Ottoman History Podcast

Episode 378 with Özlem Gülin Dağoğlu hosted by Sam Dolbee and Shireen Hamza Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud Many myths have accompanied the life of Mihri Rasim, but few are as interesting as her life itself. Born to a wealthy family in Istanbul in the late Ottoman period, Mihri Rasim became a politically connected painter, living in Italy for several years on her own and then Paris, where she played a key role in the salons of Ottoman dissidents known as the Young Turks. In the wake of the 1908 Constitutional Revolution, she returned to Istanbul, and opened the Fine Arts School for Women in Istanbul, where she went on to teach. After the war, she went to Italy, and then the United States, where she continued her work painting and teaching. In addition to many self-portraits, she also painted various powerful figures, among them Mustafa Kemal, Mussolini, and Thomas Edison. Listen for a discussion of art, gender, and migration in a period of momentous political change. « Click for More »

In this episode, historian Jane Hathaway discusses the role of the Chief Harem Eunuch in the Ottoman court, exploring their mobility, ties to Cairo and Mecca, and unique insights into political life. The episode also delves into the depiction of eunuchs in Ottoman manuscripts and architecture, the architectural complex founded by Beshirah, and the lives of eunuchs in the empire, including the quest of a harem eunuch to find his birth family in Ethiopia.

Episode 367 with Salim Tamari hosted by Sam Dolbee Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud Nationalism has greatly influenced the way we think about Palestinian history. In this episode, Salim Tamari discusses this question in relation to his new book, The Great War and the Remaking of Palestine, which explores Palestine under Ottoman rule during World War I. Tamari highlights the transformative nature of the conflict in Palestine, and the Ottomanist roots of many Palestinian and Arab nationalists. He also tackles the question of sources in Palestine, and how family papers have been crucial to his work. We conclude by discussing the stakes of recovering that past as the dispossession of Palestinians continues into the present. « Click for More »

Episode 363 with Lauren Davis hosted by Susanna Ferguson Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud What did Istanbul's Spice Bazaar smell like in Ottoman times? In this episode, we explore the historical smellscape of this iconic market space from its early history up to the present day. Through a story about Ottoman smells and their transformations in the twentieth century, we touch on the trade routes of exotic spices, Ottoman marketing practices, and the greener, more fragrant Istanbul that still lives in the memories of twentieth-century shopowners who spent their lives in and around the Bazaar. Finally, we consider how telling history through smell could change the way we think about the past and struggle to preserve it. « Click for More »

Episode 362 with M’hamed Oualdi & Hayri Gökşin Özkoray hosted by Andreas Guidi Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud Our latest podcast in collaboration with The Southeast Passage examines how slavery flourished in the Ottoman Mediterranean in the wake of growing connectivity with other world regions and territorial expansion. The discussion draws out the ambiguity between slavery and servitude in the case of the Mamluks of the Tunisian Beylik during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Which economic processes, legal interpretations, and geographic routes impacted the evolution of the slave trade from the sixteenth century until its abolition? What are the possibilities for and problems in retracing the self-narratives of those directly involved in the slave trade? « Click for More »

Episode 359 with Zeynep Oktay Uslu hosted by Matthew Ghazarian and Işın Taylan Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud In this episode, we explore the evolution of Abdal and Bektashi doctrine from the 14th to 17th centuries. The Abdals of Rum and the Bektashis were two dervish groups in Anatolia who by the 16th century would merge to become the Bektashi Sufi order. Many Bektashi beliefs and practices are also inter-connected with those of Alevi communities. By taking a closer look at Abdal and Bektashi poetry, we examine how poetry, fiction, and other aspects of dervish piety evolved into the core beliefs of contemporary Alevism in Turkey. « Click for More »

Episode 357 with Didem Havlioğlu hosted by Chris Gratien Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud What did it mean to be a woman in the intellectual world of early modern Islamic empires? In this episode, our guest Didem Havlioğlu offers one answer to this question through the life and works of Mihrî Hatun, an Ottoman woman from 15th-century Amasya whose poetry survives to this day. Mihrî was unique within the male-dominated sphere of early modern love poetry, and as we discuss in this podcast, her position as a woman was integral to her poetry and its meaning. These poems and the relationships of this exceptional writer are the subject of Havlioğlu's new book entitled Mihrî Hatun: Performance, Gender-Bending, and Subversion in Ottoman Intellectual History (Syracuse University Press). « Click for More »

Episode 354 with Natalie Rothman hosted by Nir Shafir and Aslihan Gürbüzel Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud Dragomans are often known as diplomatic translators, but their responsibilities and roles went much further than being mere interpreters. In this podcast, we speak with Natalie Rothman about how dragomans negotiated both linguistic space and social space across the Eastern Mediterranean. Focusing specifically on the case of Venetian dragomans, we discuss their training and how they managed to become brokers of knowledge and connections between the Ottoman Empire and myriad publics in Venice and beyond. In the second half of the podcast, we delve a bit deeper and examine how dragomans came to contribute to the budding world of Orientalist knowledge among seventeenth-century European scholars. « Click for More »

Noémi Lévy-Aksu, an Ottoman Empire historical expert, discusses the widespread implementation of idare-i örfiyye in the late Ottoman Empire. They explore the genesis of this legal notion and its political, geographic, and social impact. Topics include the introduction of I'dari Orfea, daily experiences under Ottoman control, mixed courts and justice reform, and the international response to the state of emergency.

Episode 348 with Alexander Bevilacqua hosted by Maryam Patton and Shireen Hamza Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud When and how did European scholars first begin to seriously study Islam and the Arabic language? It has often been assumed that Medieval misconceptions and polemic towards Muslims were not cast off until the secularism of the European Enlightenment. In this episode, we learn that the foundations of the modern Western understanding were actually laid as early as the 17th century. Alexander Bevilacqua shares his research on the network of Catholic and Protestant scholars he calls the “Republic of Arabic Letters.” These scholars went to great lengths to learn Arabic and gather Arabic books and manuscripts, and eventually produced careful translations of the Qur’an and histories of Muslim societies based on Arabic sources. « Click for More »