Love in the Time of Syphilis: Medicine, Sex and the End of Ottoman Empire

Recorded January 27th 2026.

A lecture by visiting research fellow Dr Seçil Yılmaz (University of Pennsylvania) organised by the School of Histories and Humanities.

Although syphilis had existed in Ottoman society since the sixteenth century, it became a significant public health concern in the latter half of the nineteenth century as a result of increased mobility, particularly among soldiers, Muslim immigrants, and seasonal workers traveling throughout the Ottoman countryside. The disease provoked fear, shame, and secrecy as Ottoman physicians devised socio-medical regulations and prescriptions that reshaped gender roles and sexual norms in the society. This lecture offers an insight into the perspectives of Ottoman physicians and psychiatrists who aspired to bring love, desire, marriage, and family under the aegis of a developing medical expertise and a vernacular form of sexology.

Seçil Yılmaz is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania. She will be based at the Trinity Long Room Hub during her visiting research fellowship in early 2026.

Learn more at www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub