ARIT NEWSLETTER American Research Institute in Turkey Number 61, Fall 2018
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ARIT NEWSLETTER American Research Institute in Turkey Number 61, Fall 2018 President C. Brian Rose LETTER FROM American Board of Mission archival Immediate Past President THE PRESIDENT collection in Istanbul can continue to A. Kevin Reinhart Vice President advance. Ahmet Karamustafa I’m delighted to report that calendar In April of 2018 we received word that Secretary year 2018 witnessed a series of successes NEH had also renewed our postdoctoral John Curry for ARIT. When I last wrote to you, in Treasurer fellowship program for a three-year Brian Peasnall December of 2017, we had less than period. As part of their assessment of Directors a year to complete our long-standing ARIT and its programs, NEH conducted Timothy Harrison Mary Ellen Lane NEH match: if we raised $150,000 by a virtual visit to the headquarters at Penn Kathleen Lynch June of 2018, we would receive the final Sylvia Önder and the branch offices in Ankara and Van Pulley installment of $100,000 from NEH. If Istanbul, and I thank Elif Denel, Nancy Tyler Jo Smith Yücel Yanıkdağ we did not, those funds would disappear Leinwand, and Tony Greenwood for Honorary Director completely. The appeal that we sent at managing the meetings so creatively Lee Striker that time generated a tremendous show and efficiently. As we highlighted in Institutional Members Archaeological Institute of America of support from the ARIT community, our application to NEH, the Istanbul University of Arizona and we were able to raise the necessary and Ankara branches serve as two of University of Arkansas Boston University matching funds by May of 2018, one Turkey’s most important centers for Brown University month early. I can’t begin to thank all intellectual exchange, and ARIT-NEH Bryn Mawr College University of California, Berkeley of you, and especially former ARIT award winners have frequently launched University of California, Los Angeles director Peter Kuniholm, for providing collaborative projects with Turkish University of California, San Diego University of Central Florida an unusually high level of assistance scholars that have led to exchange University of Chicago that pulled us across the finish line faster University of Cincinnati programs involving them and their Columbia University than I expected. The challenge grant students. Such programs have ensured Cornell University The Council of American Overseas Research was intended to strengthen our library the continuity of East-West dialogue Centers resources, both actual and digital, and and served as a model for other research Dartmouth College Duke University it will mean that our plan to digitize the centers in the Near East. Dumbarton Oaks Emory University Georgetown University George Mason University Harvard University University of Illinois Indiana University University of Maryland University of Michigan Michigan State University University of Minnesota University of Nebraska New York University University of North Carolina Northwestern University Ohio State University University of Pennsylvania Portland State University Princeton University Rutgers University Stanford University Texas A & M University University of Texas, Austin University of Toronto Tufts University Tulane University University of Virginia Washington University, Saint Louis University of Washington Ankara Friends of ARIT trip to central Ionia with Professor Zeynep Çizmeli Öğün, in Yale University the theater at Metropolis. 1 As encouraging as these recent I close with my thanks to you as ANAMED and the American Board funding victories have been, there is members of the ARIT community. collection at the Annex on Kallavi Street, still much more to do. An increasing ARIT has undergone a considerable are now accessible through the BiblioPera number of students pursuing their Ph.D.s number of changes during the last two website www.bibliopera.org/. The portal at American institutions need financial years, and without your support and gives an up-to-date (as of January 1, 2018) assistance to conduct research in Turkey, encouragement we would not have catalogue of the collection, reflecting especially those who are Turkish citizens. handled them so effectively. In particular, both new acquisitions as well as losses to Our funding for these fellowships I want to recognize the heroic efforts of the collection due to the move. This is as comes primarily from the U.S. State Tony, Elif, Nancy, and Sylvia to juggle an opposed to our catalogue on DLIR which Department’s Bureau of Educational enormous number of administrative balls has not been upgraded for some five years. and Cultural Affairs, and that support simultaneously. Somehow they manage It also gives the researcher access to the is steadily diminishing in the current to combine resilience and diplomacy holdings of other major institute libraries: political climate. Moreover, nearly all of with education and public outreach on a the funds that we do have are restricted daily basis, thereby maintaining ARIT’s to U.S. citizens, which means that there reputation as a strong, thriving, and are typically many excellent applications innovative institute. from Turkish students at American institutions that we cannot fund. In 2017, C. Brian Rose for example, there were 75 applications for ARIT fellowships, and we were able to fund only 10 of them, only 3 of which ARIT-ISTANBUL could be awarded to non-U.S. citizens. BRANCH NEWS If we want the fellowship program to be supported by truly stable foundations, we Istanbul Branch News need to begin endowing our fellowships. This is an excellent opportunity for you A year after our move from to honor your mentors or supporters with Arnavutköy to Beyoğlu, ARIT Istanbul a named fellowship, and it can of course finds itself comfortably ensconced in be a provision in your estate plans. I will new quarters in the Koç University start the ball rolling by pledging funds to ANAMED building and in our Annex endow a fellowship in honor of Rodney on Kallavi Street. Many thanks go to Dr. Tony Greenwood, ARIT-Istanbul Young, who was a great friend of ARIT ANAMED and its staff, beginning with Director. and served as Gordion Project director Director Chris Roosevelt, for making between 1950 and 1974. such a smooth transition possible. We’ve Finally, I need to convey the sad news found it a pleasure to work with them of the passing of G. Kenneth Sams, who in arranging our activities, organizing served as president of ARIT between lectures and providing library services. 1992 and 2010, as well as Gordion We’re now nearing completion of Project Director between 1988 and the inventory and upkeep of our library 2013. Ken wrote and won ARIT’s NEH of 11,000 volumes at ANAMED. All of endowment challenge grant in 2007, and the Ottoman and Turkish sections have Electronic Communication: worked to raise the first $900,00 during been re-labeled and repaired where If you would like to receive the his presidency. He also developed the necessary, and we’re now well into the ARIT Newsletter and other Hanfmann-Mellink Fellowship Program Kenneth Snipes Byzantine section. We communications from ARIT by and arranged for ARIT’s receipt of the expect to complete the entire collection e-mail, please send a message Kenneth H. Snipes Byzantine Studies by late spring. conveying your preference and library, one of the finest in the world. Many Our link up with BiblioPera, a portal contact information to of the programs nurtured by Ken have into twelve research library collections in [email protected] grown and strengthened immensely, and the Beyoğlu area, is now complete. Both in the ARIT office. we are indebted to him on many levels. of our collections, the main collection at 2 the French (IFEA), German (DAI), of representatives of the six Protestant ARIT now presents its lectures in the Dutch (NIT), Swedish (SRII), Greek powers to whom the cemetery property auditorium in the ANAMED building, (Sismanoglio), Orient Institut, ÇEKUL was originally ceded by the Sultan at its which comfortably holds over 100 Vakıf, Yapı ve Kredi Araştırma, Istanbul founding. To kick the project off, Brian persons. We have not filled that up, but all Araştırma, SALT, and ANAMED. The Johnson led the Consul Generals of these of our lectures have been well attended, SALT link also provides access to the six countries on a tour of the cemetery by 30-60 persons, which is certainly more American Board Archives that have been early this fall. A preliminary website for than we typically got in our old location. posted on their database. the project is already up at http://www. We are happy about this, of course, and Work continued apace on the ferikoycemetery.org/. also happy that there is now a qualified American Board Archives at SALT. We were given invaluable help by two new interns over this period, Evan Gage from Notre Dame University, who also helped us revise our guidelines for interns, and Nareg Seferian, an independent researcher, who finished the cataloguing of all outstanding material in Armeno- Turkish. Uploading of new material onto the website has been slow but steady, and we expect a significant pick up in the pace in the near future. As a natural extension of ARIT’s stewardship over the library and archives of the American Board in Turkey, ARIT Istanbul has recently joined in a new initiative, in conjunction with the Netherlands Institute in Turkey (NIT) and the German Orient Institute, to record, research, and conserve the Protestant Cemetery in Feriköy. The Gülden Güneri, ARIT-Istanbul Director’s Assistant (right), in her office, with initiative builds on the involvement of Türkan Hanım (left). the Board of Missions with the cemetery ever since its opening in 1859, and on the Orient Institute’s recent work on a database of the cemetery burial logs and digital site mapping with a drone by NIT.