THE GRADUATE CENTER Ph.D. PROGRAM IN HISTORY LITERATURE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY MIDDLE EAST History 87950 Professor Beth Baron Thursdays, 4:15-6:15 bbaron@gc.cuny.edu Course Description The object of this course is to familiarize students with the main themes and approaches in the history and historiography of the nineteenth-century Middle East. Temporally, the course moves from the late 1700s to World War I. Geographically, the area includes the region from Egypt to Iran, the Balkans to Arabia, in short, those regions under the dominion of the Ottoman and Qajar Empires. We will look at recent works on military history; monarchy and governance; religious reform and mission; sectarianism and tolerance; empire, nation, and revolution; family law; narratives of slavery; economic and labor histories; and the circulation of peoples and goods. Assignments The heart of this seminar is class discussion. The success of the discussion depends on careful readings by students of all books assigned. Students will be charged with leading class discussions and writing up the historiographical debates covered in their weeks in a 6-8 page essay. (These essays should be similar to IJMES review articles.) Those taking the course for five credits will be responsible for leading two class sessions and two essays; those taking the course for three credits will be responsible for leading one session and writing one essay. In addition, each student must write four book reviews (2-4 pages), four short essays (4 pages in response to prompts), as well as prepare a final text/source assignment. For a guide to writing book reviews, see the instructions on the IJMES website. A book review should do more than describe the material included in the book; it should engage the book s arguments and set it within the historical literature. When reading, writing, and leading discussions on the books, consider the following: Author s main questions/interests and the geographical and temporal focus of the study Author s theoretical and methodological approach Types of primary and secondary literature that the author has used Author s main thesis and arguments and evidence used in support Students are expected to participate in the monthly seminar Dissections, where attendance is mandatory, as well as other relevant MEMEAC events. Learning Objectives The main goal of this class is to familiarize students with the history of the nineteenth century Middle East as well as trends in the historical literature. Students should master individual books as 1
well as broader debates. Students will learn to read critically, with attention to questions, methodologies, sources, and arguments. This class will prepare doctoral students in history who are Middle East majors for their first written exam, and prepare majors and minors for the oral examination. It will also lay the groundwork for teaching courses on the modern Middle East. MA students will gain a firm grounding in nineteenth century history. Students will practice writing book reviews and short essays as well as making presentations. A final point: Consider this syllabus a work in progress. The instructor retains the right to make alterations, and anticipates that students will help to refine it throughout the semester with their own additions. Week 1: Introduction (August 29) Surveys CALENDAR Keddie,Nikki. Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003). Yapp, M. E., The Making of the Modern Near East, 1792-1923 (London: Longman, 1987). Zurcher, Eric. Turkey: A Modern History (London: I.B. Tauris, 1993). Week 2: Modernizing Militaries (Sept.5) Fahmy, Khaled. All the Pasha's Men: Mehmed Ali, His Army and the Making of Modern Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). Klein, Janet. The Margins of Empire: Kurdish Militias in the Ottoman Tribal Zone (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011). Marsot, Afaf Lutfi. Egypt in the Reign of Muhammad Ali (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). Week 3: The State, Monarchy, and Governance (Sept.12) Amanat, Abbas. Pivot of the Universe: Nasir Al-Din Shah Qajar and the Iranian Monarchy, 1831-1896 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997). Deringil, Selim. The Well-Protected Domains: Ideology and the Legitimation of Power in the Ottoman Empire, 1876-1909 (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998). 2
Philliou, Christine. Biography of an Empire: Governing Ottomans in an Age of Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010). Rogan, Eugene. Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire: Transjordan, 1850-1921 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Toledano, Ehud. State and Society in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Week 4: Religion: Passion, Mission, Reform (Sept.19) Algar, Hamid. Religion and State in Iran 1785-1906 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969). Deringil, Selim. Conversion and Apostasy in the Late Ottoman Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012). Khater, Akram. Embracing the Divine: Passion and Politics in the Christian Middle East (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2011). Makdisi, Usama. Artilleries of Heaven: American Missionaries and the Failed Conversion of the Middle East (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2008). Sedra, Paul. From Mission to Modernity: Evangelicals, Reformers and Education in Nineteenth Century Egypt (London: I.B. Tauris, 2011). Week 5: Sectarianism and Tolerance (Sept.26) Akarli, Engin Deniz. The Long Peace: Ottoman Lebanon, 1861-1920 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993). Fawaz, Leila. An Occasion for War: Civil Conflict in Lebanon and Damascus in 1860 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994). Makdisi, Ussama. The Culture of Sectarianism: Community, History, and Violence in Nineteenth- Century Ottoman Lebanon (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000). Masters, Bruce. Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Arab World: The Roots of Sectarianism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004 ed.). Week 6: Imperial and National Identities (Wed., Oct.2) Blumi, Isa. Reinstating the Ottomans: Alternative Balkan Modernities, 1800-1912 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). 3
Campos, Michelle. Ottoman Brothers: Muslims, Christians, and Jews in Early Twentieth-Century Palestine (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010). Kashani-Sabet, Firoozeh. Frontier Fictions: Shaping the Iranian Nation, 1804-1946 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999). Kayali, Hasan. Arabs and Young Turks: Ottomanism, Arabism, and Islamism in the Ottoman Empire, 1908-1918 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997). Najmabadi, Afsaneh. The Story of the Daughters of Quchan: Gender and National Memory in Iranian History (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1998). Pollard, Lisa. Nurturing the Nation: The Family Politics of Modernizing, Colonizing, and Liberating Egypt, 1805-1923 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005). No class Oct.10 -- MESA CONFERENCE Week 7: Revolutionary Times (Oct.17) Afary, Janet. The Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 1906-1911 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996). Bayat, Mangol. Iran's First Revolution: Shi'ism and the Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1909 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). Brown, Keith. Loyal Unto Death: Trust and Terror in Revolutionary Macedonia (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2013). Cole, Juan. Colonialism and Revolution in the Middle East: Social and Cultural Origins of Egypt's Urabi Movement (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992). Hanioglu, M. Sukru. Preparation for a Revolution: The Young Turks, 1902-1908 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). Week 8: Family, Gender, and the Law (Oct.24) Agmon, Iris. Family & Court: Legal Culture and Modernity in Late Ottoman Palestine (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2006). Fahmy, Khalid. The Anatomy of Justice: Forensic Medicine and Criminal Law in Nineteenth- Century Egypt. Islamic Law and Society 6 (1999): 224-271. ---. The Police and People in Nineteenth-Century Egypt. Die Welt des Islams 39 (1999): 340-377. 4
Kozma, Liat. Policing Egyptian Women: Sex Law, and medicine in Khedival Egypt (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2011). Semerdjian, Elyse. Off the Straight Path : Illicit Sex, Law, and Community in Ottoman Aleppo (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2008). Tucker, Judith E. In the House of the Law: Gender and Islamic Law in Ottoman Syria and Palestine (Berkeley: UC Press, 1998). Week 9: Narratives of Slavery (Oct.31) *Baer, Gabriel. Studies in the Social History of Modern Egypt (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1969). Powell, Eve M. Troutt. Tell This in My Memory: Storeis of Enslavement from Egypt, Sudan and the Ottoman (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2012). Toledano, Ehud. Slavery and Abolition in the Ottoman Middle East (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997). Tucker, Judith. Women in Nineteenth-Century Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002). Zilfi, Madeline. Women and Slavery in the Late Ottoman Empire: The Design of Difference (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012, reprint). Week 10: Peasants and Workers (Nov.7) Cuno, Ken. The Pasha's Peasants: Land Tenure, Society, and Economy in Lower Egypt, 1740-1858 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). Doumani, Beshara. Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995). Ener, Mine. Managing Egypt's Poor and the Politics of Benevolence, 1800-1952 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003). Chalcraft, John T. The Striking Cabbies of Cairo and Other Stories: Crafts and Guilds in Egypt, 1863-1914 (Albany: SUNY Press, 2005). Quataert, Donald. Miners and the State in the Ottoman Empire or Ottoman Manufacturing in the Age of the Industrial Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993). Shafir, Gershon. Land, Labor and the Origins of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, 1882-1914 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996, reprint). 5
Week 11: Banks, Trade, and Capitalism (Nov.14) Eldem, Edhem. A History of the Ottoman Bank (Istanbul: Ottoman Bank Historical Research Center, 1999). Fattah, Hala. The Politics of Regional Trade in Iraq, Arabia and the Gulf, 1745-1900 (Albany: SUNY Press, 1993). İslamoğlu-İnan, Huri, The Ottoman Empire and the World Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). Pamuk, Sevket. The Ottoman Empire and European Capitalism, 1820-1913 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987). Pappé, Ilan. The Rise and Fall of a Palestinian Dynasty: The Husaynis 1700-1948 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011). Shields, Sarah. Mosul Before Iraq: Like Bees Making Five-Sided Cells (Albany: SUNY Press, 2000). Week 12-13: Migration, Cosmopolitanism, and the Production of Space (Nov.21, Dec.5) Celik, Zeynep. Empire, Architecture, and the City: French-Ottoman Encounters, 1830-1914 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2010). Clancy-Smith, Julia. Mediterraneans: North Africa and Europe in an Age of Migration, c. 1800-1900 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011). Hanssen, Jens. Fin de Siecle Beirut: The Making of an Ottoman Provincial Capital (New York: Oxford University Press 2005). Kesaba, Resaat. A Moveable Empire: Ottoman Nomads, Migrants, and Refugees (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2009). Khater, Akram Fouad. Inventing Home: Emigration, Gender, and the Middle Class in Lebanon, 1870-1920 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). Khuri-Makdisi, Ilham. The Eastern Mediterranean and the Making of Global Radicalism, 1860-1914 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011). Lydon, Ghislaine. On Trans-Saharan Trails: Islamic Law, Trade Networks, and Cross-Cultural Exchange in Nineteenth Century Western Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). 6
Mikhail, Alan. Nature and Empire in Ottoman Egypt: An Environmental History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011). No class Nov.28 THANKSGIVING Week 14: Presentations and Conclusions (Dec.12) 7