Ottoman History Podcast

Episode 327 with contributions by Zeynep Çelik, Leyla Amzi-Erdoğdular, Özde Çeliktemel-Thomen, Mehmet Kentel, Michael Talbot, Murat Yıldız, Burçak Özlüdil Altın, Seçil Yılmaz, Burçin Çakır, Zeinab Azerbadegan, Dotan Halevy, Chris Gratien, and Michael Ferguson Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud Visual sources such as photographs, maps, and miniatures often serve as accompaniment or adornment within works of Ottoman history. In this episode, we feature new work that interrogates methods of analyzing and employing visual sources for Ottoman history that go beyond the practice of "image as decoration." Following a conversation with the organizers of the "Visual Sources in Late Ottoman History" conference held at Columbia University in April 2017, we speak to conference participants about the visual sources they employ in their work and how these visual sources allow us to understand the history of the Ottoman Empire and post-Ottoman world in a new light. « Click for More »

Episode 323 with Erik-Jan Zürcher hosted by Andreas Guidi and Elif Becan Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud In this collaboration with The Southeast Passage, we discuss the emergence of the Turkish nationalist movement under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and the establishment of a sovereign Republic of Turkey in 1923. As our guest Prof. Erik-Jan Zürcher notes, Kemalism can be studied both as a political transformation from armed struggle to a one-party state administration system and as a repertoire of discursive symbols based on the imaginary of nation, civilization, and modernity. This installment is structured along a series of lectures that Prof. Zürcher has given at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, in which he has framed Kemalism’s activism and worldview within its contemporary international context as well as along a broader chronological axis continuing into the 1950s. « Click for More »

Episode 320 featuring Bruce Burnside & Sam Dolbee Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud The distance between the shores of the Ottoman Empire and New York City may be great, but, as this episode suggests, a great many connections exist between these places, too. This episode explores both the everyday lives of those hailing from the Ottoman domains over several centuries in the Big Apple, as well as the perceptions New Yorkers and Americans more generally had of the Ottoman Empire. Through visits to sites across the island of Manhattan, we shed light on the long and largely forgotten shared history of the Ottoman Empire and New York City, and we find it in unlikely places – such as a modest walk-up apartment on the Upper East Side – as well as in the shadow of New York landmarks like 1 World Trade Center and the Stonewall Inn. « Click for More »

Episode 308 with Cengiz Şişman hosted by Matthew Ghazarian Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud In 1665, an Izmir-born Rabbi named Sabbatai Sevi (1626-76) was proclaimed to be the Jewish Messiah. His messianic movement attracted tens of thousands of followers and become known throughout the early modern world. Ottoman authorities, however, arrested Sevi in 1666, and, under duress, the charismatic leader converted to Islam. Many members of his movement followed suit and became the communities who today are called dönme (which literally means "convert"). After Sevi's death, dönme communities continued to outwardly practice Islam but inwardly retain practices of Judaism. In this episode, Cengiz Şişman talks about his research on the development of Sevi’s movement, the trajectories of dönme communities, and questions of conversion and communal boundaries, which became more pressing in the late nineteenth- and twentieth-centuries. « Click for More »

Episode 303 with Stefan Winter hosted by Chris Gratien Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud Although the Alawi communities of Syria have played an important role in the politics of the 20th century, the longer history of these communities has often been obscured by generalizations and discourses of mystification. In this episode, we talk to Stefan Winter about the history of the Alawis over the centuries, which is the subject of his new book A History of the ‘Alawis: From Medieval Aleppo to the Turkish Republic. In particular, we focus on the ways in which Syrian Alawis were incorporated into the Ottoman Empire and experienced changes in Ottoman politics and governance. We also examine the social and economic history of the Alawis during the early modern period and the encounter with modernity. « Click for More »

Episode 300 with Baki Tezcan hosted by Susanna Ferguson Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud Did the Ottoman Empire "decline" after an initial golden age of rapid expansion and military conquest? This question has long haunted the telling of Ottoman history. Critics note that describing centuries of Ottoman history simply as "decline" makes it seem inevitable that the Empire would be defeated in World War I, emptying the story of the contingency and nuance it deserves. How else might we describe the nature of political, economic, and cultural change in the later centuries of the Ottoman Empire? What other questions could we ask? In this episode, Baki Tezcan describes the period he calls the "Second Ottoman Empire," between roughly 1580 and 1826, not as a period of decline but as one of political transformation. His story radically remakes existing narratives about the nature and history of Ottoman political authority and governance and offers an important alternative to the "decline thesis" that has haunted Ottoman history for so long. « Click for More »

Episode 297 with Massumeh Farhad & Simon Rettig hosted by Emily Neumeier Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud The preeminent position of manuscript painting and poetry at the Ottoman court has been well established by historians, yet the equally important practice of commissioning and collecting sumptuously decorated copies of the Qur’an--the sacred text of Islam--has been less explored. The role of the Qur’an in the artistic culture of the Ottoman world is just one facet of the landmark exhibition The Art of the Qur’an: Treasures from the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts, on display at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC. The show traces the formal evolution of the Qur’an, especially in terms of calligraphy and manuscript illumination, with over 60 manuscripts and folios spanning a thousand years and created in an area stretching from Egypt to Afghanistan. Besides having an opportunity to appreciate the level of labor and skill invested in producing such high-quality manuscripts, visitors will also be surprised to learn about the mobility of these books, as they were avidly collected, repaired, and donated by members of the Ottoman court to various religious institutions around the empire. In this episode, curators Massumeh Farhad and Simon Rettig sit down with us to reflect both on the reception of the exhibition in the United States, as well as the process of organizing this collaborative venture between the Smithsonian and the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts in Istanbul. « Click for More »

İrvin Cemil Schick, an expert in early modern Ottoman literature and erotica, joins the podcast to discuss the "Erotic Vocabulary of Ottoman Literature" project. They explore the challenges of creating a dictionary of erotic words, gender dynamics in Ottoman texts, and the shifting attitudes towards sexuality in the Ottoman Empire. This episode is part of a series on women, gender, sex, and sexuality in the Ottoman Empire.

with Dana Sajdihosted by Chris Gratien and Shireen Hamza Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud In the conventional telling of the intellectual history of the Ottoman Empire and the Islamicate world, there has been very little room for people outside the ranks of the learned scholars or ulema associated with the religious, intellectual, and political elite of Muslim communities. But in this episode, we explore the writings of Shihab al-Din Ahmad Ibn Budayr, an 18th-century Damascene barber, as well as a host of writers that our guest Dana Sajdi has described as representatives of "nouveau literacy" in the Ottoman Levant. We discuss how non-elite writers left records of the people and events they encountered during a period of socioeconomic transformation in Greater Syria, and we listen to readings from the text of Ibn Budayr--the barber of Damascus--that bring to life the literary style of the unusual and extraordinary authors who wrote from the margins of the learned establishment in early modern Ottoman society. « Click for More »

with Gábor Ágostonhosted by Graham Auman Pitts and Faisal Husain Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud Whereas military histories once focused narrowly on armies, battles, and technologies, the new approach to military history emphasizes how armies and navies were linked to issues such as political economy, gender, and environment. In this episode, we sit down with Gábor Ágoston to discuss the principal issues concerning the relationship between the Ottoman-Habsburg military frontier in Hungary and the environmental history of the early modern period. From the battle of Mohacs in 1526, through the dramatic battle of Vienna 1683, and until the Treaty of Sistova 1791, the Ottoman-Habsburg frontier was the site of fighting, fortification, and mobilization. In our conversation, we consider the environmental dimensions of these centuries of conflict and contact, focusing on how the military revolution transformed the way in which armies used and managed resources and the role of both anthropogenic and climatic factors in reshaping the Hungarian landscape. « Click for More »