Experiencing the Landscapes of Medieval Anatolia

Trépanier, Nicolas

Utilises landscape phenomenology to investigate medieval Anatolian social history
The first major study by a historian to use landscape phenomenology, an approach which has shaped landscape archaeology over the past quarter-century
Of relevance to historians and archaeologists, but also other scholars of landscape studies (in anthropology, geography, etc.)
Presents an original methodology usable by historians in most other premodern contexts
One of very few studies in the social history of medieval Anatolia, a small but rapidly expanding area of research
Drawn from sources in multiple languages (Persian, Turkish, Arabic) as well as archaeological material and original fieldwork
Approaches the medieval Anatolian context as point of intercultural comparison, offering new perspectives on our own contemporary experiences of place
What does it mean to be somewhere? To what extent, and in which specific ways, is the way we experience the land historically—and therefore culturally—specific?
In Landscape and Experience in Medieval Anatolia, Nicolas Trépanier explores how travellers, urban elites and peasants related to the rural territory of medieval Anatolia, revealing how the same land could generate profoundly different experiences in a time of transition from Byzantine to Muslim rule.
Through its use of landscape phenomenology, the book offers historians not only an alternative to the ‘Spatial Turn’ that concentrates on historical subjectivities, but also an epistemologically-grounded way to integrate fieldwork into their research. It also proposes a new perspective on the phenomenological approaches that have polarized landscape archaeology over the recent decades. More than anything else, however, this book shows readers of any background how history can provide fresh perspectives on our own modern experiences of the land.