This lecture focuses on the critical question of periodization in world history in general, and on the medieval-modern divide in particular. Based on the most recent discussions and/or examples from a number of historiographical traditions, we will primarily focus and elaborate on the following question: How do historians today tackle with the problem of different types of periodizations regarding the eras conventionally known as the 'Middle Ages', 'Early Modern' and 'Modern'? As a background reading for this lecture, one can read Jacques Le Goff, Must We Divide History into Periods?, (trans. M.B. DeBevoise, Columbia University Press, 2015).
Günhan Börekçi received his PhD degree in history from the Ohio State University (2010). His thesis discussed the courts of Sultan Ahmed I (r. 1603-17) and his immediate predecessors. His main fields of interest are early modern Ottoman political, military and social history, and comparative seventeenth-century crises. He has been working as associate professor at Istanbul Şehir University - College Of Humanities And Social Sciences - History from 2010, and currently teaches at CEU as a visiting professor.