NEJS 188a: The “Rise” and “Decline” of the Ottoman Empire
(Version 1.2, Aug. 28)
Brandeis University, NEJS 188a
Fall 2015
The “Rise” and “Decline” of the “Ottoman” Empire
Dr. Aaron Shakow
Email:
ashakow@brandeis.edu
Office:
Crown Center 108
Phone:
x6-5331
Office Hours: Thursday 5-6
COURSE DESCRIPTION
Descendants of the medieval warlord Osman (or Atman) ruled over the dominant state in the eastern
Mediterranean until the twentieth century. For 600 years the Ottoman dynasty played a key role in the
unfolding of global history as it struggled to control the economic, socio-cultural and political estuary
between Europe and Africa, on the one hand, and eastern Asia and the Indian subcontinent on the
other. The strategic geographical setting gave rise to a multi-ethnic and syncretic society that existed in a
creative tension with the symbols of Islamic sovereignty after the Ottoman conquest of Egypt in the
early 1500s.
This weekly seminar will introduce students to important themes in the Ottomans’ social, economic and
political evolution. Over the semester we will travel along the long arc of Ottoman history, observing the
many overlapping identities that shaped it. Each week we will explore a different moment in the
evolution of Ottoman state and society, beginning with its emergence in the frontier region of western
Anatolia after the Mongol conquests; the expansion of its borders as Osman’s descendants conquered or
assimilated neighboring communities; and cross-pollination through cultural, social and economic
exchange. We will proceed to explore the impact of early-modern social and economic currents on
relations between the Ottomans and their neighbors, and how those relations shaped, in turn, the
emerging global society. Finally we will explore different aspects of modernity in the “Ottoman” sphere
and their implications for recent social, economic, and political history. This includes debates on
sovereign legitimacy, liberty and human rights, imperialism and colonialism, multi-culturalism,
scientization, and the genesis of present-day geopolitical arrangements.
The class will be run as a classic seminar—students will play an active role in digesting, presenting, and
debating the material. Each week (beginning in Week Four of the semester) I will assign a different
student with the responsibility for leading the discussion.
TEXTS
All course readings will be available electronically via Latte—you will not be required to buy a textbook.
Periodically I will suggest supplementary readings (typically these will be recent works in Ottoman
history or other disciplines that touch on our course material). These will be put on reserve at Goldfarb
Library and also made available for purchase at the University bookstore.
COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Reaction Papers: 15%
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Midterm Exam: 30% Final Paper 30%
Participation (incl. quizzes): 25%
Reaction papers (15%). In three 2-page papers (5% each) you will reflect on and respond to a
particular week’s readings. These papers will be graded pass/fail. Reaction papers will be due in
class on Thursday, September 17; Thursday, October 1; and Thursday, October 22.
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History 113b: Encounters with Islam
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(Version 1.0, Aug. 1)
Midterm exam (30%). The midterm will be take-home, consisting of five essay questions and 20
identification questions. The exam questions will be distributed on Thursday October 8, and
answers must be submitted via Latte by Monday, October 12. Students are to complete the midterm
individually without consultation.
Final Paper (30%). This essay of 10-12 pages should discuss a particular attempt (by Ottoman
rulers or subjects, their contemporaries, or modern scholars) to define the “Ottoman Empire.”
A rough draft of this essay is due on Thursday, November 12, and the final version is due on
Thursday, December 3.
Participation (25%). The participation grade is made up of attendance and class participation,
performance on quizzes, and formal presentation of the course material on those week(s) for
which you are responsible. Class attendance is mandatory and will be recorded each week. Do
not be late for class, as it is disrespectful and disruptive to me and to your fellow students.
Repeated absences or tardiness not cleared with me in advance will result in the reduction of
your grade. You are expected to complete all readings prior to coming to class, and must be
prepared to both answer and pose questions about them. Students will be asked to facilitate
discussion.
LEARNING GOALS
This seminar class seeks to give students an introduction to the broad range of Ottoman political,
economic and social institutions from the rise of dynastic rule in the 1300s to the twentieth century.
Upon completion of this course, students should (1) be familiar with key institutions and events in
Ottoman history, (2) be able to cite historical examples of exchange—in war and peace—between
residents of the Ottoman state and those of neighboring principalities, and (3) have a clear sense of the
way in which different interpretations of history become imbedded in cross-communal interactions.
They should also (4) be able to distinguish between analytical arguments and polemical or apologetic
arguments, and to deploy them appropriately in their own conversations or writing.
CLASSROOM CONDUCT
This class is a weekly seminar and students are expected to play an active role. Courtesy is a foundation
of any seminar and this course is no exception. Therefore it is important that we maintain a conducive
atmosphere in class. Except for group exercises, no online computer or cell phone use is allowed in class
(no texting, IMing, emailing, Web surfing, etc). Attendance is critical.
PREPARATION TIME
Success in this 4 credit hour course is based on the expectation that students will spend a minimum of 9
hours of study time per week in preparation for class (readings, papers, discussion sections, preparation
for exams, etc.).
ACADEMIC INTEGRITY
Students are expected to be familiar with Brandeis University policies on plagiarism and academic
integrity http://lts.brandeis.edu/courses/instruction/academic-integrity/index.html. Plagiarism will not
be tolerated. If you submit any work with your name affixed to it, I assume that work is your own and
that all sources are indicated and documented in the text (with quotations and/or citations). If you have
any questions or concerns about the definition of plagiarism or scholarly citation practices, please talk to
me.
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NEJS 188a: The “Rise” and “Decline” of the Ottoman Empire
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WRITING CENTER
The Brandeis Writing Center http://www.brandeis.edu/writingprogram/writingcenter/ offers free oneon-one advice on academic, creative, and professional writing and about all aspects of oral
presentations. Go to http://www.brandeis.edu/writingprogram/writingcenter/register.html.
LIBRARY SERVICES
Brandeis libraries have wide array of services designed to aid your research, including personal research
consultation appointments: http://lts.brandeis.edu/research/help/index.html.
STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES
I will make every effort to support and accommodate students with disabilities. If you have a faculty
letter from Disability Services and Support (DSS) indicating that you have a disability that requires
academic accommodations, please present the letter to me during my office hours. At that time, we can
speak about the accommodations you might need in this class. If you need academic
accommodations due to a disability and have not registered with DSS, please contact the them at
781-736-3470. I also encourage you to familiarize yourself with Brandeis's disability resources at
http://www.brandeis.edu/acserv/disabilities/index.html.
SCHEDULE
Dates and pages are approximate; class announcements override syllabus.
Readings must be completed by the class for which they are listed. I will freely call on students to test
your engagement with and understanding of the readings. There will also be one or more pop quizzes
during the course of the semester, which will be reflected in your participation grade.
Week One
Aug. 27
Background and Overview (1273)
Week Two
Sep. 3
Warlords (1331)
Ross Dunn, The Adventures of Ibn Battuta: A Muslim Traveller of
the Fourteenth Century, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
California Press, 2005, pp. 137-156.
Caroline Finkel, Osman’s Dream: The History of the Ottoman
Empire, New York: Basic Books, 2007, pp. 1-21.
Daniel Goffman, The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe,
Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp.
27-54.
Warren Treadgold, A History of Byzantine State and Society, Palo Alto:
Stanford University Press, 1997, pp. 747-783.
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History 113b: Encounters with Islam
(Version 1.0, Aug. 1)
Optional: Bar Hebraeus, The Chronography of Gregory Abû’l
Faraj…commonly known as Bar Hebraeus, tr. Ernest A. Wallis Budge,
London: Oxford University Press, 1932 (on Latte).
→MAP QUIZ
Week Three
Sep. 10
Week Four
Sep. 17
Brandeis Day, no class (Monday schedule)
Fishermen (1416)
Nazim Hikmet, The Epic of Sheikh Bedreddin (1936)
Colin Imber, The Ottoman Empire, 1300-1650: The Structure of Power, 2nd
ed., London: Palgrave McMillan, 2009.
Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam, Chapel Hill: University
of North Carolina Press 1975.
Virgil Ciocîltan, The Mongols and the Black Sea Trade in the Thirteenth
and Fourteenth Centuries, Leiden: Brill, 2012.
→REACTION PAPER #1 DUE
Week Five
Sep. 24
Romans (1453)
Walter G. Andrews, Mehmet Kalpakli, The Age of Beloveds: Love
and the Beloved in Early-Modern Ottoman and European Culture
and Society, Durham: Duke University Press, 2005, pp. 1-9.
Kenneth Setton, The Papacy and the Levant, Vol. 2, pp. 106-137.
Nancy Bisaha, Creating East and West: Renaissance Humanists and
the Ottoman Turks, Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,
2004, pp. 43-93.
Halil Inalcik, A Social and Economic History of the Ottoman Empire, Vol.
1: 1300-1600, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University
Press, 1994, pp. 188-208, 218-243.
Week Six
Oct. 1
Exiles (1492)
Lawrence Fine, Physician of the Soul, Healer of the Cosmos: Isaac Luria and
His Kabbalistic Fellowship, Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2003, pp.
19-34.
Rhoads Murphey, “Jewish Contributions to Ottoman Medicine, 14501800,” in Jews, Turks, Ottomans: A Shared History, Fifteenth Through the
Twentieth Century, ed. Avigdor Levy, pp. 61-74.
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NEJS 188a: The “Rise” and “Decline” of the Ottoman Empire
(Version 1.2, Aug. 28)
Nicholas Doumanis, “Durable Empire: State Virtuosity and
Social Accommodation in the Ottoman Mediterranean.” The
Historical Journal 2006; 49 (3): 953-66.
Finkel, Osman’s Dream, pp. 81-97.
Week Seven
Oct. 8
Caliphs (1518)
Ogier Ghiselin de Busbecq, Turkish Letters, pp.124-140.
Leslie Pierce, The Imperial Harem, pp. 3-27.
I. Metin Kunt, The Sultan’s Servants, pp. 31-99.
Goffman, The Ottoman Empire and Early Modern Europe, pp.
59-92.
Inalcik, Ottoman State and Society, pp. 55-102.
→REACTION PAPER #2 DUE
Week Eight
Oct. 15
Corsairs (1571)
Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean
World in the Age of Philip II, tr. Sian Reynolds, New York:
Harper and Row, 1972 [1949].
David Aboulafia, The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean,
Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2011, pp. 411-451.
Wendy Bracewell, The Uskoks of Senj: piracy, banditry, and holy war in the
sixteenth-century Adriatic, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992.
Dror Ze’evi, Producing Desire: Changing Sexual Discourse in the Ottoman
Middle East, 1500–1900, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
California Press, 2006.
Andrews and Kalpakli, The Age of Beloveds.
→TAKE-HOME MIDTERM EXAM ASSIGNED
Week Nine
Oct. 22
Kadis (1616)
Abulafia, The Great Sea, pp. 452-469.
Elyse Semerdjian, "Off the Straight Path": Illicit Sex, Law, and
Community in Ottoman Aleppo, Ithaca: Syracuse University Press, 2008.
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History 113b: Encounters with Islam
(Version 1.0, Aug. 1)
Leslie Peirce, Morality Tales: Law and Gender in the Ottoman Court of Aintab,
Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2003.
Shakow, “The Carazo Affair,” (2009)
→TAKE-HOME MIDTERM EXAM DUE
Week Ten
Oct. 29
Surveyors (1699)
Robert Dankoff, An Ottoman Mentality: The World of Evliya
Çelebi, Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2006.
Rifaat Abou El Haj, “The Formal Closure of the Ottoman Frontier
in Europe: 1699-1703,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 1969;
89(3): 467-75.
→REACTION PAPER #3 DUE
Week Eleven
Nov. 5
Pallbearers (1761)
Salzmann, Ariel. 1993. "An Ancien Regime Revisited: "Privatization"
and Political Economy in the Eighteenth-Century Ottoman
Empire." Politics & Society 21 (4): 393-423.
Patrick Russell, A Treatise of the Plague, Containing an Historical Journal, and
Medical Account, of the Plague, At Aleppo, in the Years 1760, 1761, and 1762,
London: G.G. and J. Robinson, 1791, pp. 14-68.
Abraham Marcus, The Middle East On the Eve of Modernity: Aleppo in the
18th Century, New York: Columbia University Press, 1992, pp. 252-276.
→FINAL PAPER WORKSHEET DUE
Week Twelve
Nov. 12
Spies (1798)
Abd Al-Rahman Jabarti, Napoleon in Egypt: Al-Jabartī's Chronicle of the
French Occupation, 1798, tr. Smuel Moreh, Princeton: Markus Wiener,
1993.
Juan Cole, Napoleon’s Egypt: Invading the Middle East, New York: Palgrave
McMillan, 2007.
Week Thirteen
Lambs to the Slaughter (1860)
Nov. 19
Donald Quataert, The Ottoman Empire, 1700-1922 New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Roger Owen, The Middle East in the World Economy, 1800-1914,
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NEJS 188a: The “Rise” and “Decline” of the Ottoman Empire
(Version 1.2, Aug. 28)
London and New York: Methuen, 1981.
Leila Tarazi Fawaz, An Occasion for War: Civil Conflict in
Lebanon and Damascus in 1860, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University
of California Press, 1994.
→FINAL PAPER ROUGH DRAFTS DUE
Week Fourteen
Nov. 26
No class
Week Fifteen
Citizens (1908)
Dec. 3
William L. Cleveland, A History of the Modern Middle East, 4th ed.,
Boulder, CO, : Westview Press, 2008), pp. 102-189.
Michelle Campos, Ottoman Brothers: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in
Early Twentieth-Century Palestine (Palo Alto, Calif.: Stanford
University Press, 2010), pp. 1-19, 197-223.
Daniel Yergin, The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power
(New York: Free Press, 2008), pp. 11-34, 134-164.
→FINAL PAPER DUE
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