Introduction
Part 1. Verbal Art as Performance
Storytelling as Performance / Metin And
The Maqama
Between a Tale and a One-Man Show: In Search of its Form of Performance / Revital Refael-Vivante
Orality, Text, and Performance in the Book of Dede Korkut / Arzu Ozturkmen
Signals of Performability in the Croatian Glagolitic Legend of St John Chrysostom / Marija-Ana Durrigl
The Performance of Joinville's Credo / Michael Curschmann
Medieval Folktales, Modern Problems, and a Gifted Preacher: The Case of Rabbi Joseph Hayyim and the 'Tale of a Fox that Left his Heart at Home' / David Rotman
'The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus': Can We Reawaken Performance of this Hagiographical Folktale? / Evelyn Birge Vitz
Part 2. Performance under Imperial Realms
How to Entertain the Byzantines: Some Remarks on Mimes and Jesters in Byzantium / Przemys Ław Marciniak
Between Admiration, Anxiety, and Anger: Views on Mimes and Performers in the Byzantine World / Tivadar Palagyi
Performance and Ideology in the Exchange of Prisoners between the Byzantines and the Islamic Near Easterners in the Early Middle Ages / Koray Durak
Fireworks in Seventeenth-Century Istanbul / Suraiya Faroqhi
Clowns at Ottoman Festivities / Ozdemir Nutku
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762): Her Turkish Performances / Danielle Haase-Dubosc
The Fusion of Zar-Bori and Sufi Zikr as Performance: Enslaved Africans in the Ottoman Empire / Ehud R. Toledano
Part 3. Modes and Varieties of Entertainment
How Dark is the History of the Night, How Black the Story of Coffee, How Bitter the Tale of Love: The Changing Measure of Leisure and Pleasure in Early Modern Istanbul / Cemal Kafadar
One Man and His Audience: Comedy in Ottoman Shadow Puppet Performances / Daryo Mizrahi
Shadow Theatre, the Karagoz (Kara Gyooz) and the Texts of Ibn Daniyal (1248-1311?) / Mas'ud Hamdan
Armenian Traditional Music and the Performance Practices in the Armenian Community of Jerusalem / Noune Zeltsburg-Poghosyan
Constructing the Performed Identity of Sephardic Songs / Judith R. Cohen
Gypsy Musicians and Performances in the Ottoman Balkans / Elena Marushiakova and Vesselin Popov
Part 4. Iconography
Scenes of Performers in Byzantine Art, Iconography, Social and Cultural Milieu: The Case of Acrobats / Viktoria Kepetzi
Theatricality of Byzantine Images: Some Preliminary Thoughts / Anestis Vasilakeris
Theatrical Features in Armenian Manuscripts / Emma Petrosyan
Capital Initials with Images of Musicians in Armenian Manuscripts / Hrant Khachikyan
Glorious Noise of Empire / Gabriela Currie
Part 5. Ritual Roots of Performance
Representing the Moulid: Salah Jahin's Al-Layla al-Kabira between Populist and Nationalist Aspirations / Samia Mehrez
Performative Conceptions of Social Change: The Case of Nevruz Celebrations in Pre-Ottoman and Ottoman Anatolia / Yucel Demirer
Alevi Ritual Movement:Its Representation in Fifteenthand Sixteenth-Century Texts and Today / Fahriye Dincer
The Moreška Dance/Drama on the Island of Korčula (Croatia): A Turkish Connection? / Elsie Ivancich Dunin
The Show and the Ritual: The Mevlevi Mukabele in Ottoman Times / Cem Behar
The Ritual of Vardan Mamikonyan / Zhenya Khachatryan
Epilogue: The Performative Turn in Recent Cultural History / Peter Burke
Index.