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Ben Gurion University
Dept. for Middle East Studies
Master of Arts Program in Middle East Studies
Ottoman State and Society:
Themes in History and Historiography
Fall 2008-2009 (1242001201)
Dr. Avi Rubin
[email protected]
Description
The course examines selected themes in the history and historiography of the
Ottoman Empire, one of the most important states in world history from
medieval to modern times. Topics in history will include: state formation,
decentralization, social disturbances, integration to world economy, changing
relations with Europe, ethnic structure, rural and urban life, Imperial life,
family life, gender relations and nationalism.
We will examine major methodological changes in the study of history in
general, namely, their academic/political motivations and their impact (or
lack thereof) on the historiography of the Ottoman empire and the Middle
East.
The students will be encouraged to discuss the importance of this chapter in
world history for understanding today’s Middle East.
Note: A tour in Ottoman Beer Sheva TBA
Course Requirements
20%
10%
70%
Active participation
In-class oral presentation
Final paper (15-20 pages)
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Program
1. “Osman’s Dream”: Introduction, overview of the Ottoman Empire and key
debates.
2. Emirate turns into State: the gaza Debate
- A. Hourani, “The Ottoman Background of the Modern Middle East”, in
The Ottoman State and its Place in World History (Ed. K. Karpat),
1974, pp.60-78
- C. Kafadar, Between Two Worlds: The Construction of the Ottoman
State, 1995, pp. 1-117 (Intro, “The moderns” and “The Sources”)
- Mottier, V., “The Interpretive Turn: History, Memory, and Storage in
Qualitative Research”, Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 6(2), 2005
3. Dynasty and State
- C. Imber, The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1650: The Structure of Power, 2002,
Chapter 2: The Dynasty, pp. 87-127
- Leslie Peirce, The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman
Empire, "The Display of Sovereign Prerogative", 1993, pp. 186-218
- H. Inalcik, The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age 1300-1600, 1994, pp.
65-69, 76-118
4. Social/Economic structures and Transformations
- H. Inalcik, “Military and Fiscal Transformation in the Ottoman
Empire, 1600-1700”, 1980.
- J. Goldstone, “East and West in the Seventeenth Century: Political
Crises in Stuart England, Ottoman Turkey, and Ming China”,
Comparative Study of Society and History, 1988.
- Ş. Pamuk, “Institutional Change and the Longevity of the Ottoman
Empire, 1500-1800”, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 35 (2), 2004,
pp. 225-247.
- Katib Çelebi, The Balance of Truth. pp. 50-64; 89-91; 101-2; 124-7
5. The Question of Ottoman Decline
- H. Inalcik, The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age 1300-1600, 1994, pp.
41-52
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- B. Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey, 1961, first chapter
- C. Woodhead, “Perspectives on Suleyman”, Suleyman the Magnificent
and his Age, 1995.
- C. Kafadar, “The Question of Ottoman Decline”, Harvard Middle
Eastern and Islamic Review, 4, 1997-8.
6. Re-thinking the State
- T. Mitchell, “Society, Economy, and the State Effect”, State/Culture:
State Formation after the Cultural Turn (ed. G. Steinmetz), 1999.
- K. Barkey, Bandits and Bureaucrats.
- G. Piterberg, An Ottoman Tragedy: History and Historiography at
Play, 2003, pp. 135-184
7. Themes in Ottoman Economy and World Economy
- H. İslamoĝlu, “Oriental Despotism in World System Perspective”, The
Ottoman Empire and the World Economy (ed. H. İslamoĝlu-İnan), 1987
- R. Shechter, “Market Welfare in the Early-Modern Ottoman EconomyA Historiographic Overview with Many Questions”, JESHO, 48(2),
2005
8. An Ottoman Society
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E. Toledano, As if Silent and Absent: Bonds of Enslavement in the
Islamic Middle East, 2007, pp. 9-59
E. Eldem at.al (eds.), The Ottoman City Between East and West, pp. 117; 135-207, 1999.
E.R. Toledano, "The Emergence of Ottoman-Local Elites (1700-1900): A
Framework for Research" in Pappe, Ilan, and Moshe Ma'oz, (eds.),
Middle Eastern Politics and Ideas. A History from Within, 1997, pp.
145-162.
A. Singer, Palestinian Peasants and Officials, 1994, pp. 89- 118
9. Law and Religion
M. Zilfi, “The Kadizadelis: Discordant Revivalism in Seventeenth-Century
Istanbul”, J. of Middle Eastern Studies 45.4 (1986) [for next year: “adalet” by
Ergene instead]
- H. Inalcik, The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age 1300-1600, 1994, pp.
70-75
- I. Agmon, Family and Court: Legal Culture and Modernity in Late Ottoman
Palestine, 2006, chap. 6, pp. 168-195
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10. Ottoman Modernity I: the Practice and Mood of Modernity
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A. Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 1990. Chaps. I, II, VI.
H. İslamoĝlu, “Politics of Administering Property: Law and Statistics
in the 19th Century Ottoman Empire”, Constituting Modernity: Private
Property in the East and the West (ed. H. İslamoĝlu), 2004.
11. Ottoman Modernity II: The Emergence of Nationalim
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W. Haddad, “Nationalism in the Ottoman Empire”, Nationalism in a
Non-national State (eds. W. Haddad and W. Ochsenwald), 1977
Kul and Getting Cooler
S. Deringil, “The Invention of Tradition as Public Image in the Late
Ottoman Empire, 1808 to 1908”, Comparative Studies in Society and
History 35.1, 1993, pp. 3-29
12. The Armenian Question
- R. Melson, “Provocation or Nationalism: A Critical Inquiry into the
Armenian Genocide of 1915”, The Armenian Genocide in Perspective,
1986.
- M. Grigorian, Armenians in the Service of the Ottoman Empire, 18601908.
- S. Deringil, “The Study of the Armenian Crisis of the Late Ottoman
Empire, or, Seizing the Document by the Throat”, New Perspectives on
Turkey, 27, 2002
- J. Salt, “The Narrative Gap in Ottoman Armeinian History”, Middle
Eastern Studies, 39(1), 2003.
13. Ottoman Be’er Sheva: A Study Tour, Conclusion
- S. Deringil, “They Live in a State of Nomadism and Savagery: The Late
Ottoman Empire and the Post-Colonial Debate”, Comparative Study of
Society and History, 2003
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