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Semester 2

Ottoman Modernities: Society, Economy, Culture in the 19th Century (HIST10472)

Subject

History

College

CAHSS

Credits

20

Normal Year Taken

3

Delivery Session Year

2023/2024

Pre-requisites

Visiting students must have completed 3 History courses at grade B or above, and please note that we will only consider courses with a specific focus on History (not including History of Art) towards these pre-requisites. We will only consider University/College level courses. **Please see Additional Restrictions below**

Course 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.

Assessment Information

Written Exam 40%, Coursework 40%, Practical Exam 20%

Additional Restrictions

Unless you are nominated on a History or HCA exchange agreement, visiting students are only permitted to enrol in two 3rd year History courses each, per semester, before the start of the relevant semester’s welcome period – and spaces on each course are limited so cannot be guaranteed for any student. This includes courses in Economic History and Scottish History. Enrolment in a third course from this group will depend on whether there are still spaces available in the January Welcome Period, and cannot be guaranteed. It is NOT appropriate for students to contact staff within this subject area to ask for an exception to be made; all enquiries to enrol in these courses must be made through the CAHSS Visiting Student Office. This is due to the limited number of spaces available in this very popular subject area.

view the timetable and further details for this course