Nov 18-19: UCLA hosts the Western Ottomanists' Workshop (WOW) hybrid, both in person and online.
Friday, November 18, 2022 - Saturday, November 19, 2022
(Pacific Time)
*** FIND CHANGED FINAL PROGRAM HERE
Please note changed dates and locations for the conference.
Friday, November 18, 2022
Location: Outside Bunche Hall
1:30-4:00PM: Gather alongside WOW 2022 organizers and participants outside the Bunche Hall Elevators, on Google Maps; the side facing “Portola Plaza” || Look for a Bright Yellow Umbrella or email WOWUCLAWOW@GMAIL.COM on the day if you cannot find us.
4:15-5:30PM Panel 2: Ottoman Legal and Administrative Structures || Chair: John Curry (University of Nevada, Las Vegas)
Ismail Noyan (Simon Fraser University), Mecelle as the Product of Global Islamic Networks || Discussant: Jun Akiba (University of Tokyo | Zoom)
Madonna Aoun Ghazal (UCLA), Women in the Shari’ah Court of Beirut: 1875-1914 || Discussant: Samy Ayoub (UT Austin | Zoom)
Daniel Ohanian (UCLA) If There Was No Millet System, What Was There? || Discussant: Christine Philliou (UCB)
5:30-5.45PM Break
5:45-6.45PM Panel 1: Nineteenth Century Ottoman Identities Beyond the Millet System || Chair: James Gelvin (UCLA)
Bedros Torosian (UCI), A Living Imperial Space for a “White” Nation-Race: Ottomanism, Eugenics, and the Quest for a Decentralized Armenian Fatherland || Discussant: Sebouh Aslanian (UCLA)
Hilal Tümer (UCB/ Zoom), Aegean in Flux: A Study on the Moreot Migrants in the Nineteenth Century | | Discussant: Isacar Bolaños (CSULB)
Saturday, November 19 2022
Location: University of Southern California (USC) — SOS 250 (Social Sciences Building Room 250)
8-8:30AM Registration | Coffee
8:30-10:10AM Panel 3: Ottoman Language, Literature, and Carnivals || Chair: Selim Kuru (UW)
Jennifer Manoukian (UCLA), Turkish as an Ottoman-Armenian Prestige Language || Discussant: Nir Shafir (UCSD | Zoom)
İpek Şahinler (U Texas at Austin) Queer Ottoman-Turkish Literature || Discussant: Selim Kuru (UW)
Nora Bairamian (UCLA) Assessing the Development of Armenian Nationalism in the Ottoman Borderlands Through the Genre of the Short Story || Discussant: Dzovinar Derderian (UCB)
Naz Vardar (Simon Fraser University) Gender and Transgression in Apokries and Baklahorani Festivities in Late-Ottoman Istanbul || Discussant: Ceyhun Arslan (Koç University | Zoom)
10:10-10:30AM Break
10:30AM-12:10PM Panel 4: Vampires, Converts, and Financiers in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire || Chair: Adam Sabra (UCSB)
Zehra Ilhan (UCD), Ottoman Women’s Piety Under Construction: The Emergence of ‘‘Husband-Centered’’ Religiosity in Early Modern Ottoman Manuscripts || Discussant: Adam Sabra (UCSB)
Christopher Whitehead (OSU) Financiers at Court during the Minority of Sultan Mehmed IV (1648-56) || Discussant: Linda Darling (University of Arizona)
Elyakim Engelmann-Suissa (UW) The Law of the Other: Converts and Gentiles in the Eyes of Seventeenth-Century Istanbul Rabbis || Discussant: Jacob Max Daniels (Stanford University)
Hüseyin Göcen (UCD) Morbid questions and vampires of plague: Vampire cases from provincial jurisconsults’ fatwa collections in early modern Ottoman Empire || Discussant: James Grehan (Portland State University | Zoom)
12:10-1:10PM Lunch Break
1:15-2:15PM Lunchtime Roundtable on Manuscripts in SoCal || Chair: Luke Yarbrough (UCLA NELC)
Ali Anooshahr (UCD | Zoom)
Gwendolyn Collaço (MIT | Zoom)
Sohaib Baig (UCLA Libraries)
Luke Yarbrough (UCLA NELC)
2:15-2:30PM Break
2:30-4:00PM Panel 5: Race and Capitalism in the Ottoman Empire: Sephardic Jews, Afro-Turks, Greek-Turkish Population Exchange || Chair: Reşat Kasaba (UW)
Rachel Smith (UCLA), Space, Race, and Capital: An Examination of Ottoman Sephardic Travel Literature || Discussant: Reşat Kasaba (UW)
Oluwamayowa (Bam) Willoughby (Cornell), Afro Turkik Plots: Agriculture, Labor and the Politics of Racialization from the 19th Century Ottoman Empire to Post Ottoman Contemporary Turkey || Discussant: Baki Tezcan (UCD)
Herman Adney (UCLA), The Political Economy of Ethnic Cleansing: Sephardic Jews, Commercial Speculation, and the Greek-Turkish Population Exchange || Discussant: Nora Barakat (Stanford University | Zoom)
3:50-4:05PM Break
4:05PM-4:45PM Heather Ferguson: Professionalization Workshop
4:50PM-5:15PM Sebouh Aslanian, Closing Speech
5:15PM-5:45PM Discussion of Sebouh’s Pre-Circulated Closing Speech among Keynote Panelists; comments by Christine Philliou, Sarah Stein, Baki Tezcan
5:45-6:05PM Q&A / Open Up Discussion to General Audience
6:10-7:00pm Ottoman Music Lecture and Demonstration – Münir Beken (UCLA Ethnomusicology); Featuring Lecturers and Musicians, Mikey Aboutboul and Ian Price
7:00PM Catered Dinner: Dolan’s Uyghur Cuisine – only official WOW participants known to the organizers will be allowed due to limited food availability
Please direct all queries to WOWUCLAWOW@gmail.com
Sponsor(s): Center for Near Eastern Studies, Center for European and Russian Studies, African Studies Center, Program on Central Asia, Department of History, Islamic Studies, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, Center for 17th and 18th Century Studies, UCLA's Richard Hovannisian Endowed Chair in Modern Armenian History, Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture, CMRS Center for Early Global Studies, William Andrews Clark Memorial Library, Library Special Collections