Dr. Radha Dalal to Give Online Talk at University of London

Dr. Radha Dalal, the Director of our Art History department, will be giving an online talk titled, “Garden Culture Translations: An Ottoman Garden in an American Space” on Thursday, February 17, from 6PM to 7:30PM GMT (9PM to 10:30PM Doha time) at the Institute of Historical Research, which is part of the University of London’s School of Advanced Study.

She will be talking about the Bakewell Ottoman Garden, which is part of the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, in the US. 

Its claim as the “only known public Ottoman garden in the world” hints at differing readings of social consumption in the cultivation of a domesticated foreign landscape, as opposed to the centuries-long distinction between, and development of, private and public spheres in the Ottoman realm. 

Fascination with Ottoman gardens, as exotic novelties, was a common subject in travel literature, prints, and painting from early modern times. 

Dr. Radha’s paper on the Bakewell Ottoman Garden, which is based on travelers’ observations during the 18th and 19th centuries and scholarship on Ottoman garden culture, explores the Bakewell garden’s spatial dynamics as a creative facet to suit its contemporary adoptive culture. 

It argues that the positioning of the garden, its intimate size, its architectural features, and the choreography of organic elements straddle Ottoman conceptions of private and public space while maintaining a democratic and gender-neutral appeal within its American context.

The seminar is free to attend but booking is required.

Register now by clicking on this link https://www.history.ac.uk/events/garden-culture-translations-ottoman-garden-american-space

Dr. Radha is the co-editor of the “Seas and the Mobility of Islamic Art” (Yale University Press, 2021). She is working on a monograph project titled “The Khilafat Movement and Print Media in British India and Ottoman Turkey, 1919-1924”. She serves as the vice-president of the Society for Global Nineteenth-Century Studies.