Ozan Huseyin

Ozan is pursuing his PhD in History of Art and Archaeology at SOAS, University of London, where he focuses on Ottoman responses to European exports of antiquities during the war periods of the 19th and 20th centuries. 

His project uses the Ottoman Antiquities Laws to question the legality of several controversial export collections; furthermore, his methodology applies Ottoman periodicals, travelogues, photographs, and paintings to explore the Ottoman discourses and representations in competing with European museums for antiquities through their own Ottoman museum institutions.  Ozan’s broad research interests stem from his interdisciplinary academic background. 

He completed his BA in Criminology and Socio-Legal Studies with First Class Honours at the University of Westminster. His thesis focused on the interethnic violence, war crimes, and displacement of refugees in his ancestral homeland of Cyprus during 1955-74. Ozan then completed an MA in Near and Middle Eastern Studies with Distinction at SOAS where he focused on the arts and socio-political history of the Ottoman Empire. His thesis on Ottoman Athens questioned the legality of the Parthenon marble exports and argued that European challenges to the centuries-old Ottoman preservation policies there were detrimental to the empire’s survival. 

Ozan also completed a second MA in History of Art and Archaeology with Distinction at SOAS where he broadened his knowledge of the arts, architecture, and archaeology of the Middle East (including the Umayyad, Abbasid, Fatimid, Seljuk, Mamluk, and Ottoman periods). In this MA, his thesis focused on Ottoman responses to 19th-century German exports of Islamic antiquities, particularly the Mshatta façade and Beyhekim mihrab tiles.

• Arts and Architecture of the Eastern Mediterranean 
• Near and Middle Eastern studies    
• Ottoman, British, French, and German socio-political history  
• Cross-cultural exchanges  
• Preservation of cultural heritage  
• Fine arts collecting and provenance history   
• Legal studies (antiquities laws, human rights laws, and press laws)    
• Peace and conflict studies  
• Criminological theories  
• Crime prevention, surveillance, and penology   
• Cybercrime 
• Gender studies  
• Diaspora communities in Europe and North America