Undergraduate Course: Ottoman Modernities: Society, Economy, Culture in the 19th Century (HIST10472)
Course Outline
School | School of History, Classics and Archaeology |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
Summary | Historians have in the past few decades addressed modernity in its multiple forms and patterns, de-centralising Europe as the cradle of modern identities and practices. The nineteenth-century Ottoman Empire was a rapidly transforming imperial power with deep-rooted political and cultural traditions, within which the idea of being "up with the times" has taken alternate forms. |
Course description |
This course offers an introduction to cultural, social, and economic histories of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century, placing it within global narratives of modernity and capitalism. In 1800, the Ottoman Empire spanned a vast territory that connected the Middle East, Southern Europe, North Africa, and Anatolia. Although Ottoman territories steadily shrunk over the course of the long nineteenth century, legacies of Ottoman rule continued to influence diverse populations from Basra in Iraq to Bosnia in Southern Europe. Rejecting Orientalist and Eurocentric frameworks which address the Ottoman Empire as the Europe's "other", this course integrates Ottoman paths to modernity into global understandings of empire, culture, and economic transformation.
The course begins with a conceptual discussion of global history and the idea of modern in the recent scholarship. The following weeks adopt a thematic and chronological plot in placing Ottoman experiences of state modernisation, military reform, global economic integration, and cultural exchange within global frameworks. We look at the ways in which Ottoman statesmen, intellectuals, labourers, peasants, migrants, and traders crafted, customised, and re-calibrated modern discourses and ways of existence, in a world increasingly connected through European imperial expansion, capitalist markets, and technological innovations. In its rich theoretical content, the course does not provide a country-by-country guide to the region's states, rather, it provides an overview of the overarching themes in Ottoman history that speak to wider histories of the globe.
Content note: The study of History inevitably involves the study of difficult topics that we encourage students to approach in a respectful, scholarly, and sensitive manner. Nevertheless, we remain conscious that some students may wish to prepare themselves for the discussion of difficult topics. In particular, the course organiser has outlined that the following topics may be discussed in this course, whether in class or through required or recommended primary and secondary sources: sexual and racial violence. While this list indicates sensitive topics students are likely to encounter, it is not exhaustive because course organisers cannot entirely predict the directions discussions may take in tutorials or seminars, or through the wider reading that students may conduct for the course.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | A pass or passes in 40 credits of first level historical courses or equivalent and a pass or passes in 40 credits of second level historical courses or equivalent.
Students should only be enrolled on this course with approval from the History Honours Programme Administrator.
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Information for Visiting Students
Pre-requisites | Visiting students should have at least 3 History courses at grade B or above (or be predicted to obtain this). We will only consider University/College level courses. Applicants should note that, as with other popular courses, meeting the minimum does NOT guarantee admission.
** as numbers are limited, visiting students should contact the Visiting Student Office directly for admission to this course ** |
High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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Academic year 2024/25, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 0 |
Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
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Seminar/Tutorial Hours 22,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
174 )
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Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
40 %,
Coursework
40 %,
Practical Exam
20 %
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Additional Information (Assessment) |
Coursework:
2,500 word book review (40%)
Non-Written Skills:
Class Participation (20%)
Exam:
Two hour written exam (40%) |
Feedback |
Students will receive feedback on their coursework, and will have the opportunity to discuss that feedback further with the Course Organiser during their published office hours for this course or by appointment. |
Exam Information |
Exam Diet |
Paper Name |
Hours & Minutes |
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Main Exam Diet S1 (December) | Ottoman Modernities: Society, Economy, Culture in the 19th Century (HIST10472) | :120 | |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Critically situate a diverse body of scholarship on the late Ottoman Empire in a world-historical context
- Analyse, appraise, and critique secondary and primary historical sources on the cultural, social, and economic processes that shaped the late Ottoman world
- Demonstrate an in-depth and critical command of the scholarship on state modernisation, capitalist development, and cultural change in "non-Western" settings
- Utilise non-textual resources such as sounds, images, and objects to overcome gaps in conventional sources
- Demonstrate a high degree of intellectual autonomy and integrity, and an ability to critically evaluate and improve the work of peers
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Reading List
1. Huri Islamoglu & Peter C. Perdue, eds., Shared Histories of Modernity: China, India & the Ottoman Empire (London: Routledge, 2009).
2. M. Sukru Hanioglu, A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008).
3. Donald Quataert, The Ottoman Empire, 1700-1922 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
4. Donald Quataert, Ottoman Manufacturing in the Age of the Industrial Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
5. Avner Wishnitzer, Reading Clocks, Alla Turca: Time and Society in the Late Ottoman Empire (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016).
6. Selim Deringil, The Well-Protected Domains: Ideology and the Legitimation of Power in the Ottoman Empire, 1876-1909 (London: I.B. Tauris, 1998).
7. Ussama Makdisi, "Ottoman Orientalism", The American Historical Review 107, no. 3 (2002): 768-96.
8. Duygu Köksal and Anastasia Falierou, Social History of Late Ottoman Women: New Perspectives (Leiden: Brill, 2013).
9. Judith E. Tucker, Women in Nineteenth-Century Egypt (Cambridge University Press, 1985).
10. Joel Beinin, Workers and Peasants in the Modern Middle East (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
11. Frederick Cooper, Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005).
12. Roger Owen, The Middle East in the World Economy, 1800-1914 (London: Methuen, 1981). |
Additional Information
Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Not entered |
Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
Course organiser | Dr Hatice Yildiz
Tel: (0131 6)50 2378
Email: hyildiz@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Mrs Shannon McMillan
Tel:
Email: smcmill4@ed.ac.uk |
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