Overview

Recent historical studies on the Ottoman Empire have taken for granted that subjects of the Ottoman polity flourished under a so-called “Pax Ottomanica.” This edited volume probes the rosy narrative of Ottoman tolerance that has long dominated the discussions. The articles carefully strive to contextualize the many issues that sound like ethnic slurs, racial stereotyping, religious discrimination, misogyny and elitism to modern ears. The goal of the volume is not to prove that Ottoman society was a persecuting one, or that dislike or distrust was its defining characteristic, but to investigate the axes of tension, blemishes, and fractures in the everyday practice of coexistence in a dynamic, multi-religious, multi-confessional and multi-ethnic empire in which difference was the norm rather than the exception.

Full Product Details

Author:   Hakan T. Karateke ,  H. Erdem Çıpa ,  Helga Anetshofer
Publisher:   Academic Studies Press
Imprint:   Academic Studies Press
ISBN:  

9798897830947

Publication Date:   06 November 2025
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  General/trade ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available  
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Table of Contents

Introduction Changing Perceptions about Christian-born Ottomans: Anti-ḳul Sentiments in Ottoman Historiography H. Erdem Çıpa Circassian Mamluks in Ottoman Egypt and Istanbul, ca. 1500–1730: The Eastern Alternative Jane Hathaway Dispelling the Darkness of the Halberdier’s Treatise: A Comparative Look at Black Africans in Ottoman Letters in the Early Modern Period Baki Tezcan The Jew, the Orthodox Christian, and the European in Ottoman Eyes, ca. 1550–1700 Bilha Moor An Ottoman Anti-Judaism Hakan T. Karateke Evliyā Çelebī’s Perception of Jews Hakan T. Karateke Ambiguous Subjects and Uneasy Neighbors: Bosnian Franciscans’ Attitudes toward the Ottoman State, ‘Turks,’ and Vlachs Vjeran Kursar ‘Those Violating the Good, Old Customs of our Land’: Forms and Functions of Graecophobia in the Danubian Principalities, 16th–18th Centuries Konrad Petrovszky Representing the Margins: The Many Faces of the ‘Gypsy’ in Early Modern Ottoman Discourse Faika Çelik Gendered Infidels in Fiction: A Case Study on S̱ābit’s Ḥikāye-i Ḫvāce Fesād İpek Hüner-Cora ‘The Greatest of Tribulations’: Constructions of Femininity in Sixteenth-Century Ottoman Physiognomy Emin Lelić Defining and Defaming the Other in Early Seventeenth-Century Ottoman Invective Michael Sheridan ‘Are You From Çorum?’: Derogatory Attitudes Toward the “Unruly Mob” of the Provinces as Reflected in a Proverbial Saying Helga Anetshofer

Reviews

“Overall this volume thus proposes highly interesting visions of forms of hostility in Ottoman society between the sixteenth and the eighteenth century. … The volume … constitute[s] a major contribution … as well as a precious entry towards an understanding of the tensions at work in Ottoman society.” —Nora Lafi, Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin, Turkish Historical Review

Author Information

Hakan T. Karateke (PhD, Bamberg University) is Professor of Ottoman and Turkish Culture, Language, and Literature at the University of Chicago. He is the author of Evliya Çelebi’s Journey from Bursa to the Dardanelles and Edirne (2013) and an article titled “The Rosy History of Jews in the Ottoman Empire: A Critical Approach to Jewish Historiography.” H. Erdem Çıpa (PhD, Harvard University) is Associate Professor of Ottoman history at the University of Michigan. He is the author of The Making of Selim: Succession, Legitimacy, and Memory in the Early Modern Ottoman World (2017) and co-editor, with E. Fetvacı, of Writing History at the Ottoman Court: Editing the Past, Fashioning the Future (2013). Helga Anetshofer (PhD, Vienna University) is Lecturer for Ottoman and Turkish Studies at the University of Chicago. Her publications include her recent articles “Folk Etymologies and Stories of Toponyms from Danishmendid Territory in Evliya Çelebi’s Seyahatname” (2015) and “The Hero Dons a Talismanic Shirt for Battle: Magic Objects Aiding the Warrior in a Turkish Epic Romance” (2018).

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