Season 11

E503 | In this first part of a two-part interview, we talk to Marc Baer about how he first became interested in Ottoman history and explore the main themes and the questions underpinning the research in his five books. In this conversation, we place special focus on the books Honored by the Glory of Islam: Conversion and Conquest in Ottoman Europe and The Dönme: Jewish Converts, Muslim Revolutionaries, and Secular Turks. Our discussion centers on approaches to the subject of conversion in the Ottoman Empire and the history of the dönme community born out of the transformations of the 17th century.

More at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2021/06/baer1.html

Marc David Baer is Professor of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His research interests include religious conversion, gender and sexuality, and interreligious relations and state violence in the Ottoman Empire, Greece, Turkey, and Germany.

Zeinab Azarbadegan is the 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. 503
Release Date: 18 June 2021
Audio editing by Zeinab Azarbadegan
Music: Special thanks to Monsieur Doumani for permission to use the composition "The System/Το σύστημαν", Isaac Algazi - Avinou Malkenou, Isaac Algazi - Ana Ke Av Zedoni 
Images and bibliography courtesy of Marc Baer available at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2021/06/baer1.html

Conversion and Jewish Histories of the Ottoman Empire | Marc Baer

E504 | The Ottoman conquests of the 16th century represented a watershed moment in many senses. Our guest Faisal Husain explains the most literal of these senses: the unification of the Tigris and Euphrates basins under a single political authority and its ramifications for the history of Iraq. In our conversation, we explore how Ottoman rule in Iraq created new ecological possibilities and realities, setting the stage for momentous interventions in the rivers detailed in Husain's recent book "Rivers of the Sultan: The Tigris and Euphrates in the Ottoman Empire." We also reflect on what Iraq reveals about Ottoman history writ large and the empire's dualist historical identity as an agrarian empire on one hand and flexible one on the other, in which accommodating local ecological difference was critical to governance.

More at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2021/06/the-environmental-origins-of-ottoman.html

Faisal Husain is Assistant Professor of History at the Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of Rivers of the Sultan and a member of the editorial boards of Marmara Türkiyat Araştırmaları Dergisi and Global Environment.

Chris Gratien is Assistant Professor of History at University of Virginia, where he teaches classes on global environmental history and the Middle East. His first monograph entitled The Unsettled Plain: An Environmental History of the Late Ottoman Frontier is forthcoming with Stanford University Press.

CREDITS

Episode No. 504
Release Date: 27 June 2021
Recording Location: Charlottesville, VA / State College, PA
Sound production and compisition by Sam Dolbee
Music: Chad Crouch - Pacing 
Bibliography and images courtesy of Faisal Husain available at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2021/06/the-environmental-origins-of-ottoman.html

The Environmental Origins of Ottoman Iraq | Faisal Husain

E505 | 19. yüzyılın ikinci yarısında, dinamit gibi patlayıcıların icadı ile küresel düzeyde oluşan küçük silah fazlası Osmanlı Balkanlarındaki devrimcileri hangi bakımlardan güçlendirdi? Osmanlı Devleti, imparatorluk karşıtı eylemleri kolaylaştıran bu ”devrim karaborsası”nı hangi yöntemleri kullanarak kontrol etmeye çalıştı? Bu bölümde, Dr. Ramazan Hakkı Öztan ile geç Osmanlı Balkanlarında devrimcilik, şiddet ve teknoloji ilişkisini, meselenin küresel politik ekonomi boyutunu da dikkate alarak değerlendiriyoruz. Devrimci şiddetin kavramsallaştırılması ve ideolojilerin devrimci siyasetteki önemini eleştirel olarak ele alırken, bu alandaki arşiv kaynaklarının nasıl incelenebileceğini de örneklerle tartışıyoruz.

https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2021/07/oztan.html

Ramazan Hakkı Öztan lisans eğitimini Hacettepe Üniversitesi İngiliz Dili ve Edebiyatı’nda, yüksek lisansını ise Wyoming Üniversitesi Tarih bölümünde tamamladı. 2016 yılında Utah Üniversitesi Tarih bölümünde Peter Sluglett’ın danışmanlığında tamamladığı doktora tezinde, 19 yüzyıl sonu Osmanlı Balkanlarında ‘milliyetçiliğin metaları’ ve ‘devrimin karaborsası’ olarak kavramsallaştırdığı silah ve dinamit kaçakçılığı üzerine yoğunlaştı. 2017-2020 yılları arasında Neuchâtel Üniversitesi’nde Jordi Tejel’in yürütücüsü olduğu ve Avrupa Birliği Ufuk2020 programı kapsamındaki bir araştırma projesinde, doktora sonrası araştırmacı olarak çalıştı ve Türkiye-Suriye sınır bölgesi üzerine araştırmalar yaptı. Kasım 2020’den beri Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Atatürk Enstitüsü’nde Dr. Öğretim Üyesi olarak görev yapmaktadır.

Can Gümüş Boğaziçi Üniversitesi Atatürk İlkeleri ve İnkılap Tarihi Enstitüsü'ndeki doktora çalışmalarına, geç Osmanlı dönemi kentlerinde halk sağlığı ve kentleşme ilişkisini incelediği araştırmasıyla devam ediyor.

YAPIM VE YAYIN

Bölüm No: 505
Yayınlanma Tarihi: 6 Temmuz 2021
Kayıt yeri: İstanbul
Ses Editörü: Can Gümüş
Müzik: Aitua; A.A. Aalto; Chad Crouch
Görseller ve Kaynakça Ramazan Hakkı Öztan’ın müsaadesiyle

Balkan Komitacıları, Teknoloji ve Şiddet | Ramazan Hakkı Öztan

E506 | Refik Halid Karay (1889-1965) was a writer, bureaucrat, and political exile whose life spanned the end of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of the Republic of Turkey. Christine Philliou traces his life as well as a genealogy of political opposition more broadly in her new book Turkey: A Past Against History. Following Refik Halid between his exiles in Sinop, Syria, and elsewehre as well as his momentous encounter with Mustafa Kemal in the Telegraph Episode, Philliou sheds light on the complicated transition between empire and nation. She also grapples with the challenge of telling history based on the voluminous and often satirical musings of a figure himself deeply invested in interpreting the past. 

More at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2021/07/halit.html

Christine Philliou is professor in the History Department, Director of the Modern Greek and Hellenic Studies Program at the Institute for European Studies, and Director of the Turkish and Ottoman Studies Program at the Center for Middle East Studies at UC Berkeley. Her first book was Biography of an Empire (2010, UC Press; Greek edition forthcoming 2021 with Alexandria Publications) and her new book is Turkey: A Past Against History (2021, UC Press).

Sam Dolbee is a lecturer on History and Literature at Harvard University. His research is on the environmental history of the late Ottoman Empire told through the frame of locusts in the Jazira region.

Brittany White is a graduate student in the Department of History at the University of Virginia. Broadly, she is interested in the African Diaspora in former Ottoman territories.

CREDITS 

Episode No. 506
Release Date: 16 July 2021
Recording Location: Kensington, CA / Somerville, MA / New York, NY
Sound production by Sam Dolbee
Script by Brittany White and Sam Dolbee
Additional thanks to Chris Gratien
Music: Zé Trigueiros, "Petite Route," "Saez," "Big Road of Burravoe"
Images and bibliography courtesy of Christine Philliou available at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2021/07/halit.html

Refik Halit: A Life of Opposition | Christine Philliou

E507 | In this episode, Fariba Zarinebaf discusses the history of Galata and the early modern Mediterranean more broadly. Beginning with the incorporation of Galata's Genoese community of Istanbul under Ottoman rule in 1453, Zarinebaf explains how the treaties known as the capitulations (ahdname in Turkish) provided a durable framework for commercial exchange and pluralistic everyday life in Ottoman port cities. She also considers how these arrangements compared with commerce and life in non-Ottoman Mediterranean ports. Through a focus on French-Ottoman relations, Zarinebaf offers a glimpse of how treaties become involved in changing economic fortunes in the Mediterranean and the world. She also attends to how these economic patterns shaped the more intimate aspects of social life in Galata, closing with the impact of Napoleon's invasion of Egypt on the French community of Galata.

More at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2021/07/zarinebaf.html

Fariba Zarinebaf obtained her PhD in Middle Eastern history from the University of Chicago in 1991. She is a professor of history at the University of California-Riverside and was the former director of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies there. She has taught at Bilkent University, Northwestern University and the University of Virginia. Among her publications are, Les Iraniens d’Istanbul, co-edited with Thierry Zarcone, Crime and Punishment in Eighteenth Century Istanbul (University of California Press, 2010), Mediterranean Encounters, Trade and Pluralism in Galata (University of California Press, 2018) and Fariba Zarinebaf, John Bennet and Jack L. Davis, A Historical and Economic Geography of Ottoman Greece (American School of Classical Studies, 2005), Women on the Margins: Gender, Charity and Justice in the Early Modern Middle East ( Isis press, 2014). Her next book is tentatively entitled; The Last of the Silk Caravans, Cross-Cultural Trade and Urban Life on the Ottoman-Safavid Silk Road in the Early Modern Period.

Sam Dolbee is a lecturer on History and Literature at Harvard University. His research is on the environmental history of the late Ottoman Empire told through the frame of locusts in the Jazira region.

Nir Shafir researches the intellectual and religious history of the Middle East, from roughly 1400-1800, focusing on material culture and the history of science and technology. He is an assistant professor of history at UCSD.

CREDITS

Episode No. 507
Release Date: 23 July 2021
Recording Location: Chicago, IL / Somerville, MA / Torino
Sound production by Sam Dolbee
Additional thanks to Chris Gratien
Music: Blue Dot Sessions, "Fifteen Street,"; Zé Trigueiros, "Saez" 
Images and bibliography courtesy of Fariba Zarinebaf available at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2021/07/zarinebaf.html

Galata and the Early Modern Mediterranean World | Fariba Zarinebaf

https://gharamophone.com/2021/07/27/sariza-epreuve-mihna-polydor-1938/

Sariza - Épreuve - "Mihna" (Polydor, 1938)

"Rahoum Galou" - Mohamed Oujdi (1976)

E521 | Islam and science fiction have more history together than you might expect. In this episode, we speak with Jörg Matthias Determann about the many ways science has fueled the imagination of people in Muslim-majority contexts over the last few hundred years. In his latest book, he shows how artists and missionaries participated in "cultures of astrobiology," or the study of life on other planets. Exploring the ways that a variety of authors, artists, and governments have imagined a future with and for Muslims, Matthias shows that there are many overlapping and competing visions of Muslim Futurism.

More at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2022/02/scifi.html

Jörg Matthias Determann is an associate professor of history at Virginia Commonwealth University in Qatar. He also serves as an associate editor of the Review of Middle East Studies.

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.

CREDITS

Episode No. 521
Release Date: 13 February 2022
Recording Location: Doha, Qatar / Chicago, IL
Sound production by Shireen Hamza
Additional thanks to Sam Dolbee
Music/Sound Elements: ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, Ḥamādah. Riḥlah ilá al-Qamar. Behna Films, 1959. https://archive.org/details/ATripToTheMoonEnglishSubs/A+Trip+to+the+Moon+(1959).mkv
Bibliography and images courtesy of Jörg Matthias Determann available at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2022/02/scifi.html

Islam and Science Fiction | Jörg Matthias Determann

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.

Season 12

On the Hajj Trail | Tyler Kynn

La Diasp'avait De Lyon 70-90s

ANTARI

And it's guest mix time! For this installment of audio pleasure, we have a selection of Algerian music from the cities of Oran and Algiers compiled for us by Chris Silver, who writes the Jewish Morocco blog.

Check out Chris's write-up for the mix here- http://www.afropop.org/wp/20467/guest-mix-for-the-love-of-djazair/

You can also read more of Chris's work here- http://jewishmorocco.blogspot.com/ 

Guest Mix: For The Love Of Djazaïr!

Émission de radio mensuelle consacrée aux disques vinyles en provenance du Maghreb sur www.radiohdr.com

Bouteldja Belkacem: Sid El Hakam
Bouteldja Belkacem: Serbili Baoui
Boudjemaa El Ankis: Djana El Intissar pt2
Boudjemaa El Ankis: Men Souak Alala
Tazi: Briya
Cheikh Mwijo: Bnat Zman
Armand El Bidaoui: Jouj Bnat
Curtis Mayfield: Don't Worry If There's A Hell Below We're All Going To Go

Bouteldja Belkacem dans El Watan:
http://www.zohramaldji.fr/wordpress/?p=45117

Boudjemaa El Ankis dans El Watan:
http://www.elwatan.com/culture/boudjemaa-el-ankis-un-repere-emblematique-majeur-du-patrimoine-musical-chaabi-23-09-2015-304113_113.php

Cheikh Mwijo by Chris Silver:
http://jewishmorocco.blogspot.fr/2011/01/meeting-legendary-cheikh-mwijo.html

Toukadime Radio #26

Messaoud Habib, Tunisia's premier pianist for most of the first half of twentieth century, recorded this istikhbar for Columbia Records in May 1928.

Islam and Science Fiction | Jörg Matthias Determann

Ottoman History Podcast

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