Creating East And West: Renaissance Humanists And The Ottoman Turks
by Nancy Bisaha /
2006 / English / PDF
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As the Ottoman Empire advanced westward from the fourteenth to
the sixteenth centuries, humanists responded on a grand scale,
leaving behind a large body of fascinating yet understudied
works. These compositions included Crusade orations and
histories; ethnographic, historical, and religious studies of the
Turks; epic poetry; and even tracts on converting the Turks to
Christianity. Most scholars have seen this vast literature as
atypical of Renaissance humanism. Nancy Bisaha now offers an
in-depth look at the body of Renaissance humanist works that
focus not on classical or contemporary Italian subjects but on
the Ottoman Empire, Islam, and the Crusades. Throughout, Bisaha
probes these texts to reveal the significant role Renaissance
writers played in shaping Western views of self and other.
As the Ottoman Empire advanced westward from the fourteenth to
the sixteenth centuries, humanists responded on a grand scale,
leaving behind a large body of fascinating yet understudied
works. These compositions included Crusade orations and
histories; ethnographic, historical, and religious studies of the
Turks; epic poetry; and even tracts on converting the Turks to
Christianity. Most scholars have seen this vast literature as
atypical of Renaissance humanism. Nancy Bisaha now offers an
in-depth look at the body of Renaissance humanist works that
focus not on classical or contemporary Italian subjects but on
the Ottoman Empire, Islam, and the Crusades. Throughout, Bisaha
probes these texts to reveal the significant role Renaissance
writers played in shaping Western views of self and other.
Medieval concepts of Islam were generally informed and
constrained by religious attitudes and rhetoric in which Muslims
were depicted as enemies of the faith. While humanist thinkers of
the Renaissance did not move entirely beyond this stance,
Medieval concepts of Islam were generally informed and
constrained by religious attitudes and rhetoric in which Muslims
were depicted as enemies of the faith. While humanist thinkers of
the Renaissance did not move entirely beyond this stance,Creating East and West
Creating East and West argues that their understanding was
considerably more complex, in that it addressed secular and
cultural issues, marking a watershed between the medieval and
modern. Taking a close look at a number of texts, Bisaha expands
current notions of Renaissance humanism and of the history of
cross-cultural perceptions. Engaging both traditional methods of
intellectual history and more recent methods of cross-cultural
studies, she demonstrates that modern attitudes of Western
societies toward other cultures emerged not during the later
period of expansion and domination but rather as a defensive
intellectual reaction to a sophisticated and threatening power to
the East.
argues that their understanding was
considerably more complex, in that it addressed secular and
cultural issues, marking a watershed between the medieval and
modern. Taking a close look at a number of texts, Bisaha expands
current notions of Renaissance humanism and of the history of
cross-cultural perceptions. Engaging both traditional methods of
intellectual history and more recent methods of cross-cultural
studies, she demonstrates that modern attitudes of Western
societies toward other cultures emerged not during the later
period of expansion and domination but rather as a defensive
intellectual reaction to a sophisticated and threatening power to
the East.