Journal Articles by James Ryan
Published in the Journal of Urban History, Online First, April 11, 2016 doi: 10.1177/009614421664... more Published in the Journal of Urban History, Online First, April 11, 2016 doi: 10.1177/0096144216641070
With the introduction of the horse-drawn tramway in 1871, the citizens of Istanbul were forced to reckon with a new type of public space—the crowded confines of the tramcar. This article focuses on the removal of a curtain that separated men and women on public transit in 1923, analyzing the discourses that shaped the decision and the way in which gendered discourses around public transit were altered at the outset of the Turkish Republic by the curtain’s removal. Building on the work of Lauren Berlant and Alev Çınar, I suggest that the tramcar constituted an intimate public sphere and site of negotiation in which citizens came to both confront and negotiate modern problems ranging from morality to fashion in a way that was functionally different from other public spaces.
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Review Articles by James Ryan
This article reviews recent works of the urban history of Istanbul and considers new frameworks f... more This article reviews recent works of the urban history of Istanbul and considers new frameworks for the history of public transit in that city. It suggests that through new understandings of the transformation of public space, we can reconceptualize transit history as urban history writ small.
*currently I'm restricted from publicly posting the contents of this article, if you wish to see a personal or teaching copy of the article, please feel free to send me a message*
Book Reviews by James Ryan
Review of Gruber and Huagbolle, eds., "Visual Culture in the Modern Middle East: Rhetoric of the ... more Review of Gruber and Huagbolle, eds., "Visual Culture in the Modern Middle East: Rhetoric of the Image" for H-AMCA. See link above for text.
Dissertation Reviews by James Ryan
A review of Onur İşçi's dissertation "Russophobic Neutrality: Turkish Diplomacy, 1936-1945"
Conference Presentations by James Ryan
With the introduction of the horse-drawn tramway in 1871, the citizens of Istanbul were forced to... more With the introduction of the horse-drawn tramway in 1871, the citizens of Istanbul were forced to reckon with a new type of public space—the crowded confines of the tramcar. This article follows the ways in which Ottoman and Turkish society has negotiated morality and modernity inside the tramcar from its introduction through the present day with particular attention paid to the founding documents of le Societe des Tramways des Constantinople, the lifting of the curtain that separated sexes in 1924, and post-WWII considerations by graphic artists, novelists and contemporary activists. Building on the work of Lauren Berlant, I suggest that the tramcar constituted an intimate public sphere in which citizens came to both confront and negotiate modern problems ranging from morality to fashion in a way that was functionally different that other public spaces.
The pages of the illustrated journals Resimli Ay (Illustrated Monthly), Sevimli Ay (The Adorable ... more The pages of the illustrated journals Resimli Ay (Illustrated Monthly), Sevimli Ay (The Adorable Monthly), Resimli Perşembe (Illustrated Thursday) and Resimli Hafta (Illustrated Weekly) sought to engage a Turkish public that was learning to cope with a revolutionary time. While each journal had a somewhat different tactic, each strove to educate the reader about the broad world around it and employ the influence of Western culture to aid Turkish society’s advancement towards a modern society. This essay will discuss the content of these journals, along with the reflections of their proprietors, Mehmet Zekeriya and Sabiha Sertel, with the aim of elucidating both the transformation of the Turkish press, but also the diversity of oppositional culture in the Early Turkish Republic. In this time these journals reacted frequently to revolutions of all kinds, massive social and political reform inside Turkey as well as a vastly changing West (and North) in the fallout of World War I. And yet beyond even these tectonic political revolutions, Turkey’s own vista was changing dramatically. Advancements in science and technology, and how to grapple with them were also recurrent themes in the pages of these illustrated journals. The Sertel’s vision was influenced both by leftist political currents and the development of positivist sociology, and this is evident in their journalistic efforts. These views were also in both harmony and opposition to the unfolding Kemalist vision coming from Ankara. Where Mustafa Kemal was in many was fashioning Turkey according to an ethnogenerative, and thus anti-Western vision, the Sertel’s proffered a vision of modernity that was a nearly direct translation of Western culture and education. In this way, we can come to understand the existence of a leftist opposition to Kemalism apart from the hard-line Communist elements that have received much more attention in scholarship of this period. By assessing evolution of these illustrated magazines, and the experiences of the Sertels both in occupied Istanbul and following that in New York this essay intends to broaden our understanding of Western influence in the Early Turkish Republic as well as reevaluate the formative experiences of what would become two of Turkey’s most prominent leftist intellectuals.
Podcasts by James Ryan
Ottoman History Podcast, Mar 2013
Syllabi by James Ryan
Graduate seminar, NYU, Spring 2020
Course Description: How have women, as subjects, objects, and agents, shaped the history of the m... more Course Description: How have women, as subjects, objects, and agents, shaped the history of the modern Middle East? Until relatively recently, the history of women in the Middle East was characterized in a two dimensional way – as objects in need of reform, or victimized subjects in need of saving. This course will examine a wide breadth of work from the past two decades that has worked to show the myriad and diverse ways in which women have impacted the history of this region in the modern era, and ask serious questions about what that means for our contemporary views on Middle Eastern politics, and to some extent the wider Islamic world. Students will be introduced to cutting edge scholarship that mines previously ignored or unheard of sources on women's history, and will be encouraged themselves to write and reflect on women's history from many different vantages and lenses. The course will be organized around thematic concepts including labor history, urban history, reproductive politics, fashion and geopolitics. Assignments: There will be four components that will make up your grade in this course. You will be responsible for writing an essay, due at the end of the course, between five and seven thousand words long on a subject relevant to the course and chosen in consultation with the instructor. The essays should aspire to a reflection on the scholarly works examined in class, informed by some limited additional primary source research, and might appear suitable for publication in either (slightly stodgy) outlets like the New York Review of Books, and the Times Literary Supplement, or hipper venues like the Los Angeles Review of Books or Publicbooks.org. Essays will be graded on style, persuasiveness of argument, and the incorporation of a variety of source material. The second component of the course will consist of contributions to the course source-blog. You will be required to post to the blog six times throughout the course of the semester. Each post must highlight and examine a single source, be it a piece of text, a photograph, an audio recording, a film or some other artifact, in roughly 300-500 words. Posts should take the form of " explainers " by highlighting the significance of the source, and describing its particular history. Good examples of document and source blogs include: Tozsuz Evrak, The Cornucopia Blog, stambouline.org, The Vault, Ajam Media Collective, Afternoonmap.org, etc. Blog posts will be graded for quality, the lowest grade will be dropped at the end of the course only if all six are completed – if you only submit five posts, you will receive an " 0 " for the sixth grade, and it will count. The third component will be a student presentation. Typically, the instructor will preface each class discussion with a very short introduction to the module being examined, lay out why the particular readings were chosen, and fill in some of the historical gaps left uncovered by the readings. Each student (or if necessary, pairs of students) will then be responsible for introducing the readings for the week, and kicking off the discussion. The presenting student(s) should have
Workshops & Conferences by James Ryan
We are pleased to announce that New York University’s Ottoman and Turkish Studies Initiative (OTS... more We are pleased to announce that New York University’s Ottoman and Turkish Studies Initiative (OTS-NYU) will host the second meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Ottoman Studies Workshop on March 27-29, 2020 at Hagop Kevorkian Center for the Near Eastern Studies. This workshop will provide an opportunity for scholars of Ottoman studies to gather, discuss their research, and receive substantive feedback.
The Mid-Atlantic Ottoman Studies Workshop series was launched in March 2019 at Salisbury University, MD with over 20 participants. The main aim of this initiative is to bring together scholars of all stages based in the mid-Atlantic region (mainly -but not only- in NY, NJ, PA, DA, VA, MD, NC, WV, and DC) who are working to advance the study of the Ottoman Empire and its interactions with the wider world from the period of the late thirteenth century up until the early decades of the twentieth century.
The theme of the workshop at NYU in 2020 will be “Global Ottoman Empire,” emphasizing the connectivity not only between the Ottoman Empire and the surrounding polities, but also among communities, individuals, and many other groups within and beyond its imperial boundaries. We encourage submissions from fields including -but not limited to- history, literary studies, manuscript studies, art & architectural history. Our hope is to promote cooperation and interdisciplinary dialogue among academics whose scholarship is focused on transregional and transimperial connections, situating Ottoman Empire and its study within broader discussions. Works in progress are specifically welcomed.
We are currently accepting abstract submissions for the workshop. Please submit an abstract (max 300 words) via e-mail to maow2020nyu@gmail.com by January 10, 2020 5:00pm. We request that you submit your abstracts with the following email subject title: "MAOW 2020 Abstract Submission"
Applicants should also include the following information in their email:
1. Name & Current institutional affiliation (title, department/program, institution)
2. Contact information (email, telephone number, and preferred mailing address)
Participation announcements will be sent out in late January. Accepted participants will be asked to submit an extensive summary of their research (between 2000 and 2500 words) by March 1, 2020 for pre-circulation. At the end of the workshop, we plan to invite participants to submit short thought pieces on the theme of “Global Ottoman Empire” based on their research. The ultimate goal is to produce a publication that would give the debates and discussions held at the workshop a much longer lasting and wider reaching impact.
Logistics: Hotel accommodation and food (lunch & dinner) will be provided for the workshop participants.
Please feel free to contact us, Ayşe Baltacıoğlu-Brammer (abb12@nyu.edu), James Ryan (james.ryan@nyu.edu), or Ahmet Yusuf Yüksek (ayy236@nyu.edu) if you have any questions or concerns.
Ayşe Baltacıoğlu-Brammer
Assistant Professor
Departments of History & Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies
Director, Ottoman and Turkish Studies Initiative (OTS-NYU), NYU
Uploads
Journal Articles by James Ryan
With the introduction of the horse-drawn tramway in 1871, the citizens of Istanbul were forced to reckon with a new type of public space—the crowded confines of the tramcar. This article focuses on the removal of a curtain that separated men and women on public transit in 1923, analyzing the discourses that shaped the decision and the way in which gendered discourses around public transit were altered at the outset of the Turkish Republic by the curtain’s removal. Building on the work of Lauren Berlant and Alev Çınar, I suggest that the tramcar constituted an intimate public sphere and site of negotiation in which citizens came to both confront and negotiate modern problems ranging from morality to fashion in a way that was functionally different from other public spaces.
Email or message me if you cannot access the article.
Review Articles by James Ryan
*currently I'm restricted from publicly posting the contents of this article, if you wish to see a personal or teaching copy of the article, please feel free to send me a message*
Book Reviews by James Ryan
Dissertation Reviews by James Ryan
Conference Presentations by James Ryan
Podcasts by James Ryan
Syllabi by James Ryan
Workshops & Conferences by James Ryan
The Mid-Atlantic Ottoman Studies Workshop series was launched in March 2019 at Salisbury University, MD with over 20 participants. The main aim of this initiative is to bring together scholars of all stages based in the mid-Atlantic region (mainly -but not only- in NY, NJ, PA, DA, VA, MD, NC, WV, and DC) who are working to advance the study of the Ottoman Empire and its interactions with the wider world from the period of the late thirteenth century up until the early decades of the twentieth century.
The theme of the workshop at NYU in 2020 will be “Global Ottoman Empire,” emphasizing the connectivity not only between the Ottoman Empire and the surrounding polities, but also among communities, individuals, and many other groups within and beyond its imperial boundaries. We encourage submissions from fields including -but not limited to- history, literary studies, manuscript studies, art & architectural history. Our hope is to promote cooperation and interdisciplinary dialogue among academics whose scholarship is focused on transregional and transimperial connections, situating Ottoman Empire and its study within broader discussions. Works in progress are specifically welcomed.
We are currently accepting abstract submissions for the workshop. Please submit an abstract (max 300 words) via e-mail to maow2020nyu@gmail.com by January 10, 2020 5:00pm. We request that you submit your abstracts with the following email subject title: "MAOW 2020 Abstract Submission"
Applicants should also include the following information in their email:
1. Name & Current institutional affiliation (title, department/program, institution)
2. Contact information (email, telephone number, and preferred mailing address)
Participation announcements will be sent out in late January. Accepted participants will be asked to submit an extensive summary of their research (between 2000 and 2500 words) by March 1, 2020 for pre-circulation. At the end of the workshop, we plan to invite participants to submit short thought pieces on the theme of “Global Ottoman Empire” based on their research. The ultimate goal is to produce a publication that would give the debates and discussions held at the workshop a much longer lasting and wider reaching impact.
Logistics: Hotel accommodation and food (lunch & dinner) will be provided for the workshop participants.
Please feel free to contact us, Ayşe Baltacıoğlu-Brammer (abb12@nyu.edu), James Ryan (james.ryan@nyu.edu), or Ahmet Yusuf Yüksek (ayy236@nyu.edu) if you have any questions or concerns.
Ayşe Baltacıoğlu-Brammer
Assistant Professor
Departments of History & Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies
Director, Ottoman and Turkish Studies Initiative (OTS-NYU), NYU
With the introduction of the horse-drawn tramway in 1871, the citizens of Istanbul were forced to reckon with a new type of public space—the crowded confines of the tramcar. This article focuses on the removal of a curtain that separated men and women on public transit in 1923, analyzing the discourses that shaped the decision and the way in which gendered discourses around public transit were altered at the outset of the Turkish Republic by the curtain’s removal. Building on the work of Lauren Berlant and Alev Çınar, I suggest that the tramcar constituted an intimate public sphere and site of negotiation in which citizens came to both confront and negotiate modern problems ranging from morality to fashion in a way that was functionally different from other public spaces.
Email or message me if you cannot access the article.
*currently I'm restricted from publicly posting the contents of this article, if you wish to see a personal or teaching copy of the article, please feel free to send me a message*
The Mid-Atlantic Ottoman Studies Workshop series was launched in March 2019 at Salisbury University, MD with over 20 participants. The main aim of this initiative is to bring together scholars of all stages based in the mid-Atlantic region (mainly -but not only- in NY, NJ, PA, DA, VA, MD, NC, WV, and DC) who are working to advance the study of the Ottoman Empire and its interactions with the wider world from the period of the late thirteenth century up until the early decades of the twentieth century.
The theme of the workshop at NYU in 2020 will be “Global Ottoman Empire,” emphasizing the connectivity not only between the Ottoman Empire and the surrounding polities, but also among communities, individuals, and many other groups within and beyond its imperial boundaries. We encourage submissions from fields including -but not limited to- history, literary studies, manuscript studies, art & architectural history. Our hope is to promote cooperation and interdisciplinary dialogue among academics whose scholarship is focused on transregional and transimperial connections, situating Ottoman Empire and its study within broader discussions. Works in progress are specifically welcomed.
We are currently accepting abstract submissions for the workshop. Please submit an abstract (max 300 words) via e-mail to maow2020nyu@gmail.com by January 10, 2020 5:00pm. We request that you submit your abstracts with the following email subject title: "MAOW 2020 Abstract Submission"
Applicants should also include the following information in their email:
1. Name & Current institutional affiliation (title, department/program, institution)
2. Contact information (email, telephone number, and preferred mailing address)
Participation announcements will be sent out in late January. Accepted participants will be asked to submit an extensive summary of their research (between 2000 and 2500 words) by March 1, 2020 for pre-circulation. At the end of the workshop, we plan to invite participants to submit short thought pieces on the theme of “Global Ottoman Empire” based on their research. The ultimate goal is to produce a publication that would give the debates and discussions held at the workshop a much longer lasting and wider reaching impact.
Logistics: Hotel accommodation and food (lunch & dinner) will be provided for the workshop participants.
Please feel free to contact us, Ayşe Baltacıoğlu-Brammer (abb12@nyu.edu), James Ryan (james.ryan@nyu.edu), or Ahmet Yusuf Yüksek (ayy236@nyu.edu) if you have any questions or concerns.
Ayşe Baltacıoğlu-Brammer
Assistant Professor
Departments of History & Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies
Director, Ottoman and Turkish Studies Initiative (OTS-NYU), NYU