SOAS, University of London (The School of Oriental and African Studies)

Overview

Department of History

Senior Teaching Fellow

Name:

Mr Michael Talbot

Email address:

michael.talbot@soas.ac.uk

Address:

SOAS, University of London
Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG

Building:

Russell Square: College Buildings

Office No:

311

Office Hours:

Fridays 4-5pm

Thesis title:

British diplomacy in the Ottoman Empire during the long eighteenth-century.

Year of Study:

2009/2010 (year started)

Internal Supervisors

• Benjamin Fortna

PhD Research

My research focuses on British diplomatic practice and culture in the Ottoman Empire in the period c.1680-1810, when the embassy in Istanbul was run by the Levant Company and when British diplomacy shifted its focus from the purely commercial interests of the Company to the economic and political imperatives of the Crown. I am primarily using the extensive records of the Levant Company and its Ambassadors, as well as records from the Ottoman Archives and the French Diplomatic Archives. Through examining specific aspects of diplomacy, such as mediation, gift-exchange, and espionage, I aim to chart the changing views of the British towards the Ottomans, the developments in how both polities viewed their relationship, and how they both approached and defined diplomacy in general.

PhD Conferences

• 'The culture of diplomatic gift-exchange in eighteenth-century British-Ottoman relations', paper presented at the Global Commodities: the Material Culture of Early Modern Connections, 1400-1800 conference, University of Warwick, 12-14 December 2012.
• 'Accessing the Shadow of God on Earth: gifts, feasts, and humiliation in Ottoman diplomatic ceremonial', paper presented at the ESF PALATIUM/Research Foundation Flanders/The Society of Court Studies/Huygens Institute conference, The Key to Power? The Culture of Access in Early Modern Courts, 1400-1700, University of Antwerp, 8-9 November 2012.
• 'Corporate diplomacy: the British embassy in Istanbul in the eighteenth century', paper presented at the British Scholar Society's Britain and the World conference, Edinburgh University, 21-23 June 2012.
• 'Trade and diplomacy in the finances of the Levant Company during the eighteenth century', paper presented at the Economic History Society annual conference, Oxford University, 30 March-1 April 2012.
• 'Defining maritime territoriality: British privateers and Ottoman privateer lines, c. 1690 - c. 1790', paper presented at the Well-Connected Domains: Intersections of Asia and Europe in the Ottoman Empire conference, Heidelberg University, 10-12 November 2011.
• 'Trends in British-Ottoman diplomatic gift exchange, 1693-1810', paper presented at the Ottoman-European Exchanges in Commerce, Finance and Culture conference, Cambridge University, 28-30 March 2011.
• 'British Restorationism in Ottoman Palestine, 1753-1842', paper presented at The Modern History of the British Abroad conference, Newcastle UK, 1-2 April 2010.

PhD Affiliations

• The British Scholar Society - http://britishscholar.org/
• Economic History Society - http://www.ehs.org.uk/default.asp