Can Gümüş-İspir

Boğaziçi University, Atatürk Institute for Modern Turkish History

2025 Co-winner (Humanities)

The Politics of Hygiene: Public Health and Urban Transformation in Late Ottoman Istanbul

In a masterful work of urban environmental history, Dr. Can Gümüş‑İspir traces how a fragmented, tradition-based approach to public health in Ottoman Istanbul transformed into a systematic, science‑driven framework at the turn of the twentieth century. Using an eclectic and creatively deployed source base, notably death registers called Vefeyât Defterleri, she argues that the novel “sanitary-bacteriological synthesis” in the Ottoman understanding of disease and hygiene emerged through contested negotiations across four critical domains: food, water, sewers, and burial practices. Her study deftly recasts the making of a modern Middle Eastern city, not through its grand boulevards and clock towers, but through its contested sewers, cemeteries, and water pipes.

The dissertation was completed at Boğaziçi University in the Atatürk Institute for Modern Turkish History under the supervision of Cengiz Kırlı

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