Social Discontent and Rebellion in the Ottoman Empire

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Level: 
Master's
CEU credits: 
4
Academic year: 
2009/2010
Academic year: 
2010/2011
Semester: 
Fall
Start and end dates: 
5 Sep 2009
Co-hosting Unit(s) [if applicable]: 
Department of History
Stream/Track/Specialization/Core Area: 
Ethnicity, Nations, Nationalism and Empires in History
CEU Instructor(s): 
Tolga U. Esmer
Learning Outcomes: 
The course seeks to introduce students to: A. Different concepts of justice and order underlining the relationships between the Ottoman government and its diverse subjects; B. The legal place and understanding of violence and rebellion in the greater Islamic legal tradition and how such legacies may have affected the state and social actors in Ottoman society; C. Different forms of violence in everyday-life (ranging from banditry to sexual and/or inter-confessional violence) in the Ottoman Empire from the early modern to modern period and discuss how Ottoman administrators coped with and/or participated in this violence; D. Provide a historical overview and study comparatively different types of rebellion, disorder, and violence throughout different regions of the Ottoman system over the centuries; E. Introduce students to the methods and theories of other fields/regions (especially the anthropology of violence) to make sense of similar dynamics in the Ottoman Empire.
Assessment : 
o Attendance in all class meetings is mandatory. Any unexcused absence will result in an automatic decrease of the final grade by half a letter grade - Participation: 10% - Multiple (depending on class size) presentations of weekly readings: 20% -3 Response Papers: 70% – 1st 3 pages (10%); 2nd – 4-5 pages (20%); 3rd 10-12 pages (40%).
Full description: 

Week 1: (Sept 21-25) Notions of Rebellion and Violence in the early Ottoman polity: The Anatolian Context for Osman’s Hurûc/Khurūj

-- C. Kafadar. Chapter 1 “Introduction,” in Between Two Worlds: the Construction of the Ottoman State (Berkeley: University of California, 1995): 1-29 [savepdf]

-- C. Kafadar. Chapter 3 “The Ottomans: the Construction of the Ottoman State” in Between Two Worlds: the Construction of the Ottoman State (Berkeley: University of California, 1995): 118-150 [savepdf]

 Further Reading:

 --K. Barkey, “Emergence: Brokerage across Networks,” in Empire of Difference: The Ottomans in Comparative Perspective (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 28-65.

-- H. Lowry. The Nature of the Early Ottoman State (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003)

 Week 2 (Sept. 28-Oct. 2): The Ottoman Civil War (Fetret Devri) and Şeyh Bedreddin’s Revolt

 -- D. Kastritsis. “Religious Affiliations and Political Alliances In the Ottoman Succession Wars of 1402-1413,” in Medieval Encounters 13 (2007): 222-42. [savepdf]

 -- E. Çipa. “Contextualizing Sheikh Bedreddin: Notes on Halil b. İsmail’s Menakıb-ı Şeyh Bedreddin b. İsra‘il,” in Şinasi Tekin Anısına: Uygurlardan Osmanlıya [In Memory of Şinasi Tekin: From the Uygurs to the Ottomans] (İstanbul: Simurg Publications, 2005): 285-295. [savepdf]

 -- K. Abou El-Fadl. “Introduction” and Chapter 1 “Modern scholarship and reorienting the approach to rebellion,” in Rebellion and Violence in Islamic Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2001): 1-31[savepdf]

 Further Reading:

 -- J. Goldstone. Chapter 1, Revolution and Rebellion in the Early Modern World. Pp. 3-39

 -- D. Kastritsis. The Sons of Bayezid: Empire Building and Representation in the Ottoman Civil War of 1402-1413 (Leiden: Brill Press, 2007).

 Week 3 (Oct. 5-9): Competing Visions of an “Ideal Islamic State”

 -- M. Dressler, "Inventing Orthodoxy: Competing Claims for Authority and Legitimacy in the Ottoman-Safavid Conflict," in Hakan T. Karateke and Maurus Reinkowski (eds.) Legitimizing the Order (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 151-173. [savepdf]

 -- J.R. Ruff. “Introduction: The Problem of violence in early modern Europe” and “Representations of Violence” in Violence in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1800. Pp. 1-43 [savepdf]

 Further Reading:

 -- F. Zarinebaf-Shahr, “Qizilbash, Heresy, and Rebellion in Ottoman Anatolia During the Sixteenth Century,” Anatolia Moderna, VIII (1997): 1-15.

 -- K. Barkey, “Becoming an Empire: Imperial Institutions and Control” in Empire of Difference (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008): 67-104

 FIRST RESPONSE PAPER DUE IN CLASS

 Week 4 (Oct. 12-16): Justice, Order, and Tolerance in Pax-Ottomanica

 -- H. İnalcık. “State and Ideology under Sultan Süleymân I,” in his The Middle East and the Balkans Under the Ottoman Empire: Essays on Economy and Society (Bloomington: Indiana University, 1993): 70-96. [savepdf]

 -- C. Fleischer. “The Lawgiver as Messiah: The Making of the Imperial Image in the Reign of Süleymân,” in G Veinstein (ed.) Soleiman le Magnificent et son Temps (Paris: La Documentation Française, 1992), 159-177. [savepdf]

 -- K. Barkey. “Islam and Toleration: Studying the Ottoman Imperial Mold,” in International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, Vol. 19, No. ½ “The New Sociological Imagination II” (Dec. 2005): 5-19. [savepdf]

 -- J. Ruff. Chapter 3 “Justice” in Violence in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1800. Pp. 73-117 [savepdf]

 Further Reading:

 -- B. Ergene. “On Ottoman Justice: Interpretations in Conflict (1600-1800),” in Islamic Law and Society 8/1 (2001): 52-87

 Week 5 (Oct. 19-23): Mapping the Debate on “Private Violence vs. State Violence” in the Ottoman World

 -- J. Ruff. Chapter 4 “The discourse of interpersonal violence” in Violence in early Modern Europe, 1500-1800. Pp. 117-159. [savepdf]

 -- J. Skurski and F. Coronil. “Introduction: States of Violence and Violence of States,” F. Coronil and J. Skurski (eds.), States of Violence (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2006), pp. 1-32. [savepdf]

 Further Reading:

 -- J. Ruff. Chapter 2 “States, arms, and armies” in Violence in early Modern Europe, 1500-1800. Pp. 117-159.

 -- M. Foucault. “Governmentality” in The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, Ch. 4, pp: 87-104).

 -- K. Barkey. “In Different Times: Scheduling and Social Control in the Ottoman Empire, 1550-1650,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 38: 3 (1996): 460-483

 Week 6 (Oct. 26-30): Defining Rebellion and Dissent in the early stages of “Transformation:” Seventeenth Century Rebellions

 -- K. Barkey. Chapter 1 “Introduction” and Chapter 5 “Celalis: Bandits with a Cause?” in Bandits and Bureaucrats: the Ottoman Route to State Centralization (Ithaca: Cornell University, 1994). Pp. 1-24 [savepdf] and 141-176 [savepdf]

 -- G. Piterberg. “The Alleged Rebellion of Abaza Mehmed Paşa: Historiography and the Ottoman State in the Seventeenth Century,” in J. Hathaway (ed.), Mutiny and Rebellion in the Ottoman Empire (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 2002): 13-24. [savepdf]

 -- B. Tezcan. “The 1622 Military Rebellion in İstanbul: A Historiographical Journey,” in J. Hathaway (ed.), Mutiny and Rebellion in the Ottoman Empire (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 2002): 25-45. [savepdf]

 -- Eviliya Çelebi (translation). Chapter 4. “Vezirate of İpşir Paşa (1653-1654),” in R. Dankoff, The Intimate Life of an Ottoman Statesman: Melek Ahmed Pasha (1588-1662) As Portrayed in Evliya Çelebi’s Book of Travels (Albany: State University of New York, 1991): 107-130 [savepdf]

 Further Reading:

 -- H. İnalcık. “Military and Fiscal Transformation in the Ottoman Empire, 1600-1700,” in Archivum Ottomanicum, Vol. VI (1980), 283-337.

 -- K. Barkey, “The Social Organization of Dissent” in Empire of Difference: The Ottomans in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008): 154-190

 -- G. Piterberg. An Ottoman Tragedy: History and Historiography at Play (Berkeley: University of California, 2003).

Week 7 (Nov. 2-6): Urban Rebellions in the Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Empire

 -- J. Hathaway. “Introduction,” in J. Hathaway (ed.), Mutiny and Rebellion in the Ottoman Empire (Madison: University of Wisconsin, 2002): 1-12. [savepdf]

 -- J. Grehan. “Street Violence and Social Imagination in Late-Mamluk and Ottoman Damascus (ca. 1500-1800),” IJMES 35 (2003): 215-236.[savepdf]

 -- A. Blok. “The Meaning of ‘Senseless’ Violence,” in Honour and Violence (Oxford: Polity Press, 2001): 103-114. [savepdf]

 -- N. Zemon Davis. Chapter 6 “The Rites of Violence,” Society and Culture in Modern France (Stanford: Stanford University, 1979): 153-187. [savepdf]

 Further Reading:

 -- R. Abou-El-Haj. The 1703 Rebellion and the Structure of Ottoman Politics (Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, 1984).

 -- K. Barkey. Chapter 6 “An Eventful Eighteenth Century: Empowering the Political” in Empire of Difference, 197-213.

 -- D. Nirenburg. Communities of Violence: Persecution of Minorities in the Middle Ages (Princeton: Princeton University, 1996).

 SECOND RESPONSE PAPER DUE IN CLASS

Week 8 (Nov. 9-16): Rebellion, Banditry, and Networks of Violence in the Eighteenth- and Early Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Provinces

 -- K. Barkey. Chapter 6 “An Eventful Eighteenth Century: Empowering the Political” in Empire of Difference, 197-225 [savepdf]

 -- T. Esmer. Chapter 4 “An Anatomy of an Eşkıyâ-Related Bureaucratic Scandal: Rumor, the Trope of the Oppressed Re‘âyâ, and Fiction in the Ottoman Archives” in his “A Culture of Rebellion: Networks of Violence and Competing Discourses of Justice in the Ottoman Empire, 1790-1808,” unpublished dissertation University of Chicago (June, 2009): 142-193 [savepdf]

 -- A. Blok. “Introduction” and Chapter One “Social Banditry Reconsidered,” Honour and Violence (Oxford: Polity Press, 2001): 1-28 [savepdf]

 Week 9 (Nov. 23-27): Towards a History of Everyday Life Violence in the Ottoman Empire

 -- J. Ruff. Chapter 4 “The discourse of interpersonal violence, in Violence in early Modern Europe, 1500-1800: 117-160. [savepdf]

 -- P. Sant Cassia. “Better Occasional Murders than Frequent Adulteries: Discourses on Banditry, Violence, and Sacrifice in the Mediterranean,” in J. Skursi and Fernando Coronil (eds.), States of Violence (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 2006): 219-268. [savepdf]

 -- L. Pierce. Chapter 4 “Gender, Class, and Social Hierarchy” and Chapter 8 “Punishment, Violence, and the Court,” in her Morality Tales: Law and Gender in the Ottoman Court of Aintab (Berkeley: University of California, 2003):143-176 and 311-351. [savepdf] [savepdf]

 -- T. Krstic. Chapter 6 “Everyday Politics of Conversion,” in Contested Conversions to Islam (forthcoming Stanford University): 240-280. [savepdf]

 Further Reading:

 -- J. Peristiany. Essays from Honor and Shame: The Values of Mediterranean Society.

 -- T. Khan. Beyond Honour: A Historical Materialist Explanation of Honour Related Violence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).

 -- Stanley Tambiah. Chapter 12 “The Moral Economy of Collective Violence” in his Leveling Crowds: Ethno-nationlist Conflicts and Collective Violence in South Asia (Berkeley: University of California, 1996): 309-342.

 Week 10 (Nov. 31-Dec. 4): Imperial Reforms and Increased Social Control around the “Birth of the Nation”

 -- J. Reid. Chapter 2 “Regular Army and Control of Empire,” in his Crisis of the Ottoman Empire: Prelude to Collapse (Stuttgard: France Steiner Verlag, 2000): 58-83

 -- P. van der Veer and Hartmut Lehman “Introduction” in their Nation and Religion: Perspectives on European and Asia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999): 3-12. [savepdf]

 -- C. Philliou. “Communities on the Verge: Unraveling the Phanariot Ascendancy in Ottoman Governance,” in Comparative Studies in Society and History 2009; 51 (1): 151-181. [savepdf]

 -- M. Mazower. “Violence and the State in the Twentieth Century,” in The American Historical Review, Vol. 107, NO. 4 (Oct. 2002): 1158-1178.

 Further Reading:

 -- K. Barkey. Chapter 7 “A Networking Society: Commercialization, Tax-Farming, and Social Relations,” in her Empire of Difference, 226-262

 -- B. Cvetkova. “The Bulgarian Haiduk Movement in the 15th-18th Centuries,” in G. Rothenberg, B. Király, and P. Sugar (eds.) East Central European Society and War in the Pre-Revolutionary Eighteenth Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982): 301-338.

 -- E. Hobsbawm. Bandits (New York: The New Press, 2000).

 Week 11 (Dec. 6-11): The Colonial Encounter, Religion, and Violence

 -- U. Makdisi. “Corrupting the Sublime Sultanate: the Revolt of Tanyus Shahin in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Lebanon,” in Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 43, No. 1 (Jan., 2000): 180-208. [savepdf]

 -- J. Cole. “Of Crowds and Empires: Afro-Asian Riots and European Expansion, 1857-1882” in Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Jan., 1989): 106-133. [savepdf]

 -- P. Stallybrass and A. White, “The Politics and Poetics of Transgression,” in M. Lambek (ed.), A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion (Oxford: Blackwell Press, 2002): 275-289. [savepdf]

 Further Reading:

 -- J. Clancy-Smith. Rebel and Saint: Muslim Notables, Populist Protest, Colonial Encounters (Algeria and Tunisia, 1800-1904) (Berkeley: University of California, 1994).

 FINAL RESPONSE PAPER DUE IN CLASS

 Week 12 (Dec. 13-18): From Empire to Nation-States: Religion, the Nation-State, and Transgression

 -- D. Bloxham. “The Armenian Genocide of 1915-1916: Cumulative Radicalization and the Development of a Destruction Policy,” in Past and Present, No. 181 (November 2003): 141-192. [savepdf]

 -- M. Mazower. “Violence and the State in the Twentieth Century, The American Historical Review, Vol. 107, No. 4 (Oct. 2008): 1158-1178.

 -- S. Tambiah. Chapter 8 “The Routinization and Ritualization of Violence” and Chapter 10 “Entering a Dark Continent: The Political Psychology of Crowds:” 221-243 and 266-296 [savepdf]

 -- R. Gingeras. “Break in the Storm: Reconsidering Sectarian Violence in Ottoman Macedonia during the Young Turk Revolution,” MIT-EJMES, Vol. 3 (March 2003): 27-35

 Further Reading:

 R. Gingeras. Sorrowful Shores: Violence, Ethnicity, and the End of the Ottoman Empire, 1912-1923 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

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