Syllabus: The Post-Ottoman World

Instructor: James Ryan (Office hours by appointment 4th floor of Kevorkian) Email: james.ryan@nyu.edu Thursdays 2:00PM-4:45PM, Spring 2020, Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, LL2 Description: What does it mean to have lived in a world where the Ottoman Empire no longer exists? How did states, institutions, and individuals cope with the loss of an Empire that once spanned over a million square kilometers and whose dynastic rule had persisted over six centuries? In recent years, scholarship on the Middle East in the 20th century has started to consider, in various ways, what legacies the Ottoman Empire left in its wake after its defeat and collapse in the early 1920s. The term “post-Ottoman” has become a convenient marker to signal the temporal space this scholarship occupies, but what does it really mean? What does it mean when we speak of post-Ottoman history? Is it more than just a marker? Can we talk about it the same way we talk about post-imperialism or post-colonialism? Or how we talk about the post-Soviet (or post-classical) world? This course will explore the history of the Middle East, as well as southeast Europe and the wider world, through the afterlives of the Ottoman Empire. The tumult of the post-WWI period brought revolutionary modernism to much of the former Ottoman lands, but certain types of institutions, networks, and cultural rhythms persisted from the Ottoman period long into the second half of the twentieth century, and as is apparent in contemporary Middle Eastern politics and culture, there is a resurgence of interest in an Ottoman past that was once actively suppressed by many Ottoman successor states. This course will proceed through four themes to excavate and explore the post-Ottoman world: how nation-states defined themselves in concert and contrast with their imperial pasts; the persistence and reinvention of Ottoman institutions, particularly religious institutions; transnational networks and their reconfiguration after the fall of the empire; and the multivalent presence of imperial nostalgia. Assignments: There are two fundamental assignments for this course, one meant to prompt deep engagement with the assigned readings and promote discussion in the classroom, and another meant to help grow your own graduate work in the best possible way. The rules for the first will be strict, so that we can have fairness and the mutual expectation that we have all read the material deeply, and the rules for the second looser, so that the course can serve your own ends in the most productive way possible. The first assignment will be to write at least one response paper for a given week’s reading and to serve at least once as the in-class respondent to that week’s paper. Each week, one student will prepare an essay of 500-1000 words offering a critical analysis of at least one of the works assigned that week, buttressed by engagement with some of the secondary texts. That essay must be submitted by 5PM WEDNESDAY of each week. It will be expected that all students read this essay prior to class, and that one student, designated in advance, prepares a five-minute response to the essay offering either answers to questions posed in the response, new sets of questions unaddressed by the response or the works assigned, or their own analysis of the questions at hand drawn from the readings. This may appear ritualistic and mildly draconian to you, but it will ensure that all students participate deeply in the class discussion, and it will force you to grapple with major questions posed by the readings ahead of class time. Please note that in some weeks, there is only one text required and in others more than one. ALL students must read ALL of the required reading, those writing essays and serving as respondent will be expected to have done some of the recommended reading. Furthermore, the amount of reading in this course may appear to be a lot at times, and that is because it is. However, I do not want students to read in the manner that graduate students so often do. I do not expect you to “break” these books. Our discussions in this course are meant to be thematic, connecting readings to one another and to the overall question that is driving the course. We will not be deconstructing books down into their constituent parts, we won’t even be formally evaluating them on the stakes and terms which they set for themselves, however unfair that may seem at times to the author. Fundamentally, you are expected to read with the above questions in mind, to ask these readings whether they provide you with materials to think through the concept of the “post-Ottoman world” – or not. It is perfectly acceptable to conclude that any assigned reading doesn’t help us answer the question so long as one has a good justification. It is my hope that reading with this in mind will help students prioritize and manage the readings to maximize their own exploration of the topic at hand. Always, if you are struggling with the reading load, it is best to let me know sooner than later. Come to office hours, send me a note on email, and we’ll talk about how best to attack things going forward. The second assignment is a final project. Your final project must address the very broad question at the top of this syllabus – What does it mean to have lived in a world where the Ottoman Empire no longer exists? You may accomplish this in any number of ways, whether in a traditional term paper, a review article that addresses a number of the books assigned in the course, in a draft of an article derived from original research, or, if there is a compelling motivation and serious, substantial engagement with the course material, in a non-textual medium such as a podcast, short film, or work of art. The key here will be that the project is able to be completed in a timely manner and submitted at the end of the course, and that you will consult frequently with myself, and, if need be, your thesis or dissertation committee members, about the content and design of the project so that things remain on track throughout the semester. A proposal for the final project must be submitted by March 26, after which I will review and approve them as is appropriate. The final project must be submitted by May 19, 2020 at 5PM Eastern Standard Time. Requests for extensions or Incompletes will be considered in the case of extenuating circumstances, but please note that it is always better to ask for these earlier than later, and that if you are planning to graduate in May, the turnaround time at the end of the semester is short. Each of these assignments will be worth 50% of your grade in the course. Note on readings: As much as possible, the works listed below will be placed on reserve at Bobst Library. Unless otherwise noted, all of the required books and articles are available in digital editions through NYU Libraries. If you have any trouble acquiring any of the readings, please let me know as soon as possible. Lastly, all of the below readings are subject to change. While I do not anticipate making major adjustments to the readings below, I reserve the right to swap, cut, or add readings depending on contingencies in the schedule, or how things are going in the course overall. Part one: From Empire to Nation January 30: Required Readings: “President Aoun’s Address Marking the ‘Greater Lebanon’ Centennial Celebrations” http://nna-leb.gov.lb/en/show-news/107103/President-Aoun-39-address-marking-the-39-Greater-Lebanon-39-Centennial-celebrations Albert Hourani, “How Should We Write the History of the Middle East?” International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 23, No. 2 (May, 1991) p.125-136 Einar Wigen, “Post-Ottoman studies: An area studies that never was” in Building Bridges to Turkish: Essays in Honour of Bernt Brendemoen, p. 295-312 [pdf available on Google Drive] February 6: Required Readings: Cyrus Schayegh, The Middle East and the Making of the Modern World (p. 1-27, 124-326) Ussama Makdisi, Age of Coexistence: The Ecumenical Frame and the Making of the Modern Arab World (p. 1-27, 113-201) [pdf available on Google Drive] February 13: Required Readings: Michael Meeker, A Nation of Empire: The Ottoman Legacy of Turkish Modernity February 20: This week will focus on comparative case studies. As such, students must read at least one of the following required readings for Part One, the response essay must engage a minimum of two of the additional readings and offer some thoughts on comparative cases. Students will select the readings in the previous week so that the class and instructor are aware. Required Readings: [one of the following] Elizabeth Thompson, Colonial Citizens: Republican Rights, Paternal Privilege, and Gender in French Syria and Lebanon James Gelvin, Divided Loyalties: Nationalism and Mass Politics in Syria at the Close of Empire Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity: The Construction of Modern National Consciousness Sara Pursley, Familiar Futures: Time, Selfhood, and Sovereignty in Iraq Orit Bashkin, The Other Iraq: Pluralism and Culture in Hashemite Iraq Lerna Ekmekçioğlu, Recovering Armenia: The Limits of Belonging in Post-genocide Turkey Ryan Gingeras, Sorrowful Shores: Violence, Ethnicity, and the End of the Ottoman Empire, 1912-1923 Keith David Watenpaugh, Being Modern in the Middle East: Revolution, Nationalism, Colonialism, and the Arab Middle Class Hale Yılmaz, Becoming Turkish: Nationalist Reforms and Cultural Negotiations in Early Republican Turkey Additional Readings for Part One: Eugene Rogan, The Fall of the Ottomans David Fromkin, A Peace to End all Peace Hasan Kayalı, Arabs and Young Turks Sibel Bozdoğan, Modernism in Nation Building: Architectural Culture in the early Turkish Republic Elizabeth Thompson, “The Arab World’s Liberal-Islamist Schism Turns 100” https://tcf.org/content/report/arab-worlds-liberal-islamist-schism-turns-100/ Ussama Makdisi, “Ottoman Orientalism” The American Historical Review 107(3):768-796 Part Two: Institutional (dis)Continuities February 27: Required Readings: Mona Hassan, Longing for the Lost Caliphate: A Transregional History (p. 1-19, 142-260) Cemil Aydın, The Idea of the Muslim World: A Global Intellectual History (p. 1-13, 99-238) March 5: Required Readings: Edhem Eldem, “Sultan Abdülhamid II: Founding Father of the Turkish State?” Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association, 5(2):25-46 Michael Provence, The Last Ottoman Generation and the Making of the Modern Middle East March 12: Required Readings: Aslı Iğsız, Humanism in Ruins: Entangled Legacies of the Greek-Turkish Population Exchange ***Spring Break March 16-20*** March 26: ***Proposal for Final Project Due by Class Time*** Required Readings: Ayşe Zarakol, After Defeat: How the East Learned to Live with the West (p. 1-159) Lisel Hintz, Identity Politics Inside Out: National Identity Contestation and Foreign Policy in Turkey (1-13, 33-126) Lerna K. Yanık, “Bringing the Empire Back In: The Gradual Discovery of the Ottoman Empire in Turkish Foreign Policy” Die Welt Des Islams 56 (2016) 466-488 Additional Readings for Part Two: Israel Gershoni and James Jankowski, Egypt, Islam and the Arabs Ebru Boyar and Kate Fleet, “A Dangerous Axis: The ‘Bulgarian Müftü’, the Turkish Opposition, and the Ankara Government, 1928-36” Middle Eastern Studies Vol. 44 No. 5 (Sep 2008) pp. 775-789 M. Brett Wilson, Translating the Qur’an in an Age of Nationalism: Print Culture and Modern Islam in Turkey Umut Özsu, Formalizing Displacement: International Law and Population Transfers M’Hamed Oualdi, A Slave Between Empires Cemil Aydin, The Politics of Anti-Westernism in Asia Amara, Abu-Saad, and Yiftachel, Indigenous (In)justice: Human Rights Law and Bedouin Arabs in the Naqab/Negev Eve Troutt-Powell, Tell this in My Memory: Stories of Enslavement from Egypt, Sudan, and the Ottoman Empire Part Three: Transnational and Transtemporal networks April 2: Required Readings: Frederick Anscombe, State, Faith, and Nation in Ottoman and Post-Ottoman Lands (p. 1-18, 141-296) Clayer, Giomi, and Szurek eds. Kemalism: Transnational Politics in the Post-Ottoman World (1-37 [Introduction]; 38-80 [Clayer – Civil Code in Albania]; 143-177 [Jacob – Egypt and Kemalism]; 264-308 [Szurek – Kemalist Science]) [pdfs on Google Drive] April 9: Required Readings: Lâle Can, Spiritual Subjects: Central Asian Pilgrims and Ottoman Hajj at the End of Empire Faiz Ahmed, Afghanistan Rising: Islamic Law and Statecraft between the Ottoman and British Empires (p. 1-30, 171-273) Aril 16: Required Reading/Activity: Isa Blumi, Ottoman Refugees, 1878-1939: Migration in a Post-Imperial World Işıl Acehan, “‘Ottoman Street’ in America: Turkish Leatherworkers in Peabody, Massachusetts” International Review of Social History Vol. 54, Supplement 17, pp. 19-44 Walking tour – Little Syria/Ottoman New York (Todd Fine; İşil Acehan) Additional Readings for Part Three: Leah Feldman, On the Threshold of Eurasia Sebnem Köser Akcapar, “Turkish Associations in the United States: Towards Building a Transnational Identity” Part Four: Future Pasts, Twilight Nostalgia. April 23: Required Readings: Yoav Di-Capua, Gatekeepers of the Arab Past (p. 1-185) Nathan Citino, Envisioning the Arab Future: Modernization in US-Arab Relations, 1945-1967 (pp. 21-116, 162-196) April 30: Required Readings: Nicholas Danforth, “A History of the Ottoman Empire from 1923 to Today” Mediterranean Quarterly 27:2 (June 2016), pp. 5-27 Anna Zadrozna, “Reconstructing the past in a post-Ottoman village: Turkishness in a transnational context” Nationalities Papers Vol. 45 No. 4 (2017) 524-539 Edin Hajdarpasic, “Out of the Ruins of the Ottoman Empire: Reflections on the Ottoman Legacy in South-Eastern Europe” Middle Eastern Studies Vol. 44 No. 5 (Sep., 2008) pp. 715-734 Christine Philliou, “The Paradox of Perceptions: Interpreting the Ottoman Past through the National Present” Middle Eastern Studies Vol. 44, No. 5 (Sept. 2008), pp. 661-675 May 7: Note: This week presents the students a choice. We may either focus on Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar’s novel The Time Regulation Institute or recent Turkish soap operas. The point here is to directly examine post-Ottoman cultural products that have a clearly nostalgic relationship with the Ottoman past. We will discuss in class several weeks prior whether we should split into groups to cover these or if we should all choose one path, according to everyone’s interests. Required Readings: EITHER Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, The Time Regulation Institute AND Christine Philliou, “When the Clock Strikes Twelve: The Inception of an Ottoman Past in Early Republican Turkey” CSSAME (2011) 31(1): 172-182 OR Marwan Kraidy and Omar Al-Ghazzi, “Neo-Ottoman Cool: Turkish Popular Culture in the Arab Public Sphere” Popular Communication 11(1):17-29 (2013) AND Netflix/YouTube: “The Magnificent Century”/ “Ertuğrul” / “Payitaht Abdülhamid” Additional Readings for Part Four: Hülya Adak, “Suffragettes of the empire, daughters of the Republic: Women auto/biographers narrate national history (1918-1935)” New Perspectives on Turkey no. 36 (2007), 27-51 Doğan Gürpinar, “The Politics of Memoirs and Memoir-Publishing in Twentieth Century Turkey” Turkish Studies 13/3, September 2012, 537-557 Phillip Wirtz, “Presenting Ottoman Childhoods in Post-Ottoman Autobiographies” in Benjamin C. Fortna, ed., Childhood in the Late Ottoman Empire and After (Open Access: Brill, 2016) Svetlana Boym, The Future of Nostalgia (New York: Basic Books, 2001) Charles S. Maier, “The End of Longing? (Notes toward a History of Postwar German National Longing)” in Brady, et al eds., The Postwar Transformation of Germany: Democracy, Prosperity, and Nationhood (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999), 271-285 Andreas Huyssen Twilight Memories: Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia (New York: Routledge, 1995) Esra Özyürek, Nostalgia for the Modern Amy Mills, Streets of Memory