Language, Power, and Law in the Ottoman Empire

Episode 441

with Heather Ferguson

hosted by Zoe Griffith

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In this episode, historian Heather Ferguson takes us behind the scenes of early modern Ottoman state-making with a discussion of her recent book The Proper Order of Things. We discuss how the architecture of Topkapı palace, the emergence of new bureaucratic practices, and the administration of space from Hungary to Lebanon projected early modern discourses of “order” that were crucial to imperial legitimacy, governance, and dissent. Heather also offers rare insights into the challenges, vulnerabilities, and victories of transforming a dissertation into a prize-winning book manuscript.

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Contributor Bios

Heather Ferguson is Associate Professor of Ottoman and Middle Eastern History at Claremont McKenna College. She is author of The Proper Order of Things: Language, Power and Law in Ottoman Administrative Discourses published by Stanford University. Her current book project is titled Sovereign Valedictions:“Last Acts” and Archival Ventures in Ottoman and Habsburg Courts. She also serves as Editor of the Review of Middle East Studies, Associate Editor for the International Journal of Islamic Architecture.

Zoe Griffith is Assistant Professor of History at Baruch College, CUNY and completed her Ph.D. at Brown University in 2017. Her research focuses on political economy, law, and governance in the Ottoman Arab provinces from the 17th to the 19th centuries. She records mainly in New York City.

Credits

Episode No. 441
Release Date: 13 December 2019
Recording Location: New Orleans, LA
Audio editing by Maryam Patton
Music: Beanbag Fight by Scanglobe; T. Agabey - Arabamin Atlari; Istanbul by kara güneş
Images and bibliography courtesy of Heather Ferguson

Images

Mehmed III's Campaign in Hungary. David Collection, Cophenhagen: Inv. no. 19/2009. Photograph by Pernille Klemp.

Storage facilities in the Devlet Arşivleri Bakanlığı. Source: https://www.devletarsivleri.gov.tr/Sayfalar/Haberler/Haber/4165#   

Select Bibliography

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Atçıl, Abdurrahman. Scholars and Sultans in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).

Bang, Peter F, and Dariusz Kołodziejczyk, eds. “‘Elephant of India’: Universal Empire through Time and across Cultures.” In Universal Empire: A Comparative Approach to Imperial Culture and Representation in Eurasian History, 1–40, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.

Benton, Lauren A. A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires, 1400--1900. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Brendecke, Arndt. The Empirical Empire: Spanish Colonial Rule and the Politics of Knowledge (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016)

Burak, Guy. “Between the Ḳānūn of Qāytbāy and Ottoman Yasaq: A Note on the Ottomans’ Dynastic Law.” Journal of Islamic Studies 26, no. 1 (2015a): 1–23.

Burke, Peter. Languages and Communities in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Burns, Kathryn. Into the Archive: Writing and Power in Colonial Peru. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2010.

Buzov, Snjezana. “The Lawgiver and His Lawmakers: The Role of Legal Discourse in the Change of Ottoman Imperial Culture.” PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2005.

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Duindam, Jeroen Frans Jozef, Tülay Artan, and İ Metin Kunt. Royal Courts in Dynastic States and Empires: A Global Perspective. Vol. 1. Rulers & Elites : Comparative Studies in Governance. Boston: Brill, 2011.

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Necipoğlu, Gülru. “A Kanun for the State, A Canon for the Arts: Conceptualizing the Classical Synthesis of Ottoman Art and Architecture.” In Soliman Le Magnifique et Son Temps, Actes Du Colloque de Paris. Galeries Nationales Du Grand Palais, 7-10 Mars 1990, edited by Gilles Veinstein, 195–216. Paris: La Documentation Française, 1992.

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