Cluster of Excellence EurAsian Transformations

❗️New Ottoman Voice in Vienna!
Dr. Edhem Eldem | Columbia University, USA

Dr. Edhem Eldem (Columbia University) will be joining the new Vienna Center for Advanced Studies at the University of Vienna for the coming academic year.

Advanced Fellow | 2026-2027 | Social Sciences and Humanities | History and Archeology

🎧 Recommended Lectures

✨Two Medieval Bestsellers: The Life of the Buddha and Kalila Wa-Dimna✨

Eurasia Lectures by Dr. Kirill Dmitriev (tomorrow, 19 June) and Prof. Dr. Beatrice Gründler (26 June)

‘Religious Communities and Manuscript Cultures on the Medieval Silk Road’

The next two lectures in this semester’s EurAsia lecture series are devoted to the transmission and transformation of influential narrative traditions between India and the Islamic world.

🗓️Friday, 19 June, 2026 | 16:45
Dr. Kirill Dmitriev (University of St. Andrews); From India to the Arab World and Back to India: Kitāb Bilawhar wa-Būdāsaf and Its Transmission in Arabic Sources

🗓️Friday, 26 June, 2026 | 16:45
Prof. Dr. Beatrice Gründler (Freie Universität Berlin); Islamic Mirror and Interreligious Matrix: The Kalīla wa-Dimna

📍The lectures will take place in the main university building (Universitätsring 1, 1st floor, Stiege 9) in Hörsaal 32 (from 16:45) and online via Zoom (registration link: https://univienna.zoom.us/meeting/register/pK43kvviTDamB4TD-keqkg #/registration)

🔗More information regarding the lecture series:
https://www.oeaw.ac.at/eurasian-transformations/academic-training/eurasia-lecture-series/religious-communities-and-manuscript-cultures-on-the-medieval-silk-road

Workshop
✨OttomanCore: Conceptual, Spatial, and Actor-Centered Perspectives on Ottoman Governance✨

You are warmly invited to join the two-day workshop OttomanCore: Conceptual, Spatial, and Actor-Centered Perspectives on Ottoman Governance, which will take place 📍at the University of Vienna on 🗓️2–3 July 2026. The workshop will be held in the Lecture Hall of the Department of East European History (IOG) (Spitalgasse 2, Hof 3, Eingang 3.2 (Campus))

The workshop aims to revisit Ottoman governance as a dynamic and negotiated field of interaction among diverse actors whose overlapping interests and spheres of influence shaped the empire’s capacity to rule.

For further details, please see the program:
https://www.ottomancore.org/_files/ugd/f5b16d_b9565f94810b44eda96870d435d13a75.pdf

The event is organized within the framework of the ERC-2024-CoG project “OttomanCORE.”

Organizers: Grigor Boykov and Mariya Kiprovska

📄 Upcoming Conference!

‘Preaching and Preachers as brokers of (inter) communal dynamics Cross late medieval and early modern Eurasia’

🗓️ When?
Thursday, June 25
Friday, June 26, 2026

📍Where?
Central European University | Vienna Campus, Quellenstraße 51, Room: D001 | 1100 Vienna

💻 Hybrid Event

🔗 For more information see here:
https://events.ceu.edu/2026-06-25/preaching-and-preachers-brokers-inter-communal-dynamics-across-late-medieval-and-early

👀 New blog-entry!

‘Schapur II. und sein Zug gegen Arabien’
~ Shapur II and his campaign against Arabia

The geographical challenges of the famous offensive and its effects on empires and their politics

In this guest blog post, Clemens Steinwender, a doctoral candidate at the Institute of Ancient History and Ancient Near Eastern Studies at the University of Innsbruck, offers insights into an exciting period of Persian late antiquity - the campaign of Shapur II against Arab nomadic confederations on the Arabian Peninsula. He also explains how this period is reflected in historical sources as well as religious texts of the Sasanian Empire.

🤓 Read the full blog entry here: https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000322589/schapur-ii-und-sein-zug-gegen-arabien

Impression of this year’s Spring Retreat 💫

❗ This afternoon at 16:05 on Ö1’s “Im Gespräch”: Dr. Claudia Rapp, member of the EurAsian Transformations Board of Directors, shares insights into her work as a Byzantinist and reflects on her academic journey.

🎧 https://oe1.orf.at/programm/20260605/834691/Claudia-Rapp-Byzantinistin

We are pleased to highlight this conversation and invite our community to tune in.

📡 How did empires stay connected across vast distances long before modern technology?

👀 Join us for the lecture “Imperial Infrastructures of Communication Across Eurasia”, an evening exploring how messages, roads, animals, and administrative networks shaped communication in the ancient world.

Featuring a lecture by Sanae Ito and a panel discussion with leading scholars of Ancient Iran (M. Rahim Shayegan) Ancient India (Upinder Singh) and the Ottoman Empire (Tolga Esmer). Hosted by the Cluster of Excellence EurAsian Transformations at the University of Vienna (Tijana Krstic -CEU; Nina Mirnig - UNIVIE; Sebastian Fink - UIBK)

📅 June 8, 2026
📍 Department of South Asian, Tibetan and Buddhist Studies | University or Vienna | Seminar Room 1, Spitalgasse 2, Hof 2, Entrance 2.7, 1090 Vienna
🕔 17:00 CET

For online participation, please register here:
https://univienna.zoom.us/meeting/register/je5EJPt-TrWu2f1AthAXVg #/registration

💫 Upcoming Lecture 💫👀

Critique, protest, political advice, and public discourse in the 17th-century Ottoman Empire 📜

Join historian Derin Terzioğlu for a lecture exploring how soldiers, sufis, preachers, and writers shaped cultures of critique and dissent across the Ottoman world through poetry, oral discourse, and political advice literature.

📍 Vienna Campus, Quellenstraße 51, Room D-001
🗓 Wednesday, June 10, 2026
🕠 5:30–7:00 PM
🎟 Onsite event | RSVP not required

🔗 More information: https://events.ceu.edu/2026-06-10/critique-discontent-and-protest-political-advice-military-encampments-mosques-and-public