalism had it seasons in late-Ottoman Mount Lebanon. Each spring, the families that tilled orchards of mulberries purchased the eggs they needed on credit. Mulberry leaves nourished the eggs, which hatched...
Benan Grams On June 30th, 1903 Sultan Abdulhamid II approved a project to bring potable water to Damascus from the Ein el-Fijeh spring.1 The project was presented to the central government by Nazim Pasha,...
Nükhet Varlık Plague is an infectious disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. It is known to have affected human societies for at least the last five thousand years. During its long history, it...
Neighbourliness is a concept which refers to the most contingent and yet least evitable phenomenon of all social relationships: neighbourly relations. As space of enforced closeness the neighbourhood can be considered a microcosm epitomising...
Interview with Sarah El Bulbeisi How do you explain your current research projects to your students? I don’t teach at the moment, so currently, the people I have to explain my research to are...
Interview with Pierre France What question can the reader of your book answer after reading it?There are two questions. One could be framed as a response to a classic debate in comparative political science...
Joshua Hudelson Amid the seemingly endless COVID lockdown that is currently underway in Beirut, it is easy to forget what it’s like to be in a crowded place. Yet barely more than a...
Since 1947, more than 700,000 Palestinians have been displaced from their homes in what is now Israel, and have become refugees. As a traumatic experience, the Nakba has become a crucial part of the...
State, Institutions and Governance in Lebanon, Syria and Palestine Abdelhadi Alijla Why do certain divided societies lack trust between their members more than others? Why are divided societies more prone to the collapse of...
Fatih Ermis After remaining stable for over twenty years, the Lebanese currency started deviating from the fixed 1 USD = 1507 LBP exchange rate in September 2019. The relative price stability of the last...
Paul Esber Beirut, summer 2020. COVID-19 and the winter just past have made themselves felt on Martyrs’ Square. Scorch marks, remnants from the fiery clashes between demonstrators and ISF are still visible upon the...
Alex Rodriguez Suarez The project I am undertaking at the Orient-Institut Beirut focuses on bell ringing on Mount Lebanon throughout the centuries; two keywords to define it are religious soundscape and material culture. The...