Dr. William Allen, director for the Center for Learning Technologies and professor of art history at Arkansas State University in Jonesboro, will present a public lecture, “Sailing from Byzantium on Turkish Albumen” Thursday, April 8.

The program is presented by the ASU Heritage Studies Ph.D. program and will be held at 4 p.m. in the ASU Museum, room 157.

Allen will talk about his scholarly move from Byzantine art history to the history of photography. The scholarly move for his studies all began as he realized 19th century attitudes about the photograph in relation to Byzantine attitudes.

In the course of finishing his dissertation on Tekfur Saray, a Byzantine monument, Allen spent weeks pouring over the Abdul Hamid II Collection, with almost 2,000 19th-century albumen prints of the Ottoman Empire, in search of documentation.

As Allen finished his dissertation, he realized that the photographs held greater intellectual interest. And, his research studies since that time have been in the history of photography, beginning with the first systematic cataloging of the Abdul Hamid II Collection.

Allen will illustrate in his lecture selections from the albums presented in 1893 as "A Gift to the National Library of the United States of America." This gift tells about attitudes of the Ottoman court including a vision of the past and a vision of the future. 

Allen earned his Ph.D. in art history at John Hopkins University and has served as the Director of the Center for Learning Technologies since 2001. Allen also served as the Dean for the College of Fine Arts from 1987-‘91 and is past chair for the Department of Art.

His publications include numerous articles for the Arkansas Review, and Allen has taught several online and traditional courses, including the history of photography and ancient and classical art history.  Allen has also served on the Board of Directors for the Arkansas Humanities Council, the Arkansas College Art Association, and is a member of the College Art Association.

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