T 4-7PM
Office Hours: F 2-3; or by appointment
Dr. Samy Ayoub
[email protected]
Late Ottoman State & Society
The Ottoman Empire (present-day Turkey, Iraq, the Levant, Egypt, North Africa and the
Balkans) was one of the most important political formations in the premodern world. This
seminar aims to examine the dynamics that shaped state and society in the late Ottoman
Empire (c. 1700-1922). It examines the complex social and political transformations it
went through, the emergence of independent nation-states in its former territories, and the
legacy it left behind. The seminar focuses on the social and economic life, religion, law,
government, ideology, arts, and sciences of the late Ottoman period and territory. It
addresses how people negotiated their relationships to the Ottoman state in their daily
lives, and the fundamental changes that the empire faced as it disintegrated into nationstates.
GRADING
Class participation:
30%
Response papers:
30%
Research paper:
40%
Research Paper: (40%) At the end of the course, you will write a 20-page research
paper, due December 11, 2015 .Try to come up with a theme for your paper as early in
the course as possible; keep me informed regarding your progress and any problems you
may be facing in writing it. We will dedicate one meeting for research paper
presentations. The presentation should be around 20-25 minutes followed by questions
and comments (a conference paper style).
NOTE: Plagiarism is a very serious offense. Be sure to cite properly other people’s ideas
in your papers. If any part of the paper is plagiarized, it will receive a “zero” and it
cannot be rewritten for credit. Please contact me if you are unsure about the proper
method of citation.
ATTENDANCE AND PARTICIPATION
Participation: Students will be expected to attend the class regularly, to ask informed
questions, and to respect each other, the professor, and guest lecturers. Students will also
participate in regular discussions. If these discussions are to be successful, students will
need to have carefully read the assigned texts. A large portion of the participation grade
will be determined by the extent to which the student’s participation in these discussions
demonstrates his or her engagement with and understanding of the assigned texts.
Students can increase their participation grade by visiting their professor during his office
hours for informal conversation and/or help with the course.
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Attendance policy: I take attendance in class. If you are absent frequently enough that I
(and others) notice, your participation grade will suffer (unless those absences are caused
by hospitalization or some other traumatic personal or family event). Mild illnesses
and/or fatigue in general do not constitute an excusable reason for absence, so you should
do what you can to avoid them, as classroom discussions are crucial to your grade. You
are to read the assigned readings beforehand and be ready for classroom discussion.
Presentations: Students will give presentations, 10-15 minutes long, and lead
discussions on topics relevant to the week’s readings. These presentations will continue
throughout the course. Presentations should aim to concisely elucidate for the rest of the
class the broader significance of the reading.
CLASSROOM RULES
1. The use of laptops, headphones, cell phones, or any electronic gadgets is not permitted
in the classroom. Any gadget that is considered distracting will not be permitted.
2. No food in classroom (drinks should have a lid or a cap on).
REQUIRED TEXTS
Quataert, D. Ottoman Empire, 1700-1922. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Hanioğlu, Şükrü, A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire
Fortna, Benjamin, Imperial Classroom: Islam, the State, and Education in the Late
Ottoman Empire
Hourani, Albert, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798-1939.
Kayali, Hasan, Arabs and Young Turks: Ottomanism, Arabism, and Islamism in the
Ottoman Empire, 1908-1918.
Marcus, Abraham, The Middle East on the Eve of Modernity: Aleppo in the Eighteenth
Century.
RECOMMENDED READINGS
Caroline Finkel, Osman’s Dream: the Story of the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1923 (New
York, 2006)
Halil Inalcik, The Ottoman Empire: the Classical Age, 1300-1600 (Phoenix, 2001)
Norman Itzkowitz, The Ottoman Empire and Islamic Tradition (University of Chicago,
1972)
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SOURCES ON OTTOMAN HISTORY
Suraiya Faroqhi, Approaching Ottoman History: An Introduction to the Sources
(Cambridge University Press, 2000)
http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2013/05/sources-ottoman-empirebureaucracy.html
SCHEDULE OF CLASSES
WEEK 1
Tuesday: September 1
INTRODUCTION + SYLLABUS
Quataert, “Why Study Ottoman History?,” 1-13.
Quataert, “The Ottoman Empire from its origins until 1683,” 13-37.
Fuad Köprülü, The Origins of the Ottoman Empire, 71-117
Ussama Makdisi, “Ottoman Orientalism,” The American Historical Review, vol.107,
no.3 (2002): 768-796.
Selim Deringil, “‘They Live in a State of Nomadism and Savagery’: The Late Ottoman
Empire and the Post-Colonial Debate,” Comparative Studies in Society and History,
vol.45, no.2 (2003): 311-342.
Aksan, Virginia. “Locating the Ottomans Among Early Modern Empires.” Journal of
Early Modern History 3 (1999): 21-39.
WEEK 2:
Tuesday: September 8
NATURE OF THE LATE OTTOMAN STATE
Quataert, “The Ottoman Empire, 1683–1798,” “The nineteenth century,” 37-75
Şükrü Hanioğlu, “Introduction,” “The Ottoman Empire at the Turn of the Nineteenth
Century”(ch.1) and “Initial Ottoman responses to the Challenge of Modernity.” (ch.2)
Quataert, Donald. "Clothing Laws, State, and Society in the Ottoman Empire, 17201829." International Journal of Middle East Studies 29, no. 3 (1997): 403-25.
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WEEK 3
Tuesday: September 15
INSTITUTIONS OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE – MILITARY INSTITUTIONS
Quataert, “The Ottoman Empire, 1683–1798,” 54-108.
Rifa’at Abou-El-Haj, “Social Uses of the Past: Recent Arab Historiography of Ottoman
Rule,” IJMES, v. 14 no. 2 (1982) pp. 185-201.
Pamuk, Şevket. “Institutional Change and the Longevity of the Ottoman Empire, 15001800.” Journal of Intedisciplinary History 35 (2004): 225-47.
Inalcik, “Military and Fiscal Transformation in the Ottoman Empire, 1600-1700,” 283303.
Hess, Andrew, “The Evolution of the Ottoman Seaborne Empire in the Age of Oceanic
Discoveries,” American Historical Review 75: 1892-1919
Fleet, “Early Turkish Naval Activities,” in Oriente Moderno: The Ottomans and the Sea,
ed. Fleet (2001): 129-138.
Aksan, Virginia. “Ottoman Military Recruitment Strategies in the Late Eighteenth
Century.” In Arming the State: Military Conscription in the Middle East and Central
Asia, 1775-1925, edited by Erik Zürcher, 21-39. New York: I. B. Tauris, 1999.
Shaw, Stanford J. “The Origins of Ottoman Military Reform: The Nizam-ı Cedid Army
of Sultan Selim III.” The Journal of Modern History 37, no. 3 (1965): 291-306.
Levy, Avigdor. “Military Reform and the Problem of Centralization in the Ottoman
Empire in the Eighteenth Century.” Middle Eastern Studies 18 (1982): 227-49.
WEEK 4
Tuesday: September 22
THE AGE OF REFORM + RESPONSES THE TANZIMAT
Şükrü Hanioğlu, “The Dawn of the Age of Reform,” “The Tanzimat Era,” 55-108.
Huri Islamoglu and Caglar Keyder, “Agenda for Ottoman History,” in The Ottoman
Empire and the World Economy, pp. 42-62.
Dror Ze’evi, “Back to Napoleon? Thoughts on the Beginning of the Modern Era in the
Middle East” Mediterranean Historical Review, v. 19 (June 2004), pp. 73-94.
Halil İnalcık, “Application of the Tanzimat and Its Social Effects,” Archivum
Ottomanicum, vol.5 (1973): 97-127.
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Mosayuki Ueno, “‘For the Fatherland and the State’: Armenians Negotiate the Tanzimat
Reforms,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol. 45 (2013): 93-109.
Ussama Makdisi, “Corrupting the Sublime Sultanate: The Revolt of Tanyus Shahin in
Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Lebanon,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol.
42, no.1 (2000): 180-208.
Shaw, Stanford J. “The Central Legislative Councils in the Nineteenth Century Ottoman
Reform Movement before 1876.” In International Journal of Middle East Studies, 51-84,
1970.
Shaw, Stanford J. “The Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Tax Reforms and Revenue
System.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 6, no. 4 (1975): 421-59.
WEEK 5
Tuesday: September 29
REFORM AND REVOLUTION
Hanioglu, “The Twillight of Tanzimat and the Hamidian regime,” 109-149.
Selim Deringil, “Legitimacy Structures in the Ottoman Empire: The Reign of Abdülhamit
II (1876-1909),” International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol.23, no.3 (1991): 345359.
Nadir Özbek, “Imperial Gifts and Sultanic Legitimation during Late Ottoman Empire,
1876-1909,” in Poverty and Charity in Middle Eastern Contexts, ed. Michael Bonner,
Mine Ener and Amy Singer (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003), pp.
203-220.
Selim Deringil, The Well-Protected Domains: Ideology and the Legitimation of Power in
the Ottoman Empire, 1876-1909, pp. 16-43; 135-149.
Hanioglu, “From Revolution to Imperial Collapse: The Longest decade of the Late
Ottoman Empire,” 150-203
Fatma Müge Göçek, “What is the Meaning of the Young Turk Revolution? A Critical
Historical Assessment in 2008,” İstanbul Üniversitesi Siyasal Bilgiler Fakültesi Dergisi,
no. 38 (2008): 179-214.
Albert Hourani, “Ottoman Reform and the Politics of the Notables,” in W. Polk and P.
Chambers, eds., The Beginnings of Modernization in the Middle East: The Nineteenth
Century, Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1968, pp. 41-68.
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WEEK 6
Tuesday: October 6
WORLD WAR I AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
Hanioglu, “Conclusion”
Mesut Uyar, “Ottoman Arab Officers Between Nationalism and Loyalty during WWI,”
526-544.
Erik Zürcher, “The Experience of the Ottoman Soldier in WWI,” 235-258.
Maria Todorova, “The Ottoman Legacy in the Balkans,” in Imperial Legacy: The
Ottoman Imprint on the Balkans and the Middle East, L. Carl Brown, ed. pp. 45-77.
Reşat Kasaba, "Treaties and Friendships: British Imperialism, the Ottoman Empire, and
China in the Nineteenth Century," Journal of World History, Vol. 4, No. 2 (Fall, 1993),
pp. 215-241.
Bernard Lewis, "The Ottoman Empire and Its Aftermath," Journal of Contemporary
History, Vol. 15, No. 1, Imperial Hangovers (Jan., 1980), pp. 27-36
Melanie Schulze-Tanielian,Food and Nutrition,International Encyclopedia of the First
World War
WEEK 7
Tuesday: October 13
STATE AND PROVINCIAL SOCIETY IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
Nadir Özbek, “The Politics of Taxation and the ‘Armenian Question’ during the Late
Ottoman Empire, 1876-1908,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 54, no.4
(2012): 770-797.
Janet Klein, The Margins of Empire: Kurdish Militias in the Ottoman Tribal Zone
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011), pp. 20-51 and 128-169.
Eugene Rogan, Frontiers of State in the Late Ottoman Empire: Transjordan, 1850- 1921
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), pp. 1-20 and 184-217.
Michelle U. Campos, “Between ‘Beloved Ottomania’ and ‘The Land of Israel’: The
Struggle over Ottomanism and Zionism among Palestine’s Sephardi Jews, 1908- 1913,”
International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol. 37, no.4 (2005): 461-483.
From a Multi-ethnic/ Multi Confessional Polity to National Homogeneity
Quataert, “Inter-communal co-operation and conflict,” “Legacies of the Ottoman
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Empire,”174-202.
Ipek K. Yosmaoglu, “Counting Bodies, Shaping Souls” International Journal of Middle
East Studies, v. 38 (2006), 55-77.
WEEK 8
Tuesday: October 20
OTTOMAN SUBJECTS + ALTERNATIVE IDENTITIES
Quataert, “The Ottoman economy: population, transportation, trade, agriculture, and
manufacturing,” “Ottoman society and popular culture,” 111-173
Asli Ergul, “The Ottoman Identity: Turkish, Muslim or Rum?” Middle Eastern Studies
(Jun 2012): 629-645.
Beshara B. Doumani, “The Political Economy of Population Counts in Ottoman
Palestine: Nablus, circa 1850,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol.26, no.1
(1994): 1-17.
Frierson, Elizabeth B., “Mirrors out, Mirrors in, Domestication and Rejection of the
Foreign in Late- Ottoman Women's Magazines (1875-1908).” In Women, Patronage, and
Self-Representation in Islamic Societies, edited by D. Fairchild Ruggles, 177-204.
Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000.
Victor Roudometof, “From Rum Millet to Greek Nation: Enlightenment, Secularization,
and National Identity in Ottoman Balkan Society, 1453-1821,” Journal of Modern Greek
Studies, v. 16 (1998), pp. 11-48.
Selim Kuru, “Sex in the Text: Deli Birader’s Daˆ fi‘u ’l-gumuˆ m ve Raˆfi‘u ’l-humuˆm
and the Ottoman Literary Canon,” Middle Eastern Literatures, Vol. 10, No. 2, August
2007.
WEEK 9
Tuesday: October 27
ARABIC THOUGHT IN THE LATE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
Hourani, Albert, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798-1939. (Selections)
Karl Barbir, “Memory, Heritage, and History: The Ottomans and the Arabs,” in Imperial
Legacy, pp. 100-114.
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WEEK 10
Tuesday: November 3
IDEOLOGY
Kayali, Hasan, Arabs and Young Turks: Ottomanism, Arabism, and Islamism in the
Ottoman Empire, 1908-1918. (Selections)
Selim Deringil, “The Struggle Against Shi’ism in Hamidian Iraq.” Die Welt des Islams 30 (1990):
45- 62.
The Ottoman Ethno-Religious “Order”
Benjamin Braude, “Foundation Myths of the Millet System,” in Christians and Jews in
the Ottoman Empire: The Functioning of a Plural Society, pp. 69-88.
Kemal Karpat, “Millets and Nationality: The Roots of the Incongruity of Nation and State
in the post-Ottoman Era,” in Christians and Jews, pp. 141-170.
Mark Mazower, Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews since 1430, pp.
46-93.
WEEK 11
Tuesday: November 10
IMPERIAL CLASSROOM
Fortna, Benjamin, Imperial Classroom: Islam, the State, and Education in the Late
Ottoman Empire (Selections)
Deringil, Selim. “Chapter 4: Education: the Answer to all Evil?,” in Deringil, Selim. The
Well- Protected Domains, Ideology and the Legitimation of Power in the Ottoman
Empire, 1876-1909. New York: I.B.Tauris, 1998, pp.93-111.
Frierson, Elizabeth B., “Unimagined Communities: Women and Education in the LateOttoman Empire, 1876-1909.” Critical Matrix, The Princeton Journal of Women,
Gender, and Culture 9, no. 2 (1995): 55-90.
Somel, Selçuk Akşin. The Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire,
1839-1908: Islamization, Autocracy, and Discipline. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers,
2001, pp.1- 13, 166-204, 271-277.
WEEK 12
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Tuesday: November 17
AN OTTOMAN CITY
Abraham Marcus, The Middle East on the Eve of Modernity: Aleppo in the Eighteenth
Century (selections)
Mark Mazower, Salonica, City of Ghosts: Christians, Muslims and Jews, 1430-1950
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), pp. 209-237 and 429-440.
Biray Kolluoğlu Kırlı, “Cityscapes and Modernity: Smyrna Morphing into İzmir,” in
Ways to Modernity in Greece and Turkey: Encounters with Europe, 1850-1950, ed. Anna
Frangoudaki and Çağlar Keyder (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2007), pp. 217-235.
Keith David Watenpaugh, “Cleansing the Cosmopolitan City: Historicism, Journalism
and the Arab Nation in the Post-Ottoman Eastern Mediterranean,” Social History, vol.30,
no.1 (2005): 1-24.
Recommended
Palmira Brummet, “Dogs, Women, Cholera, and Other Menaces in the Streets: Cartoon
Satire in the Ottoman Revolutionary Press, 1908-1911, IJMES, v. 27, no. 4 (1995), pp.
433- 460.
Şerif Mardin, “Super Westernization in Urban Life in the Ottoman Empire in the Last
Quarter of the Nineteenth Century,” in Turkey, Geographical and Social Perspectives, P.
Benedict, E. Tümertekin, F. Mansur, eds., pp. 403-446.
WEEK 13 NO CLASS – MESA CONFERENCE
Tuesday: November 24
WEEK 14
Tuesday: December 1
RESEARCH PAPER PRESENTATIONS
WEEK 15
FINAL PAPER due on December 11 @ 11:59 PM. Please send me your paper to this
email address: [email protected]
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