Spatial Imaginations in Scientific Novels: Reading Ottoman Modernization Through Fictional Spaces

This study aims to reinterpret late Ottoman modernization through the fictional spaces and architectural imaginations created in the period’s “scientific novels” (fenni roman). The research focuses on three works: Ahmet Midhat Efendi’s “A Scientific Novel, or The Doctors of America” (1888), Molla Davutzâde Mustafa Nazım Erzurumi’s “Seeing the Progress and Civilization of Islam in a Dream” (1913), and Osman Nuri Eralp’s “Are There Living Creatures on Other Worlds?” (1918). Using a mixed method, the study classifies the spatial indicators in these texts through the hierarchical scales of Universe-World-City-Building-Structure, and compares them across the novels.The findings show that space in these works does not remain a passive background; instead, it becomes an active, ideological element in which modernization ideals, political utopias, and technological imaginations take shape. In this sense, the study demonstrates how scientific novels transform space into a constructive subject that reflects the spatial dimensions of the Ottoman modernization experience.