Hasan Karataş is a social historian of knowledge in the Early Modern Mediterranean and the Middle East. He is interested in the urban and political contexts in which diverse types of knowledge were produced, circulated, and redefined. His earlier research focused on the social history of Sufis, self-declared masters of the Islamic esoteric knowledge, and produced articles on the formation and urbanization of a Sufi community in Anatolia in the fifteenth century. These articles underline the agency of the urban context in shaping the Sufi communities that inhabit them. Dr. Karataş's current interests focus on the entanglements between the Sufi and scientific communities in the Ottoman Empire.  There is a significant overlap between these two communities. Studying them could help us contribute to the recent debates on the global history of science and offer new insights into the place of Sufism and science in the early modern Muslim mindset. 

Born and raised in Aegean Turkey, Hasan Karataş attended Boğaziçi University in Istanbul and moved to California for his graduate studies in 2001. He began working at New York University while authoring his doctoral dissertation and following its completion, he joined the history department at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. After six years of unforgettably cold winters and lasting friendships, Dr. Karataş moved to Turkey to work at Istanbul Technical University, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences. Dr. Karataş is visiting Wesleyan this year to meet inquisitive young minds and collaborate with distinguished colleagues.