The Mind of Mecnun: An An Experiment in Visualization

The workshop “Mecnun’s Mind: An Attempt at Visualization,” organized by STF and the Istanbul Studies Center, will be held on Wednesday, April 30, 2025. You can find details about the program and its content below.

Talk: Prof. Dr. Fatih Artvinli, Istanbul’s Mecnuns and Their Spaces, 14:00–15:00 (C-208). The talk is open to everyone.

Workshop: 15:00–19:00 (C-305). Participation is limited to 25 people. You can access the registration form via the link in the profile.

Workshop content:
The term “Mecnun” is used not only to describe individuals whose mental balance has deteriorated, but also those who display exuberant, excessive, and overflowing behaviors. A person with a mental illness thinks and acts outside commonly accepted norms of perception, emotion, judgment, and memory, thus becoming separated from society. So, what kind of “abnormal” world takes shape in the minds of such individuals? Is it possible to visualize this world and give it a material form? Moreover, how is this realm of thought—set outside societal norms—reflected onto the individual’s body?
Guided by these questions, we will focus on visualizing the inner world of a person with a mental illness, using psychiatrist Mazhar Osman’s series “Criminal Types Among the Insane” published in the Istanbul Seririyatı journal during the late Ottoman and early Republican periods. “Criminals,” when evaluated within the framework of mental illness, appear as individuals who violate not only cognitive norms but also legal and moral boundaries.
Within the scope of the workshop, as we explore possible visual and spatial representations of this mental universe, we will also question the relationship between mental illness and societal norms.

Kayıt linki: https://forms.gle/z7eufZefRVrXba6X6