Key dates: Deadline for submission of abstracts and panel proposals: 5 February 2016 Accepted papers and panels announced: 15 April 2016 Deadline for paper submission: 16 September 2016 Conference dates: 18-19 November 2016 Deadline for submission of revised papers for peer-review and inclusion in conference publication: 20 January 2017 Publication of conference proceedings: Autumn/Fall 2017 For further details please contact: Aran Byrne Gingko Library, 70 Cadogan Place, London SW1X 9AH Tel: +44 (0)20 7838 9055 Fax: +44 (0)20 7584 9501 aran@gingkolibrary.com www.gingkolibrary.com

1. The Mercantile Effect:
On art and exchange in the Islamicate world during 17th - 18th centuries
The Courtauld Institute of Art − Pera Museum − Gingko Library
Conference, 18-19 November 2016
Istanbul and London
Convened by
Dr Sussan Babaie, The Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London
Dr Melanie Gibson, Editor of the Gingko Library Arts Series
Dr Barbara Schwepcke, Gingko Library
From Agra to Aleppo, Bandar Abbas to Marseilles, Cairo to Canton, Goa to Zanzibar; peoples as diverse as Armenians,
Chinese, Arabs, Persians and Europeans, traversed long distances along land and maritime trade routes moving art
things and their attendant ideas, ideals, and technologies. The development of mercantile networks and global trade
routes in the early modern period relied on the emergence of new institutional and cultural methods of exchange. The
formulation of diverse collective ventures was organized through the Dutch, English and French East India companies
and additionally by the establishment of a colonial presence in the New World by the Dutch and Portuguese, ensuring
a territorial sphere of power and increased influence through trade. Material culture – including building ideas –
connected aspirations towards prestigious foreign and exotic objects, new luxuries in manufactured textiles, inlaid
metalwork, paper products, glazed ceramic and painted porcelain vessels.
This conference invites papers that take a trans-disciplinary approach, looking at the specifics of art objects and ideas.
The focus will be on those regions where Islam was the religion of the majority and informed the cultural position, but
did not necessarily impose a religious mandate for action in the making and exchange of goods. We ask for reflections
through art things and material culture on the mechanisms of exchange and transmission of ideas and their effects
on the cultural spaces between local histories and global networks within the Islamicate world in the 17th and 18th
centuries. The conference takes place in Istanbul, a city whose long history as a nexus of trade and cultural exchange
embodies many of the possibilities of this intellectual inquiry.
˜
Abstracts for papers should be submitted by Friday 5th February 2016 to Aran Byrne (contact details below). Papers
should present original research, which expands the boundaries of knowledge and which the scholars would like
considered for publication. Proposals should be no more than 300 words long. Speakers will be given 15-20 minutes
to present their papers at the conference.
call for papers
GINGKO
LIBRARY

2. Key dates:
Deadline for submission of abstracts and panel proposals: 5 February 2016
Accepted papers and panels announced: 15 April 2016
Deadline for paper submission: 16 September 2016
Conference dates: 18-19 November 2016
Deadline for submission of revised papers for
peer-review and inclusion in conference publication: 20 January 2017
Publication of conference proceedings: Autumn/Fall 2017
For further details please contact: Aran Byrne
Gingko Library, 70 Cadogan Place, London SW1X 9AH
Tel: +44 (0)20 7838 9055 Fax: +44 (0)20 7584 9501
aran@gingkolibrary.com
www.gingkolibrary.com
The Gingko conference series brings together scholars from the East and the West. The Gingko conferences are
designed to complement the Gingko Library, a project to publish one hundred books over the next ten years that
present the latest work in all languages and across the full range of humanities, social sciences and sciences relating
to the MENA region.
The conference will include a gala reception on the evening of Friday 17 November. Hosted by Professor Baha
Tanman; the gala will launch the first title to be published in the Gingko Library Art Series, Art, Trade, and Culture
in the Near East and India: From the Fatimids to the Mughals, to which Professor Tanman has contributed. A literary
event on the evening of Saturday 18 November on the theme of ‘From the West-östlicher Divan to the Payam-e-
Mashriq’ will conclude the conference.
The presentations and discussions will be recorded and live-streamed to an audience at the Courtauld Institute of Art
in London, and online to reach the widest possible audience.
Funding opportunities to cover travel and accommodation are available for scholars selected to speak at the conference.
Selected papers delivered at the conference will be published together in a volume in the Gingko Library, following
peer review. Speakers at the conference may also develop their papers into book-length proposals to be submitted to
the Gingko Library.
˜
The Courtauld Institute of Art is the world’s leading centre for the study of art history, conservation and curating.
The Gingko Library is a registered charity (no. 1158548). It is committed to fostering intercultural dialogue and better
understanding between the West and the MENA region.
The Pera Museum is a private museum founded by the Suna and İnan Kıraç Foundation with the aim of offering an
outstanding range of diverse high quality culture and art services. The Pera Museum has evolved to become a leading
and distinguished cultural center in one of the liveliest quarters of Istanbul.