Hello everyone, I am Serhat. I lived in Istanbul for several years before starting my educational journey in Besançon. Before moving here, I worked as a cataloger and referencer in a university library for various years. During this time, I developed a personal and professional interest in rare books and manuscripts. I earned my bachelor’s degree in library science, which helped me explore classical literature, archival, and historical documents in Orient languages. Additionally, I also completed a master’s degree in Economic History while working.
Throughout my career, I became fascinated by the field of digital humanities. I found this field to be impressive. It allows us to re-think history, literature, and other humanities fields using various tools and are accessible to everyone. When exploring master’s programs in this field, I came across the UBFC « Rare Books and Digital Humanities » which has a unique aspect compared to others. My research project focuses on using the digital humanities approach to explore rare books, providing an opportunity to examine them in new ways.
I am interested in unpublished Arabic texts related to philosophical inquiries during the early modern period. These texts pose a challenge due to the complex handwriting, making them hard to read and comprehend, which in turn makes it difficult to analyze and interpret their contents. My objective is to utilize HTR (Handwritten Text Recognition) programs to convert Arabic manuscripts into txt format, with the aim of increasing their readability and accessibility. By making these texts available in digital format, researchers who are interested in Ottoman intellectual history and book history will have greater access to them. In this way, this project aims to fill the gap in the intellectual world of the Orient in the 17th century.
