TRAVELLING SEXUALITIES, CIRCULATING BODIES, AND EARLY MODERN ANGLO-OTTOMAN ENCOUNTERS By Abdulhamit Arvas A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of English—Doctor of Philosophy 2016 ABSTRACT TRAVELLING SEXUALITIES, CIRCULATING BODIES, AND EARLY MODERN ANGLO-OTTOMAN ENCOUNTERS By Abdulhamit Arvas Travelling Sexualities, Circulating Bodies, and Early Modern Anglo-Ottoman Encounters explores intricate networks and connections between early modern English and Ottoman cultures. In particular, it traces connected sexual histories and cultures between the two contexts with a focus on the abduction, conversion, and circulation of boys in cross-cultural encounters during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. It argues that the textual, aesthetic template of the beautiful abducted boy—i.e. Ganymede, the Indian boy of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream , the Christian boy in Ottoman poetry—intersects with the historical figure of vulnerable youths, who were captured, converted, and exchanged within the global traffic in bodies. It documents the aesthetic, erotic, and historical deployments of this image to suggest that the circulation of these boys casts them as subjects of servitude and conversion, as well as objects of homoerotic desire in the cultural imaginary. The project thereby uncovers the tensions and dissonances between the aestheticized eroticism of cultural representations and the coercive and violent history of abductions, conversions, and enslavements of the boys. Traveling Sexualities also highlights the significance of the Ottomans to the project of queering the Renaissance in early modern studies. It uncovers connected histories between seemingly different spaces and cultures with discursive and material crossings, cross-cultural transferences, movements, interactions, and encounters with a focus on the figure of the boy through queer-historicist contrapuntal readings of multiple genres (English plays, poems, travelogues, chronicles, maps, and paintings; Ottoman poems, historical chronicles, prose works, festival accounts, miniatures) from mid-fifteenth to early seventeenth centuries. Ultimately, the project enriches our understanding of the global Renaissance by disrupting binaries (self/other, Islam/Christian, European/Ottoman), thereby provoking a re- imagination of what the East and the West signify, as the lines between the two worlds are blurred and rendered permeable. Looking afresh at early modern sexualities through a global perspective, it offers additional queer and postcolonial methodologies for a historicist contrapuntal analysis. The transcultural and the queer converge through the figure of the boy as he circulates within the aesthetic, commercial, and erotic economies shaping Anglo-Ottoman interactions, which in turn highlights a Renaissance without fixed cultural borders. This, therefore, brings to our attention a queerer Renaissance that provides us with valuable insights into our contemporary problems regarding sexuality, gender, race, Islamophobia, orientalism, and cultural imperialism. Copyright by ABDULHAMIT ARVAS 2016 To Sıddık Arvas, my father and greatest role model, who left the world so early… His memory always reminds me of who I am, and what it means to pursue knowledge no matter where. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am fortunate to be surrounded by a wide network of teachers, mentors, advisors, peers, and friends whose support, insights, suggestions, and other forms of assistance have been invaluable in completing this project. I am deeply grateful to my dissertation committee; each one of them read every chapter attentively and timely: Jyotsna Singh, Tamar Boyadjiyan, Stephen Deng, Ellen McCallum, and Valerie Traub. I owe a lot to Jyotsna’s support and mentorship since my first day at MSU. Her truly global perspective and guidance made this project possible. She was always there for me with her Sufi wisdom, sharp mind, and stimulating intellect. I cannot imagine a better advisor! I especially thank Valerie Traub, for all the tremendous amount of time she devoted to my project from the beginning. Her game-changing questions, attentive critique and insights, and encouragement shaped this project tremendously. I extend my gratitude to Stephen, Ellen, and Tamar for always pushing me to do better with timely responses and suggestions. Also, thanks to my undergraduate advisor, Serpil Oppermann, and master’s advisor, Craig Dionne, who never ceased to guide me. A number of friends, who read parts of this project, enriched it with their insights in many ways. My thanks go to Cajetan Iheka, Goran Stanivukovic, Dan Vitkus, and Bronwen Wilson. For engaging conversations that improved my thinking about the project, I thank David Halperin, Gayle Rubin, Joseph Boone, Jeff Masten, William West, Wendy Wall, Bernadette Andrea, Will Fisher, Matthew Dimmock, Jon Burton, Mario DiGangi, William Spurlin, Ania Loomba, Selim Kuru, and Walter Andrews. Thanks to Emine Evered who generously made time to read Ottoman Turkish together. I am grateful to the English faculty at MSU for all of their support and for making the department my home for years, especially Stephen Rachman, Salah vi Hassan, Scott Michaelsen, Ken Harrow, and Zarena Aslami. I am thankful to summer seminarians at the University of Cambridge for their insights as well as friendships: Ivana, Rob, Anu, VK, Miriana, Chris, and Bill. I thank helpful librarians at Topkapi Palace, Suleymaniye Library, University of Cambridge Map Library, and University of Michigan Map Library, in particular Karl Longstreth of Clark Library at Michigan for making map collections so accessible for me. My thanks go to my dear friends for our conversations, dinners, parties, intimacies, gossips, and travels: Ilyas, Zeynep, Mucahit, Niyazi, Fatih, Seyhun, Fatma, Bilge, CJ, Miguel, Jerico, Nate, Hanan, Sarah, Connor, Neal, Megan, Sandra, Andrew, Janet, Susan, Peter, Steven, Rostom, Amber, Kirk, Selin, David, Nevin, Serdar, and Roger and Joanne. I especially thank Tyler and Jorge for productively challenging conversations about this project, and their warm friendship; you two kept me sane during my final year! Finally, I thank my family who has always supported me emotionally since the first day I left Turkey for the US to pursue my graduate studies. Their love, especially my mom’s strength, kept me stronger: Mukaddes sultan, Emin abi, Ilknur abla, Canan, Ahmet, Faruk, Abdullah, Gülşah yenge, Hamit enişte, Hatice, and Bahattin. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES……………………………………………………………………………… x INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………………..….1 Queering The Global Renaissance: Traveling Boys in Anglo Ottoman Encounters……………...1 I. The Beautiful Boy in Connected Histories……………………………………………...1 II. The Ottomans in the Renaissance or The New Romans……………………………….8 III. The Ottomans in the English Imaginary……………………………………………..21 IV. Queering the Renaissance with the Ottomans……………………………………….34 V. Reading Contrapuntally……………………………………………………………....42 VI. The Abducted Boy…………………………………………………………………...46 VII. Chapter Outlines…………………………………………………………………….53 WORKS CITED……………………………………………….………………………………...57 CHAPTER I…………………………………………………………………………………..….69 Ganymedes, Ganimets, and Traveling Boys in the Renaissance Mediterranean………………...69 I. Ganymede……………………………………………………………………………...72 II. Ganimet Boys in the Ottoman Empire………………………………………………..80 III. Ganymede/Ganimet/Catamite in Travelogues……………………………………...105 IV. Hero and Leander Revisited: Leander as the Traveling Boy……………………....114 WORKS CITED ……………………………………………………………………………….123 CHAPTER II…………………………………………………………………………………....134 Indian Boys in England………………………………………………………………………....134 I. Exotic Boys in The Master/Servant Hierarchy……………………………………….137 II. “A lovely boy stolen from an Indian King”: Shakespeare’s Indian Boy…………....144 III. Indian Boys in Visual Arts: Daniel Myten’s Prince Rupert of the Rhine …………..159 WORKS CITED………………………………………………….…………………………….178 CHAPTER III. ………………………………………………………………………………....185 The Homoerotics of Conversion: Beautiful Boys of Cross-Cultural Encounters……………....185 I. The Boy of Galata in Mehmet’s Poetry……………………………………………....188 II. The Boy of the Danube in William Bleau’s Theatrum Orbis Terrarum …………….206 III. Gazing at the Boy on the Horizon…….…………………………………………….226 WORKS CITED………………………………………………….…………………………….231 CHAPTER IV………………………………………………………………………………......238 Circumcised Boys……………………………………………………………………………....238 I. “Magnificences of the Circumcision of the Turkish Princes” ……………………….241 II. Circumcision as Conversion and Fashioning the Body………………….………….247 III. Circumcision As An Utterly Confused Category…………………………………..252 IV. Circumcised English Boys………………………………………………………….261 WORKS CITED……………………………………………………………….……………….270 viii CODA………………………………………………………………………………………......274 Traveling into the Future……………………………………………………………………….274 WORKS CITED…………………………………………………….………………………….284 ix LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. “Sultan Mehmet II.” Gentile Bellini. 1479. National Gallery, London. Qtd. in Bagci et. al.12…………………………………………………….………………………………...25 Figure 2. “El Gran Turco.” c. 1460. Album. TSM. H2153, y.144a. Topkapi Palace Museum. Qtd. in Bagci et. al. 11………………….…………………...………………………………...26 Figure 3. “A Pornographic Scene.” From Tuhfet Ul-Mulk [The Gift of the Kingdom], 1773. Alain Kahn-Sriber Collection, Paris. WikiCommons..………………………………..………..45 Figure 4. Ganymede . Michelangelo, Windsor Castle, Royal Library. Qtd. in Barkan 80...……. 76 Figure 5. The Rape of