Join us on January 28 at 11 am PT for a virtual talk by Dr. Amila Buturovic (Professor, Department of Humanities at the University of York) on “Between Loss and Recovery: Cross-Confessional Health Culture in Ottoman Bosnia.” This event is hosted by the UBC Interdisciplinary Histories Research Cluster and co-sponsored by the CENES Department, the UBC Institute for European Studies, and the UBC Centre for Migration Studies.
Register here: https://histories-cluster.ubc.ca/events/between-loss-and-recovery-cross-confessional-health-culture-ottoman-bosnia
Title: “Between Loss and Recovery: Cross-Confessional Health Culture in Ottoman Bosnia”
Abstract: This study focuses on medical pluralism in Ottoman Bosnia through its confessional differences, medical theories, and curative practices. Given that medical knowledge circulated inter-regionally, between Europe and the Ottoman Empire, as well as intra-regionally, among Muslims, Catholics, Orthodox Christians, and Jews, the study sheds light on how premodern Bosnians negotiated their lives between local and trans-local values and systems of knowledge. A broader aim is to recalibrate the understanding of this historical period by focusing on the examples of cultural intimacy and cross-confessional dynamics drawn along the ideas and practices of healing. Primary sources include material and non-material culture, written multi-lingual sources that include treatises on medicine and religious healing; talismanic texts and amulets; herbalist and pharmaceutical manuals; and archival records that reflect the interactive and cross-confessional spirit of healing in Ottoman Bosnia.
Bio: Amila Buturovic’s research interests span the intersections of religion and culture, primarily in the context of Islamic societies. Her latest book concerned the spaces and culture of death in Bosnia and Herzegovina, focusing on the questions of continuity and discontinuity in eschatological sensibilities, epigraphic texts, and commemorative practices in Bosnian cultural history. Currently, she is doing research on the culture of health in Ottoman Bosnia, investigating mainstream and alternative healers and healing practices and focusing on the interconfessional transmission of medical theories and manuals, amulets and talismanic practices, and herbalism.
