Ottoman History Podcast
Episodes
Architecture and Environment in the Medieval Maghreb
24 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
with Abbey Stockstill hosted by Chris Gratien | What is Islamic architecture? In this follow-up to our ten-part seires on The Making of ...
Osmanlı ve Türkiye Sanayileşme Tarihi
15 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Görkem Akgöz Sunucu: Can Gümüş | Bu bölümde Dr. Görkem Akgöz’ün 2025 Hagley Prize in Business History ödülünü alan “In the...
The Turkishness Contract
16 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
with Barış Ünlü hosted by Chris Gratien and Kubra Sagir | What does it mean to be Turkish? In this episode, we examine that question...
A Confederate General in the Ottoman Capital
03 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
with Elizabeth Varon hosted by Chris Gratien | After the US Civil War, many leaders of the defeated Confederacy followed unusual traject...
Palestine and India at the Dawn of Decolonization
11 Feb 2026
Contributed by Lukas
with Esmat Elhalaby hosted by Susanna Ferguson | How did Palestine become central to anti-imperial movements and thought in the globa...
Refugees, Humanitarianism, and the Politics of Kinship
22 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
with Sophia Balakian hosted by Brittany White and Chris Gratien | The word "refugee" might conjure images of families devastat...
A British Burlesque Artist in Belle Époque Cairo
09 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
featuring Gwendolyn Collaço with Andras Riedlmayer and Paul Drummond | While killing time at the Booksellers' Row in Westmins...
Osmanlı’nın Bağdat’taki Son Yılları
25 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Emine Şahin Sunucu: Can Gümüş | Bağdat, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu için coğrafi uzaklığına rağmen merkezî idarenin vazgeçilmez vil...
Pamphlets and Polemics in the 17th-Century Ottoman Empire
06 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
with Nir Shafir hosted by Maryam Patton | The seventeenth century has often been characterized as a period of disorder and religious ...
A Sea of Sorcery: Roundtable with Shannon Chakraborty
19 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
produced by Shireen Hamza and featuring Fahad Bishara, KD Thompson, Liana Saif, Mahmood Kooria, Rebecca Hankins, and Samantha Pellegrino ...
Osmanlı'dan Cumhuriyet’e İstanbul’da Elektrikli Yaşam
10 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Nurçin İleri, Emine Öztaner ve Meltem Kocaman Sunucu: Can Gümüş | Bu bölümde, Nurçin İleri, Emine Öztaner ve Meltem Kocaman ile el...
Türkiye, Iran, and the Politics of Comparison
31 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
with Perin Gürel hosted by Chris Gratien | Comparisons are everywhere in American discussions of Middle East politics. As our guest, Pe...
Martin Crusius and the Discovery of Ottoman Greece
24 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
with Richard Calis hosted by Maryam Patton | In the late sixteenth century, a German Lutheran scholar named Martin Crusius compiled a...
Arapların 1915’i: Soykırım, Kimlik, Coğrafya
13 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Emre Can Dağlıoğlu Sunucu: Can Gümüş & Önder Eren Akgül | Emre Can Dağlıoğlu’nun Arapların 1915’i: Soykırım, Kimlik, Coğ...
The End of Ottoman Crete
29 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
with Uğur Z. Peçe hosted by Sam Dolbee | In the 1890s, Ottoman Crete descended into communal violence between its Christian and Muslim...
Gender, Capitalism, and Democracy in Modern Arab Thought
30 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
with Susanna Ferguson hosted by Chris Gratien | What does the history of modern Arab political thought look like from the perspective o...
Religion, Science, and an Arab Renaissance Man
16 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
with Peter Hill hosted by Matthew Ghazarian | Across the 19th century Arab East, or Mashriq, there were two simultaneous but seemingly ...
Ottoman Passports
05 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
with İlkay Yılmaz hosted by Sam Dolbee | Passports are objects at once momentous and mundane. How did they come about in the late Ottoma...
North Caucasian Refugees and the Late Ottoman State
29 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
with Vladimir Hamed-Troyansky hosted by Chris Gratien & Can Gümüş | During the late 19th and early 20th century, tens of million...
An Ottoman Imam in Brazil
11 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
with Ali Kulez hosted by Sam Dolbee | In 1866, a series of unexpected events led to an Ottoman imam by the name of Abd al-Rahman al-Bagh...
Media of the Masses in Modern Egypt
01 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
with Andrew Simon, Alia Mossallam, and Ziad Fahmy hosted by Chris Gratien | The Egyptian revolution of 2011 is one of the most specta...
Nazareth, the Nakba, and the Remaking of Palestinian Politics
24 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
with Leena Dallasheh hosted by Chris Gratien | As an Arab city inside the 1948 borders of Israel, Nazareth defies many of the general n...
Geç Osmanlı’da Materyalizm, Psikoloji ve Duygular Tarihi
10 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Şeyma Afacan Sunucu: Can Gümüş | Bu bölümde, Dr. Şeyma Afacan ile geç Osmanlı’da biyolojik materyalizm, psikolojinin gelişimi...
The Economics of the Armenian Genocide in Aintab
26 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
with Ümit Kurt hosted by Sam Dolbee | What were the economic forces that drove the violence of the Armenian genocide? In this episode, ...
Nasser, Nubia, and the Stories of a People
05 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
with Alia Mossallam hosted by Chris Gratien | In 1952, a coup d'état led by Gamal Abdel Nasser ushered in a revolutionary period o...
A Sufi Novel of Late Ottoman Istanbul
25 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
with Brett Wilson hosted by Brittany White | Set between elite households and a Sufi lodge, Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu's 1922 novel...
Palestinian Citizens of Israel and the Arab World
08 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
with Maha Nassar hosted by Susanna Ferguson | 1948 marks the year that Israel gained independence, and for Palestinians, an experience ...
The Politics of Street Sounds in Interwar Egypt
20 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
with Ziad Fahmy hosted by Chris Gratien | During the interwar period, the recording industry reshaped Egyptian culture and politics thr...
Ottoman Istanbul After Dark
12 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
with Avner Wishnitzer hosted by Sam Dolbee | What did the nighttime mean in the early modern Ottoman Empire? In this episode, Avner Wish...
The Egyptian Labor Corps and the Echoes of WWI
03 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
with Kyle Anderson & Alia Mossallam hosted by Chris Gratien | In the aftermath of the First World War, the Egyptian streets rose up...
Nationality on Trial in the 19th Century Mediterranean
27 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
with Jessica Marglin hosted by Brittany White | In 1873, Nissim Shamama died suddenly at his palazzo in Livorno. He was quietly one of ...
The Hundred Years' War on Palestine
19 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
with Rashid Khalidi hosted by Zeinab Azarbadegan | In this episode, Rashid Khalidi discusses his latest book The Hundred Years' War...
Privileges and Nobility in Ottoman Kurdistan
20 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
with Nilay Özok-Gündoğan hosted by Sam Dolbee | As the Ottoman state expanded in the sixteenth century, it extended a number of privi...
Environment and Empire in the Ottoman Jazira
31 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Samuel Dolbee hosted by Chris Gratien and Reem Bailony | What can we learn about the late Ottoman Empire from the histories of its would-b...
The Ottoman Empire and Eastern World Orders
20 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
with Ayşe Zarakol hosted by Zeinab Azarbadegan | What did the international system look like before the rise of the West? What was the...
Kantika: from History to Fiction, a Sephardic Journey
13 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
with Elizabeth Graver hosted by Brittany White | Elizabeth Graver grew up knowing her grandmother Rebecca was from the Ottoman Empire an...
Tax Administration in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire
05 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Linda Darling hosted by Sam Dolbee | In this episode, Linda Darling discusses the history of tax administration in the early modern Ottoma...
Arab-Ottoman Imperialists at the End of Empire
28 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
with Mostafa Minawi hosted by Zeinab Azarbadegan | What did it mean to be Arab during the last decades of the Ottoman Empire? What did ...
The Natural Sciences in Early Modern Morocco
14 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
with Justin Stearns hosted by Shireen Hamza and Taylor Moore | When you think of the history of science, what people and places come to m...
What is Islamic Art?
03 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
with Wendy M. K. Shaw hosted by Zeinab Azarbadegan | What is an image in Islam? Is its permissibility the main preoccupation of Islamic...
Vernacular Photography in Early Republican Turkey
11 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
with Özge Calafato hosted by Zeinab Azarbadegan | What can family and individual studio photographs tell us about social life in the e...
Shipping and Empire around the Arabian Peninsula
01 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
with Laleh Khalili hosted by Matthew Ghazarian | How did massive, modern shipping ports emerge from the sands of the Arabian Peninsula,...
The Life and Music of Armenian Soprano Zabelle Panosian
23 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
with Ian Nagoski hosted by Suzie Ferguson | Zabelle Panosian's ethereal music transfixed audiences from Boston to Paris in the earl...
Water from Stone
16 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
with Jesse Howell & Marijana Mišević hosted by Sam Dolbee | In this special episode of the Ottoman History Podcast, Sam Dolbee ...
The Catastrophic Success of the Armenian Tanzimat
04 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
with Richard Antaramian hosted by Matthew Ghazarian | How did the Ottomans secure widespread buy-in for modernization projects across t...
A New History of The Eastern Question
23 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
with Ozan Ozavci hosted by Zeinab Azarbadegan | How was European military intervention in the Ottoman Empire justified throughout the n...
Moriscos and the Early Modern Mediterranean
11 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Mayte Green-Mercado hosted by Brittany White | In 1609, King Phillip III of Spain signed an edict to expel a community known as the Morisc...
Scholarly Salons in 16th-Century Damascus
27 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
with Helen Pfeifer hosted by Maryam Patton | In 1517, the Ottomans captured Cairo and with it, the Arabophone lands of the Mamluk Sultan...
An Environmental History of the Late Ottoman Frontier
11 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
with Chris Gratien hosted by Susanna Ferguson | How did ordinary Ottoman subjects experience the momentous changes that made our modern ...
The Spiritual Vernacular of the Early Ottoman Frontier
04 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
with Carlos Grenier hosted by Maryam Patton | How did one learn to be a good Muslim in the early 15th century? In newly conquered Ottom...
Sultanic Saviors
29 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
with Marc Baer hosted by Zeinab Azarbadegan | The expulsion of Sephardic Jews from the Iberian Peninsula and their arrival in the Ottoma...
Dear Palestine
29 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
with Shay Hazkani hosted by Sam Dolbee | The 1948 War resulted in the creation of the state of Israel and the Nakba of 750,000 Palest...
Osman of Timisoara: Prisoner of the Infidels
18 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
with Giancarlo Casale hosted by Brittany White | Osman of Timișoara was a Muslim subject of the Ottoman Empire born during the late 17th ...
The Circassian Diaspora
16 Sep 2021
Contributed by Lukas
with Şölen Şanlı Vasquez hosted by Brittany White | Over the course its final decades, millions of Muslim immigrants, many of them r...
The Origins of Ottoman History
20 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
with Rudi Lindner hosted by Joshua White & Maryam Patton | Among the most murky periods of the Ottoman dynasty's six-century history ...
The Many Lives of Waqf in Beirut
05 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
with Nada Moumtaz hosted by Susanna Ferguson | The waqf, often translated as "endowment," is a critical player in the story o...
Layers of History in Downtown Beirut
29 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
with Rayya Haddad | The modern history of Beirut has been defined by periods of intense construction, destruction, and reconstruction. I...
Galata and the Early Modern Mediterranean World
23 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
with Fariba Zarinebaf hosted by Sam Dolbee and Nir Shafir | In this episode, Fariba Zarinebaf discusses the history of Galata an...
Refik Halit: A Life of Opposition
16 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
with Christine Philliou hosted by Sam Dolbee and Brittany White | Refik Halit Karay (1889-1965) was a writer, bureaucrat, and polit...
The Environmental Origins of Ottoman Iraq
27 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
with Faisal Husain hosted by Chris Gratien | The Ottoman conquests of the 16th century represented a watershed moment in many senses. O...
Portraits of Unbelonging
09 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
with Zeynep Gürsel | The Ottoman archives contain just over a hundred photographs that look like old family portraits, but they were c...
Ottoman Mecca and the Indian Ocean Hajj
07 Apr 2021
Contributed by Lukas
with Michael Christopher Low hosted by Sam Dolbee | In the Hijaz, the Ottoman Empire managed not only Mecca and Medina--the two holiest ...
The Stage Turk in Early Modern English Drama
04 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
with Ambereen Dadabhoy hosted by Maryam Patton and Chris Gratien | William Shakespeare's lifetime overlapped with the height of Ott...
Musical Archives of the Midwest Mahjar
22 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
with Richard Breaux | Richard Breaux needed a hobby. He began collecting 78 rpm records as a break from his work as a professor of Ethn...
Recovering God's Intent in the Modern Age
28 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
with Monica Ringer hosted by Matthew Ghazarian | What is Islamic modernism, and how did authors of this movement position themselves vis-á...
Paraskevi Kyrias, Albania, and the US at the Paris Peace Conference
21 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
with Nevila Pahumi hosted by Susanna Ferguson | In 1919, Paraskevi Kyrias went to Paris to advocate for Albanian independence. As a wom...
Zeinab's Odyssey: Gender, Mobility, and the Mahjar
28 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 478 with Randa Tawil hosted by Chris Gratien How do social categories like gender and race impact migrant trajectories as they mov...
Travel Images Between Europe and the Ottoman Empire
25 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 473 with Elisabeth Fraser hosted by Emily Neumeier For centuries, people have been documenting their travels with images, which pur...
The Life and Times of Sultan Selim I
18 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 472 with Alan Mikhail hosted by Sam Dolbee Sultan Selim I is well known for the conquests he pursued that brought places like Cairo,...
David Ohannessian: Art, Exile, and the Legacies of Genocide
13 Aug 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 471 with Sato Moughalian hosted by Sam Dolbee David Ohannessian is one of the foremost pioneers of the ceramic styles associated tod...
Shibli Nomani's Urdu Travelogue of the Ottoman Empire
22 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 468 with Gregory Maxwell Bruce hosted by Zoe Griffith In 1892, the renowned Islamic scholar and educator Shibli Nomani traveled...
The Economic Roots of Modern Sudan
11 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 466 with Alden Young hosted by Chris Gratien As a site of recent civil wars, ethnic cleansing, and genocide, Sudan's history i...
Mementos from Habsburg Life in Ottoman Istanbul
05 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 465 with Robyn Dora Radway hosted by Emily Neumeier What was it like to be a foreigner living in Ottoman Istanbul? In this episode,...
Cemal Kafadar Between Past and Present, Part 1
29 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 464 with Cemal Kafadar hosted by Maryam Patton, Chris Gratien, and Sam Dolbee In part one of our interview with Cemal Kafadar, we di...
The Journeys of Ottoman Greek Music
03 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 463 with Panayotis League hosted by Chris Gratien What is Greek music? For our guest Panayotis League, it's no one thing. Rath...
Singing the Prophet's Praise
27 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 462 with Oludamini Ogunnaike hosted by Shireen Hamza Reading and writing poems in praise of the prophet Mohammad is no simple matter...
Science in Early Modern Istanbul
25 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 456 with Harun Küçük hosted by Sam Dolbee and Zoe Griffith What did science look like in early modern Istanbul? In this episod...
Plague in the Ottoman World
19 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 455 featuring Nükhet Varlık, Yaron Ayalon, Orhan Pamuk, Lori Jones, Valentina Pugliano, and Edna Bonhomme narrated by Chris Gratien...
Indian Ocean Exchange in Early Modern Yemen
06 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 453 with Nancy Um hosted by Zoe Griffith The Red Sea port of Mocha enjoyed ties with London, Amsterdam, Surat, and Jakarta in t...
Freedom and Desire in Late Ottoman Erotica
07 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 448 with Burcu Karahan hosted by Suzie Ferguson Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud "One Thousa...
The Mediterranean in the Age of Global Piracy
28 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 446 featuring Emrah Safa Gürkan, Joshua White, and Daniel Hershenzon narrated by Chris Gratien with contributions by Nir Shafir, Tayl...
The Mystical Turn in Ottoman Political Thought
12 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 444 with Hüseyin Yılmaz hosted by Nir Shafir and Alp Eren Topal Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud ...
Afghanistan's Constitution and the Ottoman Empire
04 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 443 with Faiz Ahmed hosted by Shireen Hamza and Huma Gupta Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud In th...
Language, Power, and Law in the Ottoman Empire
12 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 441 with Heather Ferguson hosted by Zoe Griffith Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud In this episode, ...
Ottoman Children and the First World War
09 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 440 with Nazan Maksudyan hosted by Chris Gratien Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud Children are ...
Family Papers and Ottoman Jewish Life After Empire
20 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 434 with Sarah Abrevaya Stein hosted by Sam Dolbee Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud In this epis...
How War Changed Ottoman Society
03 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 429 with Yiğit Akın hosted by Chris Gratien and Susanna Ferguson Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud ...
Social Networks in Ottoman Reform
17 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 427 with Yonca Köksal hosted by Matthew Ghazarian Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud...
Medical Metaphors in Ottoman Political Thought
05 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 425 with Alp Eren Topal hosted by Susanna Ferguson and Sam Dolbee Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud I...
Egypt, Libya, and the Desert Borderlands
26 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 423 with Matthew Ellis hosted by Zoe Griffith Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud When the Ottoman sta...
Population and Reproduction in the Late Ottoman Empire
07 Aug 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 421 with Gülhan Balsoy and Tuba Demirci hosted by Suzie Ferguson Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud H...
Captivity and Ransom in Ottoman Law
31 Jul 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 420 with Will Smiley hosted by Zoe Griffith Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud How did an Irish-born...
Good Poets & Bad Poetry at the Ottoman Court
28 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 416 with Sooyong Kim hosted by Nir Shafir and Elisabetta Benigni Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud ...
American Music of the Ottoman Diaspora
01 Jun 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 412 with Ian Nagoski hosted by Chris Gratien Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud During the late 19t...
Turkino
02 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 411 Produced and Narrated by Chris Gratien Episode Consultant: Devin Naar Series Consultant: Emily Pope-Obeda Script Editor: Sam Dolbee...
Survivor Objects and the Lost World of Ottoman Armenians
25 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 407 with Heghnar Watenpaugh hosted by Emily Neumeier Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud The genre of ...
Forging Islamic Science
02 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 400 with Nir Shafir hosted by Suzie Ferguson Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud In this episode, Nir...
Orientalism in the Ottoman Empire
26 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 399 with Zeynep Çelik hosted by Zeinab Azarbadegan and Matthew Ghazarian Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | Sound...
Turkish Economic Development Since 1820
17 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 398 with Şevket Pamuk hosted by Matthew Ghazarian Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud What forces hav...
Autonomy and Resistance in Ottoman Kurdistan
29 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 395 with Metin Atmaca hosted by Matthew Ghazarian Download the podcast Feed | iTunes | GooglePlay | SoundCloud Zones of autonom...