The press as a (trans-)local space of communication. Istanbul’s Arabic press, 1860s-1920s

• Applicant: Leyla von Mende
• Subject Area: Islamic Studies, Arabian Studies, Semitic Studies
• Term: from 2018 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 398627239

The research project investigates Istanbul’s Arabic press between the 1860s and 1920s. Taking this corpus as an example the press will be analysed as a (trans-)local space of communication. In this space contemporary ideas like nationalism or religiously justified political and social concepts which aim at organising the present and the future came together and were negotiated. The project assumes that the press under consideration is a space of cross-border communication, a confined space and part of other spaces at the same time, e.g. the urban space Istanbul, the Arabic speaking, Islamic and journalistic spaces. Analysing processes of communication within those spaces allows for another perspective on ideas virulent in the period under consideration and partly still today: It enables us to grasp the multidimensional developments of ideas and ideologies and to connect the elaboration of ideas to the medium of their expression. Press is regarded as a space of communication as well as a medium capable of structuring and influencing the content of that space. The project pursues a trifold approach: (1) It elaborates on the press-related structures of content production by reconstructing human and textual networks. (2) Furthermore it studies the contents of the press along a discursive thematic network. Consequently the trans-local space of communication will be made visible through human, textual and thematic interconnections and positioned within the different spaces. (3) Thereby it is possible to detect the mechanisms of interrelation of structures and content and to develop a methodology necessary for their analysis. By tracing the path of ideas within the space of communication the impact of the press on their elaboration and disappearance within local, regional and cross-language processes of communication shall be identified. The project contributes in methods and content to the research fields history of the press, Middle Eastern press, intellectual history and Ottoman-Arabic-Turkish thinking during the long 19th century.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants