Giancarlo Casale

History

1237 Heller Hall

271 19th Ave S
Minneapolis, MN 55455

Collegiate Affiliation

I am a historian of the Ottoman empire and its many connections with the early modern world. My current research explores intersections between the intellectual life of the Ottoman Empire and Renaissance Italy, with a particular interest in antiquarianism, cartography, cosmography, and other forms of early modern science. I also have a deep interest in the history of travel literature and ethnographic writing, early modern diplomacy, and the history of maritime technology, as well as the comparative study of early modern empires and early modern slavery. In addition to my teaching and research, I am currently on the editorial boards of several scientific journals, including Renaissance Quarterly, Medieval Encounters, and Arabic Humanities. I am also a co-editor of the Brill monograph series Translating Cultures in the Early Modern World and, since 2011, I have served as executive editor of the Journal of Early Modern History.

I am currently on leave from the University of Minnesota through September 2023, as the research chair in Early Modern Mediterranean history at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy.

Educational Background & Specialties

Open Close

Educational Background

PhD: History and Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University, 2004

Specialties

Ottoman Empire
Pre-modern and early modern world history
Modern Turkey

Publications

Open Close

Publications

Prisoner of the Infidels: The Memoir of an Ottoman Muslim in Seventeenth-Century Europe by Osman of Timişoara (Oakland: University of California Press, 2021).
“Regrets, I’ve Had A Few: The Global Life of Francesco Giustiniani, Venetian Renegade,” in María Vincente Martín & Tilmann Kulke, ed., From Florence to Goa and Beyond: Essays in Early Modern Global History, in honor of Jorge Flores (Firenze, E.U.I. Press, 2021), 67-81.
“Le Conquiste di Cortés al Palazzo Topkapı: Una microstoria globale?” in Vittoria Fiorelli, ed., Tracce di Impero: Cortés tra Napoli e Nuovo Occidente (Napoli: Editoriale Scientifica, 2020), 79-102.
“Invented Tradition and the Ottoman Worldview,” Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association, 7/1 (2020): 20-24.
“Did Alexander the Great Discover America? Debating Space and Time in Renaissance Istanbul,” Renaissance Quarterly 72/3 (2019): 863-909.
Ruyyās al-Baḥr al-Hindī: ʿAṣr al-Istikshāf al-ʿOthmānī [Arabic translation of The Ottoman Age of Exploration, with original preface from the author], translated by Mostafa Kassem (Kuwait: Alam al-Maʿrifa, 2018).
“Vespucci and the Ottomans: New Worlds for All? A Description of the Americas in Seydi Ali Reis’s Book of the Surrounding Sea,” in Angelo Cattaneo and Francisco Contente Domingues, eds., Mundus Novus: New Worlds, Ancient Worlds (Bern: Peter Lang, 2018), pp. 193-203.
Political Theory and Early Modern Frontiers (A special issue of the Journal of Early Modern History), 19, no.6 (2015).
Casale, Giancarlo. “Tordesillas and the Ottoman Caliphate: Early Modern Frontiers and the Renaissance of an Ancient Islamic Institution”. 2015.
“The Islamic Empires of the Early Modern World,” in Jerry Bentley, Merry Wiesner-Hanks, and Sanjay Subrahmanyam eds., Cambridge World History, Vol.6: The Construction of a Global World, 1400-1800 CE, Part 1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), pp.323-346.
“Ottoman Warships in the Indian Ocean Armada of 1538: A Quantitative and Statistical Analysis,” in Dejanirah Couto, Feza Günergün and Maria Pia Pedani, eds., Seapower, Technology and Trade: Studies in Turkish Maritime History (Istanbul: Denizler Kitabevi, 2014), 89-102.
Casale, Giancarlo. “Seeing the Past: Maps and Ottoman Historical Consciousness,” in Erdem Çipa and Emine Fetvac?, Writing History at the Ottoman Court: Editing the Past, Fashioning the Future (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013), 80-99.
Casale, Giancarlo. “From Hungary to Southeast Asia: The Ali Macar Reis Atlas in Global Perspective,” The Journal of Ottoman Studies 39/1 (2012): 55-62
Casale, Giancarlo. “Imperial Smackdown: The Portuguese between Imamate and Caliphate in the Persian Gulf,” in Rudi Matthee and Jorge Flores, eds., Portugal, The Persian Gulf, and Safavid Persia (Leuven: Peeters, 2011), 177-90.
Casale, Giancarlo. “16 Yüyila ait Türkçe Dünya Haritasinda Avrupa Düsüncesi,” in Dejanirah Couto, ed., Harp ve Sulh: Avrupa ve Osmanlilar, trans. Sirin Tekeli (Istanbul: Kitap Yayinevi, 2010), 57-82.
Casale, Giancarlo, Carla Rahn Phillips, Lisa Norling. "Introduction to 'The Social History of the Sea' Special Issue." Journal of Early Modern History 14/1-2 (2010): 1-7.
Casale, Giancarlo. The Ottoman Age of Exploration. Oxford University Press, 2010.
Casale, Giancarlo. "Ottoman 'Guerre de Course' and the Intercontinental Spice Trade." Itinerario 32/1 (2008): 59-79.
Casale, Giancarlo. "An Ottoman Intelligence Report from the Mid Sixteenth-Century Indian Ocean." Journal of Turkish Studies 31/1 (2007): 181-88.
Casale, Giancarlo. "The Ethnic Composition of Ottoman Ship Crews and the 'Rumi Challenge' to Portuguese Identity." Medieval Encounters 13 (2007): 122-144.
Casale, Giancarlo. "The Ottoman 'Discovery' of the Indian Ocean in the 16th Century." Seascapes: Maritime Histories, Global Cultures, and Trans-Oceanic Exchanges (2007): 87-104.
Casale, Giancarlo. "Global Politics in the 1580s: One Canal, Twenty Thousand Cannibals, and an Ottoman Plot to Rule the World." Journal of World History 18 (2007): 267-296.
Casale, Giancarlo. "The Ottoman Administration of the Spice Trade in the Sixteenth-Century Red Sea and Persian Gulf." Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 49 49/2 (2006): 170-198.
Casale, Giancarlo. "His Majesty's Servant Lutfi: The career of a previously unknown sixteenth-century Ottoman envoy to Sumatra based on an account of his travels from...." Turcica 37 (2005): 43-81.

Activities

Open Close

Activities

Professional

Executive Editor: Journal of Early Modern History.
Series Editor: Early Modern Cultures in Translation (Brill)
Editorial Board Member, Renaissance Quarterly, 2019-present
Editorial Board Member, Medieval Encounters, 2005-present
Editorial Board Member, Arabian Humanities, 2012-present
Editorial Board Member, A EstOvest monograph series, Textus Edizioni, 2019-present
Editorial Board Member, Connessioni: Studies in Transcultural History, Firenze U. Press, 2021-present
Editorial Board Member, Expansion in History monograph series, Brill, 2018-present
Editorial Board Member, Translatio monograph series, Durham U/IMEMS press, 2021-present
Scientific Board Member, Hamsa: Revista de Estudos Judaicos e Islâmicos, 2010–present
Editorial Board Member, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 2010-2013

Awards

Open Close

Awards

Nelson Prize from the Renaissance Society of America, 2020
McKnight Land Grant Professorship, 2009 - 2011
Koc Senior Research Fellow in Anatolian Civilizations, Spring 2009
Institute for Advanced Studies Fellowship, University of Minnesota, Fall 2008
NEH/ARIT Post-Doctoral Fellow, 2004 - 2005
Fulbright-Hayes Research Fellow, 2002 - 2003
Villa I Tatti Senior Research Fellowship, 2012 - 2013
Morse Alumni Distinguished Teaching Award, 2014
Fernand Braudel Fellowship, European University Institute, 2017