Knowing Ottomans: Transnational Social Science and the Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Empire

Abstract

This dissertation examines how nineteenth-century scholars sought to understand the Ottoman populace through the emerging social scientific concepts of race, culture, language, and civilization. Following these concepts across and between Europe and the Middle East, I argue these intellectuals developed the idea of an “Osmanli” people that challenged the existing binaries of east and west, barbaric and civilized. Drawing on a range of materials, including travelogs, dictionaries, novels, and archival documents, I present a history of the modern social sciences where the Ottoman empire is not just an important object of study, but also the site of creative participation in fields like history, anthropology, and philology. Although the idea of an Ottoman identity proved ephemeral, these scholars laid the methodological and conceptual groundwork for theories of political identity, communal life, and progress that continue to shape the region.