The Ottoman Empire: Conquest, Coexistence, and Coffee

(History 284 is an undergraduate course offered for 5 units; History 384 is a graduate course offered for 4-5 units.) The Ottoman Empire ruled the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe from the 15th to the early 20th centuries. How did the Ottoman enterprise appear in the frontier region between Christendom and the Islamic world? How were diverse peoples, religions, and regions integrated under the Ottoman order? Was there an Ottoman Mediterranean and Indian Ocean? How did reform movements in Islamic, Christian and Jewish thinking transform Ottoman societies? Topics include the Ottoman Empire between Europe and Eastern Islamic World; merchants and their markets; elite, urban, rural and nomadic lives; women, family, childhood and sexuality; life, afterlife and dreams; epidemics and natural disasters. Special emphasis will be given to coffee and coffee houses which shaped public life in the Ottoman World since the 16th century. The survey ends with the rise of nationalism, inter-communal violence and the disintegration of the Ottoman world.