The PUKAR Gender and Space Project
presents a talk
by
Jateen Lad
on
PANOPTIC
BODIES: BLACK EUNUCHS IN THE
TOPKAPI PALACE
date:
Friday, 17 June 2005
time:
6.30 p.m.
place:
Max Mueller Bhavan, Kala Ghoda, Mumbai
Abstract
This lecture engages the
disciplines of architecture, philology and theology to explore the notion of the
harem as a forbidden and guarded sanctuary in both ritual and palatial
contexts. The fantasme of the
black eunuch in the Grand Seraglio has been a silent but persistent presence in
representations of the imperial harem; either a perverse shadow in the margins
of Orientalist representations or the epitome of loyalty in more contemporary
readings. This paper enters the labyrinthine passages of the quintessential
harem, the Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, in an attempt to better understand the
body of the eunuch and the nature of the imperial harem as an actual space.
There follows a consideration of how the presence, identity and the subtleties
of power acquired by the black eunuchs came to be embodied architecturally. In
the process, it will be shown how the notions of surveillance and mediation -
qualities embodied in the function and body of the eunuch - permeated the
enclosing walls of the harem to infuse deep into its inner structure.
Jateen Lad studied architecture at Cambridge, UK and has
practised in London, Berlin, Rotterdam and East Africa and is design critic at a
number of London schools. As a research fellow with the Aga Khan Program at
Harvard and MIT his writings engaged architecture, philology and theology to
explore the notion of the harem as a forbidden and guarded sanctuary in both
ritual and palatial contexts. He is currently establishing a design studio in
Pondicherry and is researching notions of display and multiplicity in the Hawa
Mahal at Jaipur.
