HSMAU33 - Middle Eastern Historiographies (2025)

Séminaire d'enseignement du Master Langues et sociétés, parcours Moyen-Orient & Maghreb (MOMA) Département d’études moyen-orientales, Aix-Marseille Université.
 
M1 MOMA and Islamic Studies
2025/2026 Fall Semester, day/4-6 pm, Schuman Campus (Aix-en-Provence), Egger Building, Room D106.
Lecturers: Dr. Hadrien Collet, Dr. Ludovica Tua, Dr. Norig Neveu
Contact: hadrien.collet[at]gmail.com; ludovica.tua[at]gmail.com; norig.neveu[at]univ-amu.fr 
 
This course explores major historiographical debates in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies from medieval times up to the modern era. Through the weekly reading and analysis of academic articles, students will become familiar with lively discussions and controversies that have shaped—and continue to shape––the writing of history in and on the Middle East and North Africa. Students will improve both their English language skills (which are central for academic activities and careers) and their ability to critically read and use scholarly texts. Studying historiographical debates will also help them to locate their own research within broader fields of study. This course, which will combine individual assignments with teamwork, is open to all M1 students enrolled in the MOMA or Islamic Studies track with a minimum knowledge of English.

Syllabus
 
1. General introduction to the course (September 15, 2025) - Hadrien Collet
Rian Thum, “What is Islamic History?”, History and Theory, 57, 2019, p. 7-19
 
2. Historiographical debates about women’s condition in the Ottoman Empire (15h - 17th c.) (September 22, 2025) - Ludovica Tua
Fatima Ali et Asmat Naz , “Imperial Women: Patrons of Political Power in the Ottoman Empire (1520-1660)”, Pakistan Journal of Social Sciences (PJSS), 40(3), 2020, pp. 1343-1356.
OR
Galina Yermolenko, “Roxolana: ‘The Greatest Empresse of the East’”, The Muslim Word, 95, 2005. pp. 231-248.
 
3. The “global turn” in medieval history: The Global Middle Ages and Islam (September 29, 2025) - Hadrien Collet
Catherine Holmes and Naomi Standen, “Introduction: Towards a Global Middle Ages”, Past&Present, 238, 2018, p. 1-44. (Read page 4 to the end of the first paragraph p. 28)
 
4. A look into a recent historiographical endeavor in Mamluk studies (October 6, 2025) - Hadrien Collet
Jo Van Steenbergen, et al., “Fifteenth-Century Arabic Historiography: Introducing a New Research Agenda for Authors, Texts and Contexts”, Mamluk Studies Review, XXIII, 2020, p. 33-61.
  
5. Orientalism and Ottoman Orientalism (October 13, 2025) - Ludovica Tua
Ussama Makdisi, “Ottoman Orientalism”, American Historical Review,  107(3), 1 June 2002, pp. 768–796
If needed: Edward Said, Orientalism. Introduction, Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1978. pp. 9-38. 

6. Islam, power and decline. Some historiographical debates about the Ottoman Empire. (October 20, 2025) - Ludovica Tua
D. Terzioğlu, “How to Conceptualize Ottoman Sunnitization. A Historiographical Discussion”, Turcica, 44, 2012-2013, pp. 301-338 (301-323)
OR
S. Faroqhi, “Empires Before and After the Post-Colonial Turn: The Ottomans”, in Beyond Dominant Paradigms in Ottoman and Middle Eastern / North African Studies, n°36, 2010

Podcast « Paroles d’histoire » : "Fernand Braudel et l’historiographie de la Méditerranée", avec Guillaume Calafat
  
7. The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam (November 3, 2025) - Hadrien Collet
Talal Asad, “The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam”, Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, Occasional Papers Series, Georgetown University, 1986.

8. The Ottomans and Connected History: Corsairing, Captivity, and Slavery in the Mediterranean World (November 17, 2025) - Norig Neveu
Guillaume Calafat et Mathieu Grenet, 2023, “Slavery, Captivity, and Mobilities in the Early Modern Mediterranean”, in Catuas Antunes et Eric Tagliacozzo, The Cambridge History of Global Migrations, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 33-51.
OR
Hayri Gökşin Özkoray, 2023, “Slavery in the Ottoman Empire”, in Pargas, D.A., Schiel, J. (eds), The Palgrave Handbook of Global Slavery throughout History, Cham, Palgrave Macmillan.
  
9. The Household and the Politics of the Notables in the 18th-Century Ottoman Empire (November 10, 2025) - Norig Neveu
Jane Hathaway, 1999, “The Household: an alternative Framework for the military society of Eighteenth-century Ottoman Egypt”, Oriente Moderno, 18/79, pp. 57-66. 
OR
Albert Hourani, 1968, “Ottoman Reform and the Politics of Notables”, in William R. Polk et Richard L. Chambers (éds.), Beginnings of Modernization in the Middle East, Chicago, 1968, pp. 41-68.

10. Studying women condition in the late Ottoman Empire through post-orientalism theoretical framework (November 24, 2025) - Ludovica Tua
Deniz Köksal et Anastasai Falierou, “Introduction: Historiography of Late Ottoman Women”, Köksal, D., & Falierou, A. (Eds.), 2013, A Social History of Late Ottoman Women. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, pp. 1-27.
 
11. The Modernity and Modernization Debate (December 1, 2025) - Norig Neveu
Daniel Kolland 2023 (“Global Performances of a Belated Concept: Revisiting Modernity Through Concept History”) {Europe + Empire ottoman début XX^e s., turc ottoman} 
OR
Selim Deringil, 2003, ' “They Live in a State of Nomadism and Savagery”: The Late Ottoman Empire and the Post-Colonial Debate', Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 45, no 2, pp. 311-342.
 
12. Debate on cosmopolitanism and sectarianism in the Middle East (December 8, 2025) - Norig Neveu
Ulrike Freitad, 2013, “‘Cosmopolitanism’ and ‘Conviviality’? Some conceptual considerations concerning the late Ottoman Empire”, European Journal of Cultural Studies, Vol.17, Issue 4. 
OR
Ussama Makdissi, 2008, “Pensée 4: Moving Beyond Orientalist Fantasy, Sectarian Polemic, and Nationalist Denial”, International Journal Middle East Studies, Vol. 40, No 4, pp. 559-560.