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Verschlagwortet: Ottoman Empire

Medicine and Modernity in Middle Eastern Literatures: Towards Non-Eurocentic Comparative Approaches in Medical Humanities

By C. Ceyhun Arslan. This blog essay examines the relationship between medicine and modernity in three Middle Eastern narrative sources. The author argues that these texts depicted medicine as something that not only heals bodies but also reforms entire societies and brings modernity to their communities. They also emphasized that medical doctors should not only keep up with the Western science; they should also have a good understanding of the local customs.

The Ottoman Canon and the Construction of Arabic and Turkish Literatures: Personal and Scholarly Reflections on My Book

C. Ceyhun Arslan introduces his recently published book “The Ottoman Canon and the Construction of Arabic and Turkish Literatures” which challenges assumptions about the modernization of Arabic and Turkish literatures, examining their evolution into national literatures comparable to Western ones. The book explores how Ottoman authors navigated multilingual influences, shaping literary traditions and national identities in the Middle East and North Africa. It highlights how late Ottoman and post-Ottoman scholars integrated and reinterpreted classical texts, revealing the complex cultural and literary dynamics that formed modern Arabic and Turkish literary canons.

The Science around Alcoholism or How to Banish Alcohol from the Turkish Society

By Elife Biçer-Deveci. Historical analysis of scientific debates on alcohol provides insights into power relations, political tensions, and hidden aspects of the nation-building process. In the case of early twentieth-century Turkey, scientists shaped the narrative of drinking as an alien element of the Turkish nation.

The “(Un)forgotten” Pandemic: The 1918 Influenza Virus in Turkish Literary Texts

By Seda Yucekurt. Why was the 1918 Influenza pandemic largely “forgotten”? The conceptualization of the pandemic as a catastrophic event is multifaceted, involving socio-historical and cultural dimensions. The potential answer lies in the observation, that it coincided with the final stages of the First World War, allowing for socio-historical interpretations based on this contextualization. Apart from the overshadowing effect of the First World War, as several resources indicate, the experiences of the 1918 pandemic may have faded from collective memory due to inadequate documentation and reporting. Does this oblivion or silence prevail in Turkish literature?

Empire, Sound, and Disability: Deaf Culture and Education in the Ottoman Empire

By Nazan Maksudyan. This article aims to contribute to Ottoman auditory history through focusing on the cultural history of deafness, also engaging with the history of medicine, history of education, science and technology studies, and disability studies.

Leaving the Mainstream of Modern Medicine and Following Women’s Pathways: The Case of Smallpox Vaccination in the Ottoman Empire

By Nihan Bozok. This essay, which is based on a letter written by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689 – 1762), tells the story of a group of elderly women who collaborated to vaccinate their communities against smallpox in the 17th century in the Ottoman Empire.

Women Resisting Colonization: Female Rebels in Late 19th- and Early 20th-Century Tunisia – 5in10 with Nora Lafi

Nora Lafi is a historian working as a Senior Research Fellow at Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin. She specializes in the study of the Ottoman Empire and of the societies of the Middle East and North Africa and is a 2023/24 Senior Research Fellow at MECAM.

The End of Ottoman Rule in Bosnia: Conflicting Agencies and Imperial Appropriations – An Interview with Hannes Grandits

Hannes Grandits is Professor of Southeast European History at Humboldt University in Berlin. He is the author of The End of Ottoman Rule in Bosnia: Conflicting Agencies and Imperial Appropriations (Routledge 2021). A conversation with Alex Favalli.

Modern Arab Kingship: Remaking the Ottoman Political Order in the Interwar Middle East – An Interview with Adam Mestyan

Adam Mestyan is associate professor in the History Department at Duke University. He is the author of Modern Arab Kingship: Remaking The Ottoman Political Order in The Interwar Middle East (Princeton University Press, 2023). A conversation with Alex Favalli.

The Wondrous World of Omar El-Zeenni

By Sana Tannoury-Karam, with translations by Fatima Kassem Moussa. In 1918, Omar el-Zeenni looked around him and declared “The world is madness”. Indeed, by the end of the First World War, el-Zeenni’s world was turning upside down. Born in Beirut in 1895, Omar el-Zeenni belonged to the “last Ottoman generation” that had come of age in the last few years of the Ottoman empire’s existence and whose politicization occurred during the First World War.