Vanessa R. de Obaldía, Ph.D is an affiliated scholar and Ottomanist for the ERC Starting Grant project MAMEMS (Mount Athos in Medieval Eastern Mediterranean Society: Contextualizing the History of a Monastic Republic (ca. 850-1550)). She has a BA in Oriental Studies with a specialisation in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies from the University of Cambridge (2009), an MA in Islamic Law from Marmara University (2014), and a Graduate Diploma in Law from BPP University (2017). She was awarded a PhD in History by Aix-Marseille University (2018) for her thesis titled “A Legal and Historical Study of Latin Catholic Church Properties in Istanbul from the Ottoman Conquest of 1453 until 1740.”
Vanessa is undertaking two cataloguing projects with the aim of publishing Athonite and Latin Catholic Ottoman archival collections which will shed light on Christian-Muslim relations. She is also undertaking research on places of shared religious and cultural heritage as well as interreligious and interconfessional relations in Greece and Türkiye. She has gained insight and understanding into these subjects through her multidisciplinary background in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies, Law, and Ottoman History and her research undertaken in England, Greece, Jordan, Syria, and Türkiye.
Selected Publications
Vanessa R. de Obaldía and Claudio Monge (eds.). Latin Catholicism in Ottoman Istanbul: Properties, People and Missions. Istanbul: The Isis Press, 2022.
Vanessa R. de Obaldía (prep. and ed.) and Doğan Bermek (prep.). The Conversion of Spaces and Places of Worship in Anatolia. International Conference Proceedings, 10-11 April 2021. Istanbul: Alevi Düşünce Ocağı, 2022.
Damien Dessane & Vanessa R. de Obaldía (eds.). Un Coin du Bosphore Pendant la première période de la guerre européenne. Novembere 1914 – Juin 1915. Journal de guerre et Correspondance de E. Guwy – Prêtre de la Mission. Istanbul: Les Éditions Isis [forthcoming 2023].
“A Shared Space and Shared Functions: From a Latin Catholic Church to an Islamic Vakıf in Ottoman Galata,” Endowment Studies 2 (2) (2018): 133-162.
“The Preservation of Galata’s St. George Explored Through Ottoman Documents.” Annali, Sezione Orientale 80(2020): 52-79.
“Notre-Dame Du Rosaire: Insights into the Construction and Contestations of the First Dominican Church of the post-Tanẓīmāt Period.” In Latin Catholicism in Ottoman Istanbul: Properties, People and Missions, edited by Vanessa R. de Obaldía and Claudio Monge, 139-163. Istanbul: The Isis Press, 2022.
“Giresun Children’s Library: The Curious Case of a Republican Era Conversion of a Latin Catholic Church in the Black Sea Region.” In The Conversion of Spaces and Places of Worship in Anatolia. International Conference Proceedings, 10-11 April 2021, prepared by Doğan Bermek and prepared and edited by Vanessa R. de Obaldía, 164-183. Istanbul: ADO, 2022.
“Panagia Portaitissa of Kydonies / Ayvalık: the Consequences of the 1923 Population Exchange for a metochion of the Athonite Monastery of Iveron.” Cahiers Balkaniques – Special edition [in press 2023]
“Zeyneb Hanım’s Vakıf: Property Substitution (istibdāl) in Ottoman Istanbul through a Seventeenth Century Imperial Edict.” Journal of Women of the Middle East and the Islamic World (Hawwa) [forthcoming 2024]