In this episode, I talk to Professor Tunç Şen, Assistant Professor at the Department of History of Columbia University. He is a historian of the Ottoman Empire interested in intellectual, cultural, and political history. Is PhD thesis “Astrology in the Service of the Empire: Knowledge, Prognostication, and Politics at the Ottoman Court, 1450s-1550s” (2016) focuses the astrological practices and practitioners of the Ottoman Court.

For more see on his work, see: https://history.columbia.edu/person/tunc-a-sen/

Some related articles:

“Books on Astrology, Astronomical Tables, and Almanacs in the Library Inventory of Bayezid II (co-authored with Cornell H. Fleischer,” in Treasures of Knowledge: An Inventory of the Ottoman Palace Library (1502/3-1503/4), eds. Gülru Necipoğlu, Cemal Kafadar, Cornell H. Fleischer (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 767-821.

“Reading the Stars at the Ottoman Court: Bāyezīd II (r. 886/1481-918/1512) andhis Celestial Interests,” Arabica 64/3-4 (2017): 557-608.

“Practicing Astral Magic in Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Istanbul: A Treatise onTalismans attributed to Ibn Kemāl (d. 1534),” Journal of Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft 12 (2017): 66- 88.