Ahmet Tunç Şen: “Apart from the textual content of manuscripts, there are many things that can be done with non-text notes.”

Ahmet Tunç Şen: “Apart from the textual content of manuscripts, there are many things that can be done with non-text notes.”

Samsun University Centre of Art and Thought hosted Colombia University lecturer Dr. Ahmet Tunç Şen, moderated by Cumhur Bekar and Cevat Sucu within the scope of “Öteki Buluşmalar” 2021. With his speech titled “Notes on Manuscripts, Chronic Feelings: Ottoman Ulema and Their Emotional Worlds” on an online program, Şen explained his thoughts on the subject.

“I wanted to examine manuscripts and the world of non-textual notes that fall into manuscripts.”

Stating that the starting point of the speech was the research he conducted during his doctorate period, Dr. Ahmet Tunç Şen said “The starting point of my speech today is some details and notes that I encountered during my doctoral research on ‘Nücum’ books. Therefore, I will talk about nücum a little in the context of today’s speech. It all started with a note on the page that you have seen behind me. This booklet you saw behind me is written about the use of an astronomical instrument. A very short, one-leaf Arabic booklet. The note here is completely independent of the content of the booklet. It caught my attention as a note that could open the door to the emotional state of a scholar in the Ottoman scholarship. After that, the issue of who might have dropped this note grew and became complicated. What I am going to try to do here today is to show what this kind of material can say about different phases of historicism. It is possible to talk about three or four different fields. At the beginning of these is digging into the world of manuscripts and non-textual notes in manuscripts.”

“The various notes written in the chapters at the back of the books form part of these non-text notes.”

Referring to the non-text notes issue, Şen continued his words and said, “I see many valuable researchers working on manuscripts among us. As those who work with manuscripts know very well, many things can be done with non-text notes. By the way, I am saying this non-text notes phrase inspired by Süheyl Ünver. It has been used as a paratext in English in recent years. But Süheyl Ünver translated this term into Turkish even in some of the articles he wrote in the 1950s and 60s within the framework of his manuscript’s expertise. What do we mean by these non-text notes? First, the various notes in the sections behind the cover form part of the non-text notes. You can use temellük kaydı.”

“We often come across information such as medical prescriptions, medication descriptions, birth charts, dates of birth, and death in non-textual notes.”

Ahmet Tunç Şen also said, “In manuscripts, we frequently come across information such as medical prescriptions, medication descriptions, birth charts, and dates of birth and death. The copying records, that is, lines that tell when, by whom, under what conditions a text was copied are also very valuable resources. In this regard, a very valuable study of Sami Arslan has been published recently. Apart from these, there are a variety of notes that can be found on the narrow edges of the text. All these non-textual notes are very rich, very wide, and on the other hand, a complex pile of materials that cannot be easily classified. How can these be dealt with?”

The speech titled “Notes on Manuscripts, Chronic Feelings: Ottoman Ulema and Their Emotional Worlds” ended with the active participation, questions, and contributions of the audience.