CSOV and History at Newcastle present a public lecture by Dr Kent F Schull

This public lecture took place on Thursday 7 August 2025

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A pencil sketch of a person wearing a turban, accompanied by handwritten text at the top.

We are delighted to welcome Dr. Kent F. Schull, Associate Professor of Ottoman and Modern Middle East History at Binghamton University, State University of New York as a visitor to the Centre for the Study of Violence in August.

Dr Schull will present on the topic "Cpt. Robert Hofmann, Austrian Artillery Officer and Artist with the Ottomans in World War I"

Cpt. Hofmann was an Austrian artillery officer in the Levant between 1917 and 1919 who brought a particularly clear eye to the landscapes, cities, plants and animals and people he recorded in his artistic works. In 1940, Hofmann was one of the “enemy aliens” deported from Britain to Australia on the Dunera and he continued his artistic career through his internment and in Melbourne after the war, before emigrating to the United States.

Full Abstract

This presentation discusses the life, artwork, and experiences of Cpt. Robert Hofmann, an Austrian artillery officer and artist who fought with the Ottomans in the Levant from 1917 to 1919 during World War I and its immediate aftermath. His experiences and artwork provide powerful and vivid insight into the life, times, and situations of war in the Middle East. Unlike those of most of his European compatriots fighting with the Ottomans, his work and perspectives were from a distinctly non-Orientalist perspective as he sketched the flora and fauna, cityscapes, landscapes, and people he encountered while in the Ottoman Empire, particularly in the Levant. His attention to detail and captivation by the everyday and mundane without an imperialist or Orientalist gaze begs explanation, particularly since he was a classically trained artist from the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. This presentation asserts that the combination of his own marginalized identity as an assimilated Jewish soldier, his gifted artistic talent, attention to detail, and his direct and sustained experience in the Middle East enabled him to develop a deep sense of empathy and appreciation for the peoples, places, and environments of the Middle East. This enabled him to transcend the bigotry and dehumanizing views of non-Western peoples so prevalent among his compatriots and European powers of the time.

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Event Information

  • Date:  This public lecture took place on Thursday 7 August 2025
  • Location: Room X204, Level 2, NUSpace - The University of Newcastle

About the presenter

Kent F. Schull is Director of the Center for Middle East and North Africa Studies (CMENAS) and Ottoman Demographic, Social & Family History Research Group and Series Editor of the Edinburgh Studies on the Ottoman Empire (Edinburgh University Press). He is a member of the Editorial Board of the New Perspectives on Turkey series (Cambridge University Press) and was twice a Fulbright scholar to Turkey. His publications include Prisons in the Late Ottoman Empire: Microcosms of Modernity (EUP, 2014), three co-edited volumes: Living in the Ottoman Realm: Sultans, Subjects, and Elites (IUP, 2016); Law and Legitimacy in the Ottoman Empire & Republic of Turkey (IUP, 2016); Subjects of Ottoman International Law (IUP, 2020) and, co-authored with James Toronto, Missionary in the Middle East: The Journals of Joseph Wilford Booth (BYU Religious Studies Center and Deseret Books, 2024); and numerous journal articles and book chapters. He is also book series editor for Edinburgh Studies on the Ottoman Empire (Edinburgh University Press) and the former editor of the Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association (JOTSA) from 2013-18. His research and teaching interests include the social and cultural history of the Ottoman Empire and modern Middle East, criminal justice, Middle East Diaspora Studies, Israeli and Palestinian History, missiology and forced migration in the MENA region.