Art History Speaker Series: Faisal Husain on “Hunting Too Much”

March 13, 2024, 12-1:15 p.m.

Zoom: https://boisestate.zoom.us/j/93024115550

The Boise State Department of Art, Design and Visual Studies and the Visiting Artist and Scholar Program are pleased to present Faisal Husain, Assistant Professor of History at Penn State, as part of their 2023-2024 Art History Speaker Series: “Extinction.”

Husain is an environmental historian of the Ottoman Empire, with a geographical focus on its eastern provinces in Anatolia and Iraq. His first book, Rivers of the Sultan, examined the role of the Tigris and Euphrates in the establishment of Ottoman state institutions in the Ottoman eastern frontier between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. The book won the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association’s Book Prize and was a finalist for the American Society for Environmental History’s George Perkins Marsh Prize.

Husain will present on “Hunting Too Much: Case Studies of Joy and Remorse from Early Modern Turkey, Iran, and India.”

Abstract: In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the court cultures of the Ottoman, Safavid and Mughal empires shared many things in common—religion, system of dynastic succession, literary tradition, Turkic-Mongol heritage, and gender roles, among other things. This talk focuses on one of the favorite pastime activities Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal elites also shared—big game hunting. For elites of these three Eurasian courts, hunting served symbolic, military, political, and leisurely purposes. The talk will discuss the many facets of royal hunting and then outline some of the most extreme cases of animal slaughter during these hunting expeditions. The talk concludes with the case of one royal in the late sixteenth century who felt deep remorse during one of his massive hunts, after which he shorn his top hair, adopted vegetarianism, and ordered his entourage to let his captured animals freed, rather than slaughtered en mass.

To participate, please utilize the Zoom link below:

https://boisestate.zoom.us/j/93024115550

This event is free and open to the public.

This event has been generously supported by funding from the Boise State School of the Arts.