The Gennadius Library is pleased to invite you to a lecture:
An Architectural Revolution in Ali Pasha’s Epirus
by Emily Neumeier (Temple University).
Abstract
In this talk, we will delve into the history of Ottoman architecture from the edge of empire, all through the patronage of Ali Pasha of Epirus. On the eve of the Greek War of Independence, this upstart governor came to rule a vast domain that comprised what is now much of northern Greece and southern Albania. Ali Pasha transformed this territory with his own revolutionary approach to architecture that operated within, but also posed a challenge to, the imperial order. This is especially the case with epigraphic inscriptions–by the nineteenth century, there were firm standards for the creation of public texts in the Ottoman Empire, and Ali Pasha defied these norms at every turn. This presentation will explore how the governor commissioned multiple epigraphic inscriptions in Greek verse, a format echoing local folk song, that all emphasize Ali Pasha’s local roots and the legitimacy of his rule. These texts stand as important material evidence of the governor’s efforts to inscribe his personal brand of politics onto the landscape of Epirus.
The lecture will be in English.
About the speaker
Emily Neumeier is an Assistant Professor of Art History at Temple University in Philadelphia, specializing in the art and architecture of the eastern Mediterranean during the Ottoman era. She is the author of Architectural Revolution on the Ottoman Frontier: Greece and Albania in the Age of Ali Pasha (Penn State Press, 2025) and co-editor of the volume Hagia Sophia in the Long Nineteenth Century (Edinburgh University Press, 2024).
Her archival and field research has been supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities, Getty Research Institute, American Council of Learned Societies, American Research Institute in Turkey, and the Fulbright Program.
Before coming to Temple, she was a Research Collaborator in the Max Planck Research Group “Objects in the Contact Zone: The Cross-Cultural Lives of Things” at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence, Italy.