Gizem Tongo

photo gizemtongo
KRC Research Associate

Email: gizem.tongo@ames.ox.ac.uk
Academia.edu: https://oxford.academia.edu/GizemTongo

 

Research Interests: 
I am an art and cultural historian of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, with particular emphasis on the late Ottoman Empire and the Greater War period (1914–1923). My additional areas of research interest include Orientalism; modern warfare and collective memory; feminist cultural theory; and art historiography and theory. I am particularly interested in the relationship between war and culture during conflict and its aftermath. Recently, I have become increasingly interested in the histories of art collecting and the art market in the age of modernity, with particular attention to collectors as historical agents, positioned between global history and human-centred, microhistorical stories. 
I hold a doctorate in Oriental Studies from University of Oxford, St John’s College, where I was a Lord Dulverton Scholar. Upon graduation, I held postdoctoral positions at Oxford, British Institute At Ankara, and British International Research Institutes. My academic training is interdisciplinary, spanning history, art history, cultural theory, and philosophy. I am passionate about teaching and have held teaching positions at the University of Oxford, Middle East Technical University, Boğaziçi University, and Hacettepe University, where I served as Assistant Professor and Chair of the Programme of Western and Contemporary Art (2023–2025). Since 2018, I have given lectures on Ottoman art as part of the lecture series organized by the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Exhibition-making and curatorial work form an integral dimension of my scholarship. I have curated and written for exhibitions, including co-curating two major projects: “Mihri: A Migrant Painter of Modern Times / Mihri: Modern Zamanların Göçebe Ressamı” (SALT Galata, Istanbul, 2019) and “Occupied City: Politics and Daily Life in Istanbul, 1918–23 / Meşgul Şehir: İşgal İstanbul’unda Siyaset ve Gündelik Hayat, 1918–1923” (Istanbul Research Institute, 2023–2024).

 

Education:

  • D.Phil. UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies/D.Phil. in Oriental Studies, St John’s College (April 2018)
  • M.A. BOĞAZİÇİ UNIVERSITY, Department of History/ M.A. in History of Art and Architecture (June 2012)
  • M.A. UNIVERSITY OF MANCHESTER, School of Arts, Languages, and Cultures / M.A. in Post-1900 Literatures, Theories and Cultures (September 2007)
  • B.A. BOĞAZİÇİ UNIVERSITY, Department of Philosophy/ B.A. in Philosophy (September 2006) 

Current Projects:
“Ottoman Mobilities and the Making of Islamic Art Histories: The Case of Armenag Sakisian (1871–1944)” (British International Research Institutes/British Academy project)
War, Art, and the End of the Ottoman Empire (forthcoming book)

 

 

Selected Publications
Forthcoming in 2026:

  • Edited Book: (In Press, co-edited with Y. Tolga Cora and Daniel Joseph MacArthur Seal) Occupied Istanbul: Urban Politics, Culture, and Society, 1918-1923 (London: Berghahn Books, 2026).
  • Edited Book: (In Press, co-edited with Daniel Joseph MacArthur Seal) Occupied City: Politics and Daily Life in Istanbul, 1918-1923/ Meşgul Şehir: İşgal Istanbul’unda Siyaset ve Gündelik Hayat, 1918-1923 (İstanbul: İstanbul Research Institute, 2026).
  • Book Chapter: (In Press) “Birinci Dünya Savaşı, 1914 Kuşağı ve Ressam Ali Cemal” [World War I, the 1914 Generation, and the Painter Ali Cemal] in Bir Cumhuriyet Neferi: Ressam Ali Cemal Benim (İstanbul: Lebriz Kültür Sanat Yayıncılık, 2026): 25-43.
  • Article: (In Press, with Daniel-Joseph MacArthur-Seal) “Curating and Teaching Occupation: Displaying Post-Armistice Istanbul,” Journal of Ottoman and Turkish Association (Spring, 2026).
  • Book Chapter: (Forthcoming, under contract) “A Global Ottoman: Mobility, Islamic Art, and Dikran Kelekian,” in Ottoman Mobilities in the Global Nineteenth Century, edited by Belgin Turan-Özkaya and Sibel Zandi-Sayek (DeGruyter, 2026).

Published:

  • Guest Editor: “Mini Dossier: War, Occupation, and Culture: Arts, Heritage, and Istanbul, 1918-1923,” New Perspectives on Turkey, Special Issue, Vol: 71 (2024).
  • Article (peer-reviewed): “Islamic Art and Visualities of War from the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic,” co-authored with Irvin Cemil Schick, New Perspectives on Turkey, 71 (2024): 14-42. 
  • Article (peer-reviewed): “War, Occupation, and Culture: Arts, Heritage, and Istanbul, 1918-1923,” New Perspectives on Turkey, 71 (2024): 4-13. 
  • Book Chapter: “Melek Celâl Sofu, Kadın Ressamlar ve Osmanlı’nın Son on Yılı” [Melek Celâl Sofu, Women Painters and the Final Decade of the Ottoman Empire] in Unutulmuş bir Cumhuriyet Kadını: Bütün Yönleriyle Melek Celâl, edited by Ecem Arslanay and Nazan Ölçer (İstanbul: Sabancı Üniversitesi Sakıp Sabancı Müzesi, 2023): 36-55. 
  • Book: A Bibliography of Armistice-Era Istanbul, 1918-1923, co-authored with Daniel-Joseph MacArthur-Seal (London: British Institute At Ankara, 2022).
  • Guest Co-Editor: “Occupied City: Politics and Daily Life in Istanbul, 1918-1923,” co-editor: Daniel-Joseph MacArthur-Seal, YILLIK: Annual of Istanbul Studies, special issue, Issue: 4, December 2022.
  • Article (peer-reviewed): “Representing Occupied Istanbul: Documents, Objects, and Memory,” co-authored with Daniel-Joseph MacArthur-Seal, YILLIK: Annual of Istanbul Studies, Vol: 4 (2022): 91-98.
  • Book Chapter: “Militarisation and Mobilisation of the Ottoman Art World during World War I: An Internal Kulturkampf” in Artistic Expressions and the Great War, A Hundred Years On, edited by Sally Debra Charnow (Oxford; Berlin; New York: Peter Lang, 2020): 129-154.
  • Review Article: “The Long Shadow of a Decade in Turkish Memory: A Centenary of War, 1912-1923,” Archiv orientální: Journal of African and Asian Studies, Vol. 88, No: 3 (2020): 613-617. 
  • Book Chapter: “An Ambivalent Patriot: Namık İsmail, the First World War, and the Politics of Remembrance in Turkey,” in Portraits of Remembrance: Painting, Memory, and the First World War, edited by Margaret Hutchinson and Steven Trout (Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 2020): 85-102.
  • Book Chapter: “‘Civilisation and Competence’: Displaying Ottoman War Paintings to Their Allies,’” in The Great War in the Middle East: A Clash of Empires, edited by Rob Johnson and James Kitchen (London; New York: Routledge, 2019): 275-307.
  • Guest Co-Editor: Osmanlı’dan Cumhuriyet’e Bir Kadın Ressam: Mihri [From the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Republic: A Woman Painter, Mihri], co-editor: Özlem Gülin Dağoğlu, Toplumsal Tarih, special issue, No: 303, March 2019.
  • Article: “Ressam Mihri’nin İstanbul Söyleşisi (1919),” Toplumsal Tarih, 303 (March 2019): 54-58. 
  • Article (peer-reviewed): “Eleni Iliadis (1895-1975): An Ottoman Greek Woman Painter in end-of-Empire Istanbul,” CLIO. Femmes, Genre, Histoire, No: 48, Issue: 2 (2018): 55-78.
  • Book Chapter: “Between Memory and History: Remembering Johnnies, Mehmets, and the Armenians,” co-authored with Jenny Macleod, in Beyond Gallipoli: New Perspectives on Anzac, edited by Raelene Frances and Bruce Scates (Melbourne: Monash University Publishing, 2016): 21-34.
  • Article (peer-reviewed): “Artist and Revolutionary: Panos Terlemezian as an Ottoman Armenian Painter,” Études arméniennes contemporaines, no. 6, December (2015): 111-153.

Other Selected Publications 

Curated Exhibitions:

  • Occupied City: Politics and Daily Life in Istanbul, 1918-1923/ Meşgul Şehir: İşgal Istanbul’unda Siyaset ve Gündelik Hayat, 1918-1923 (co-curator with Daniel-Joseph MacArthur-Seal), Istanbul Research Institute, 11 January 2023-27 April 2024. 
  • Mihri: A Migrant Painter of Modern Times/ Mihri: Modern Zamanların Göçebe Ressamı (co-curator with Özlem Gülin Dağoğlu), Salt Galata Istanbul, 7 March-9 June 2019.