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Language of Instruction
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English
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Level of Course Unit
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Master's Degree
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Department / Program
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PhD Program in History (English)
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Type of Program
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Formal Education
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Type of Course Unit
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Elective
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Course Delivery Method
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Face To Face
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Objectives of the Course
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Aims of the course
Students who have participated in this course wıll
1. Understand that when approaching narrative sources of the early modern period, we must delve quite deeply into the assumptions of literary merit and originality held by the people who once wrote the texts at issue.
2. Realize that despite the cultural unity inculcated in graduates of the Ottoman ‘palace school’, there remained more space for individual choices than we may think.
3. Get a better understanding of the relationships between the governing elites and the subject population, especially soldiers and provincial notables.
4. Understand that Ottoman people did not spend their whole time working, praying and petitioning the sultan, but relaxed when listening to stories and watching travelling showmen. However, their sense of what was funny might be quite different from current notions of amusement.
5. Understand that monarchic rule, common to the polities of the Islamic world, had different implications in the vastly different societies of the Ottoman Balkans and Anatolia, Egypt, and the Hijaz or western Iran. Even when travelling within the Ottoman borders, an elite figure needed to make significant adjustments to his ‘mental map’, as we will see.
6. Broaden our conceptions of what seventeenth-century people might write: the limits of Ottoman literature extended beyond poetry, chronicles and advice literature.
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Course Content
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This course introduces the ten-volume travelogue of Evliya Çelebi (1611-about 1685) and discusses the ways in which present-day historians can make use of this monumental text. The work of Evliya presents unique problems, because certain sections seem to derive from official documents and contain information verifiable in the archives. On the other hand, especially the historical sections are often fantastic, and therefore to many historians, Evliya has appeared as a conveyor of fairy tales. Other twentieth-century authors have called him the first author of novels in Ottoman literature, a genre that otherwise was an invention of writers active during the late 1800s.
The contradictions do not end there: Evliya had received an education at the Ottoman court that prepared him for a career as an administrator and perhaps even a military man. However, he only undertook minor official tasks when in the service of this or that vizier, which he evidently did not regard as career enhancing but merely as a means to finance his travels. Moreover, Evliya had a talent for languages, and certainly knew the formal Ottoman Turkish used by the elite. However, he chose to write in the everyday language of educated people, and occasionally included street talk as well.
We will explore these contradictions in some detail, as no matter what we may think of Evliya’s reliability, it would be difficult to write Ottoman social history of the pre-Tanzimat peiod without engaging with his work.
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Course Methods and Techniques
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Prerequisites and co-requisities
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None
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Course Coordinator
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None
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Name of Lecturers
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Prof. Suraiya Faroqhi
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Assistants
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None
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Work Placement(s)
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No
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Recommended or Required Reading
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Resources
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Course Outline 1. Week (begins 27 January 2020): Introduction Topics to be treated: Evliya’s biography and the post-mortem fate of his work: what he has told us and what outside sources say Readings: Karlığa, Bekir et alii, Evliya Çelebi Atlası (Istanbul: MEDAM, 2012) Tezcan, Nuran, Semih Tezcan and Robert Dankoff (eds.), Evliya Çelebi -- Studies and Essays Commemorating the 400th Anniversary of his Birth (Ankara: Republic of Turkey, Ministry of Culture, 2012) (cursory reading) Tezcan, Nuran, “Evliya Çelebi’nin Belgesel İzi: Papinta Kâgız,“ https://www.academia.edu/12065442/Evliya_%C3%87elebinin_Belgesel_%C4%B0zi_Papinta_Kag%C4%B1z_ Read when you have time –but before the end of the semester: Robert Dankoff, An Ottoman Mentality: The World of Evliya Celebi (Leiden: Brill, 2011, 2nd revised edition 2006), Turkish translation available. For publications up to 2012, you should use the bibliography by Robert Dankoff, https://www.academia.edu/4314391/AN_EVLIYA_%C3%87ELEBI_BIBLIOGRAPHY
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Grades
Presentation in class, with an outline presented in writing: 40%
Formal paper, about 12 pages: 60%
Plagiarism and Academic Dishonesty:
This issue should be familiar to all students but perhaps a reminder will not hurt. Plagiarism includes copying from books or journals, duplicating the work of fellow students, and copying or downloading materials from the internet without proper acknowledgement. We may review this in class early in the semester. If you still feel unsure of what constitutes plagiarism or academic dishonesty, please speak to the instructor about your questions before the first assignment.
Plagiarism or academic dishonesty of any kind and extent will have results that reach from an F for the assignment, to an F for the course or disciplinary action. Disciplinary action means that the case is no longer the responsibility of the teacher, but is subject to the decision of the Disciplinary Committee. The Committee may decide to dismiss the student from the University.
As classes, exams and presentations will be in English, please be sure to bring a dictionary, or use your cell phone if appropriate.
Some hints concerning your papers
When the syllabus says ‘cursory reading’, this means that you should have a general idea of the outline and guiding premises of a given book, without having read it ‘cover to cover’. We can discuss different ways of handling this matter in class, if you wish.
As your projects in this course, you are to hand in the outline of your oral presentation; however, the oral part of your work is crucial when it comes to your grades. For your footnotes, you can choose either the ‘short title’ or the ‘author-year’ system; but it is important that you retain the same format throughout. At the end of your work, please add a bibliography.
When you have employed an internet source, acknowledge the fact in a footnote. If the site gives you an author and a title, be sure to mention these too. The footnote must contain the headline of the site, which you can easily copy (http\...). If there is a DOI, include it. After that, do not forget to include the following phrases: accessed on (followed by the date). This serves to protect you in case the site has vanished by the time your paper comes up for grading.
Be sure to mark any quotations with quotation marks and specify the source in a footnote; and above all, proofread before you hand in your paper.
Images are historical sources just like texts; be sure to ask yourself who has created a given image for which purpose, before you incorporate it into your project. In the case of Evliya, remember that we do not have a contemporary portrait, but if you wish, you may reflect on the reasons why twentieth- and twenty-first century authors have invented ‘fake’ portraits of this author.
Some hints about grades
When grading your papers and presentations, the following criteria will determine your grade:
In oral presentations, you need to speak English and keep to the time limits assigned, therefore include only those images that have immediate relevance to your work. In addition, do not read the entire paper: you should know it well enough to look at your audience while speaking.
In written presentations:
1. Originality is not a realistic requirement, but you should be aware of the principal contributions to your topic, mainly in Turkish and in English. Knowing a third language and locating relevant contributions written in French, Arabic or some other language is an advantage but not a requirement.
2. In addition, you should present your points in an order that makes sense to you and to your readers/listeners, avoiding unnecessary repetitions.
3. It is important to follow the suggestions in the section “Some hints concerning your papers”
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