Acknowledgments
Several chapters of this volume were presented and discussed at various workshops and conferences in the years preceding its publication. An international conference held in Istanbul in January 2020 served, in many respects, as the starting point of this volume. The editors wish to thank all participants and discussants who encouraged the development of the project. The Orient-Institut Istanbul, and especially the Institut Français d’Études Anatoliennes (Istanbul) provided invaluable institutional support from the project’s earliest stage. The editors are particularly grateful to Bayram Balcı, Raoul Motika, and Philippe Bourmaud.
Financial support was also offered by the research centers ITI Histoire Sociologie, Anthropologie et Archéologie des Religions and UMR 3400 Arts, civilisation et histoire de l’Europe at the University of Strasbourg, as well as by the CNRS research unit Centre de Recherche sur le Monde Iranien and the Institut Français de Recherche en Iran.
The editors also warmly thank the peer-reviewers for their thoughtful and engaging endorsement and Rachel Harel-Bilici for her professionalism in copy-editing the manuscript.