Louisa Tounsia - Ouinek-Ouinek (Columbia, c. 1953-1954)

E526 | How was European military intervention in the Ottoman Empire justified throughout the nineteenth century? What did the Ottoman statesmen and subjects think of these would-be attemepts to provide them with more security? From the late eighteenth century, as a new international system was emerging, European powers considered the Ottoman Empire a weaker foil to their own expanding empires. In this episode, Ozan Ozavci explores how this perception of Ottoman weakness, known as the Eastern Question, affected the Ottoman Empire's place in and engagement with the new international system and law. Exploring the different phases of the Eastern Question, from the French invasion of Egypt in 1798 to the Civil War in Greater Syria durings the 1860s, Ozavci highlights agency of individual actors in the Ottoman capital and the provinces.

More at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2022/04/ozavci.html

Ozan Ozavci is Assistant Professor of Transimperial History at Utrecht University and co-convenor of the Lausanne Project.

Zeinab Azarbadegan is a post-doctoral fellow at the Vienna School of International Studies. She completed her PhD at Columbia University. Her research focuses on imperial knowledge production about the space of Ottoman Iraq by the Ottomans, the Qajars, and the British in the late nineteenth century.

CREDITS 

Episode No. 526
Release Date: 22 April 2022
Sound production by Zeinab Azarbadegan
Music: "Melodia Arabia" from Franz Hünten's Fantaisie arabe op. 136 (1845). A famous French melody copied from a North African (Egyptian or Algerian) one since 1600s. "Partant pour la Syrie" sung by Joseph Saucier (Canadian National Archives). The lyrics were inspired by the French invasion of Egypt and Syria and was the French national anthem during the Second Empire. "Aldahre Kataâ Awsali " by Munira al-Mahdiyya (Free Music Archive). "Samaii Hijaz Kar Kurdi" by Chahadé Saadé(Free Music Archive)
Images and bibliography courtesy of Ozan Ozavci available at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2022/04/ozavci.html

Season 11

A New History of The Eastern Question | Ozan Ozavci

E531 | How did massive, modern shipping ports emerge from the sands of the Arabian Peninsula, and what they teach us about our present forms of global exchange? Combining historical research with site visits that included multiple voyages around the Arabian Peninsula, our guest Laleh Khalili sheds light on these questions in this two-part series on shipping and empire around the Arabian Peninsula. Through her investigation of the entangled realms of commerce, technology, and empire in the Indian Ocean world, Khalili shows how changes in any of one of them sparked associated changes in the others. In this first part, we focus on the period from the 16th century Ottoman entry into the region until decolonization in the 20th century, covering topics including the Hajj, disease, steam engines, ship laborers, Anglo-Ottoman rivalries, and the retreat of the British Empire after the Second World War.

More at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2022/08/laleh-khalili.html

Laleh Khalili is Professor of International Politics at Queen Mary University of London, and the author of Heroes and Martyrs of Palestine: The Politics of National Commemoration (Cambridge 2007), Time in the Shadows: Confinement in Counterinsurgencies (Stanford 2013), and Sinews of War and Trade: Shipping and Capitalism in the Arabian Peninsula (Verso 2020).

Matthew Ghazarian is an Eveillard Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer in Environmental Science and Policy at Smith College. His research examines the intersections of social, economic, and environmental history in the late Ottoman Empire.

CREDITS

Episode No. 531
Release Date: 1 October 2022
Sound production by Matthew Ghazarian
Music: "Um Pepino" by Blue Dot Sessions
Images and bibliography courtesy of Laleh Khalili available at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2022/08/laleh-khalili.html

Season 12

Shipping and Empire around the Arabian Peninsula | Laleh Khalili

E532 | What can family and individual studio photographs tell us about social life in the early Republic of Turkey? In this episode, Özge Calafato highlights the negotiations between the Kemalist state, the photographers, and the people being photographed that led to classed and gendered representation of modern Turkish citizens in vernacular photography. Calafato analyzes not only the image, but also the context of production and the inscriptions written behind photographs. Looking at photos of subjects as ranging from beauty queens and feminist activists to bank employees and soldiers, she considers the production and circulation of photos not only in urban studios and within families but also in rural areas and within friendship groups.

More at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2022/10/calafato.html

Özge Calafato is Lecturer in Literary and Cultural Analysis at the University of Amsterdam. Her research interests lie at the intersection of photography, archives, memory and cultural identity. She is the author of "Making the Modern Turkish Citizen: Vernacular Photography in the Early Republican Era" (I.B. Tauris, 2022).

Zeinab Azarbadegan is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Her research focuses on the intersection of inter-imperial relations and history of science, technology, and medicine, in nineteenth century Ottoman Iraq

CREDITS

Episode No. 532
Release Date: 11 October 2022
Audio editing by Zeinab Azarbadegan
Music: Seyyan Hanım - Gönlüm Sensiz Olmaz, İbrahim Özgür- Mavi Kelebek, Seyyan Hanım - Mazi
Images courtesy of  Akkasah, the photography archive at al Mawrid, NYUAD. Copyright al Mawrid
Bibliography courtesy of Özge Calafato available at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2022/10/calafato.html

Vernacular Photography in Early Republican Turkey | Özge Calafato

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Mixed & Edited By Eshkounjay From My Collection
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Eshkounjay Goes Lybia (Cassettes-Only )ليبيا

E534 | How did massive, modern shipping ports emerge from the sands of the Arabian Peninsula, and what they teach us about our present forms of global exchange? Combining historical research with site visits that included multiple voyages around the Arabian Peninsula, our guest Laleh Khalili sheds light on these questions in this two-part series on shipping and empire around the Arabian Peninsula. Through her investigation of the entangled realms of commerce, technology, and empire in the Indian Ocean world, Khalili shows how changes in any of one of them sparked associated changes in the others. In this second part, we focus on the period from the mid-20th century period when new centers of trade like Dubai vied to attract commerce and investment to their shores. As vessel size grew, so too did ports, whose construction and maintainence have remade coastal ecologies in the Gulf. We discuss the the impacts of armed conflict and the COVID-19 pandemic on shipping, as well as the recent shifts in global logistics that have arisen with the rise of large Middle East-based ports management firms.

More at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2022/12/khalili2.html

Laleh Khalili is Professor of International Politics at Queen Mary University of London, and the author of Heroes and Martyrs of Palestine: The Politics of National Commemoration (Cambridge 2007), Time in the Shadows: Confinement in Counterinsurgencies (Stanford 2013), and Sinews of War and Trade: Shipping and Capitalism in the Arabian Peninsula (Verso 2020).

Matthew Ghazarian is an Eveillard Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer in Environmental Science and Policy at Smith College. His research examines the intersections of social, economic, and environmental history in the late Ottoman Empire.

CREDITS

Episode No. 534
Release Date: 3 December 2022
Sound production by Matthew Ghazarian
Music: "Um Pepino" by Blue Dot Sessions
Images and bibliography courtesy of Laleh Khalili at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2022/12/khalili2.html

Shipping and Empire around the Arabian Peninsula, Part 2

E535 | When you think of the history of science, what people and places come to mind? Scientific knowledge production flourished in early modern Morocco, and not in the places you might expect. This episode transports us into the intellectual and social worlds of Sufi lodges (zawāya) in seventeenth-century Morocco. Our guest, Justin Stearns, guides us through scholarly and educational landscapes far removed from the imperial urban centers of Fez and Marrakech. We discuss his new book, Revealed Sciences, which examines the development of the natural sciences through close study of works produced by rural Sufi scholars. Challenging the idea that the early modern period was one of intellectual decline, Stearns reveals the vibrant multi-ethnic, intellectual networks of the early modern Maghreb and the implications of their story for the history of science and the writing of history. We speak about paper mâché astrolabes, Borgesian fantasies, resisting the lure of triumphant narratives, and the importance of failure for creativity and innovation.

More at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2022/12/stearns.html

Justin Stearns is Professor of Arab Crossroads Studies at New York University Abu Dhabi where he teaches classes on the pre-modern Islamicate world and the relationship between science and religion. His research focuses on the premodern intellectual history of the Islamic West (Maghrib).

Shireen Hamza is a doctoral candidate in the History of Science department at Harvard University. Her research focuses on the history of medical exchange in the medieval Indian Ocean world.

Taylor M. Moore is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

CREDITS

Episode No. 535
Release Date: 14 December 2022
Sound production by Shireen Hamza
Music: "Touicha & Jabir," Moroccan Folk Music, Lyrichord
Bibliography and images courtesy of Justin Stearns at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2022/12/stearns.html

The Natural Sciences in Early Modern Morocco | Justin Stearns

E537 | Since the 19th century, different forms of missionary activities and preaching have been shaping the role of religion within the societies of the Middle East and North Africa. Not only Christian congregations, but also Muslim and Jewish institutions participated in this phenomenon. Emulation but also competition existed across confessional boundaries and intersected with colonialism, wars, emancipation projects, and state authority. In this episode, we approach the galaxy of missions and preaching in the longue durée with the three editors of a recently published edited volume, Missions and Preaching: Connected and Decompartmentalised Perspectives from the Middle East and North Africa (19th-21st Century).

This episode is cross-listed with The Southeast Passage: http://thesoutheastpassage.com/

More at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2023/03/sep2023.html

Norig Neveu is a research fellow at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS)/ Iremam. Her present research focuses on the reconfiguration of Christian and Muslim religious authorities in Jordan and Palestine from the end of the 19th century. From 2017 to 2021, she was co-PI and coordinator of the MisSMO research program about Christian missions in the Middle East since the late 19th century (https://missmo.hypotheses.org/). Her last publication includes the Special Issue: “Gender and Mission”, Social Sciences and Missions, 34:1–2 (2021) with Séverine Gabry-Thienpont.

Karène Sanchez Summerer is Professor and Chair of the Middle Eastern Studies Programme at Groningen University (The Netherlands). Her current research considers the interactions between European linguistic and cultural policies, missionaries’ modalities and impact and the Arab Catholic communities in Palestine (1860–1948). She is the PI of the research project (2017–2022), ‘CrossRoads—A connected history between Europeans’ cultural diplomacy and Arab Christians in Mandate Palestine’ (project funded by The Dutch Research Council NWO), and was co-PI of MisSMO. Her last publications include Sanchez Summerer, K. and Zananiri, S., Imaging and Imagining Palestine- Photography, Modernity and the Biblical Lens (1918–1948) (Leiden/ Boston: Brill, 2021); Irving, S., Nassif, C. and Sanchez Summerer, K., The House of the Priest. A Palestinian life (1885–1954) (Leiden/ Boston: Brill, 2022).

Annalaura Turiano is a postdoctoral researcher within the Archival City Project at the University Gustave Eiffel (Marne-la-Vallée). Her research interests span missionary education, trans-Mediterranean migrations, and philanthropy in modern Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean. Her last publications include “Masculinity, Industrial Education and Fascism in Egypt. The construction of gender in the schools of the Salesian mission in Egypt (1900–1939)”, Social Sciences and Missions, 24/2021: 1–32. She is currently finishing a monograph entitled Missionnaires italiens en Égypte. De la pastorale migratoire à la coopération technique 1897-1970, EFR/ IFAO, forthcoming 2023.

CREDITS

Episode No. 537
Release Date: 6 March 2023
Sound production by Andreas Guidi

An Interconfessional History of Missions in the Middle East and North Africa

E539 | Beyond attending classes, reading books, or listening to podcasts, how do people learn about the history of the Ottoman Empire, the Middle East and the Islamic world? In this episode, we discuss a gaming project, The Hajj Trail, as one alternative. Like the 1970s educational computer game The Oregon Trail, The Hajj Trail is an interactive simulation of historical Hajj pilgrimages to Mecca. It aims to provide students with an opportunity to interact with 17th century Ottoman social and cultural history through a hypothetical journey on the road to Mecca. Also like its US-based predecessor, the simulation asks participants to make choices along the way, one beset with financial, ecological, and political obstacles. The visuals, music, and situations have been drawn from  primary sources gathered by our guest Tyler Kynn, and his collaborators. As the co-founder and current project lead, Kynn sat down with us to talk about creating the <i>The Hajj Trail</i> and how he has used it in the classroom. We discuss the impetus for the project, the mechanics of assembling it, and the learning opportunities that can arise when historians take seriously the potential of pairing education and play.  

More at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2023/03/kynn.html

Tyler Kynn is  Assistant Professor of History at Central Connecticut State University. His research explores the hajj in the early modern world, examining both narrative and archival material related to questions of Ottoman sovereignty, power, and identity in the Hijaz.

Matthew Ghazarian is an Eveillard Postdoctoral Fellow in Environmental Science and Policy at Smith College, where his research and teaching focus on environmental history, political economy, and communal conflict in the Middle East. Ghazarian’s current project examines the links between material conditions - like debt, drought, and hunger - and widening communal divides in the late Ottoman Empire.

On the Hajj Trail | Tyler Kynn

E548 | What can we learn about the late Ottoman Empire from the histories of its would-be margins? In this episode, we explore that question in multiple senses through a conversation with longtime Ottoman History Podcast contributor Sam Dolbee about his book "Locusts of Power: Borders, Empire, and Environment in the Modern Middle East." The book studies the dynamic history of the Jazira region, which straddles the modern borders of Turkey, Syria, and Iraq. From the Tanzimat-era reordering of the Ottoman provinces to the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the creation of new nation-states, we discuss how the environment of the Jazira region and its people were both actors and objects in the remaking of the Middle East. Building out from the changing lives of locusts, grasshoppers that intermittently imposed themselves on the Jazira's history by devouring agricultural crops, Dolbee casts light onto communities of nomads and migrants often excluded from the empire's modern history. In the process, he shows how the people of Jazirah both made and resisted new administrative and national borders of the period.

More at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2023/05/dolbee.html

Samuel Dolbee is Assistant Professor of History at Vanderbilt University, where he teaches classes on environment, disease, and the modern Middle East. His is author of Locusts of Power: Borders, Empire, and Environment in the Modern Middle East.

Chris Gratien is Associate Professor of History at University of Virginia, where he teaches classes on global environmental history and the Middle East. His first book, The Unsettled Plain: An Environmental History of the Late Ottoman Frontier, explores the social and environmental transformation of the Adana region of Southern Turkey during the 19th and 20th century.

Reem Bailony is an Associate Professor of Middle East history at Agnes Scott College and formerly an American Druze Foundation postdoctoral fellow at Georgetown University's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. Her book “Syria’s Transnational Rebellion: Diaspora Politics and the Revolt of 1925-1927" explores how the Syrian-Lebanese diaspora shaped the anti-French rebellion.

CREDITS

Episode No. 548
Release Date: 31 May 2023
Recording Location: Nashville, TN
Sound production by Chris Gratien
Music: Zé Trigueiros
Images and bibliography courtesy of Samual Dolbee

Shipping and Empire around the Arabian Peninsula | Laleh Khalili

Ottoman History Podcast

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