Bio Sketch

I was born and grew up in Ankara Turkey, where I completed my B.S. in International Relations at Middle East Technical University. I studied Ottoman History at Bilkent University and Islamic History at McGill University. I completed my Ph.D. in History and Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard, with a dissertation entitled “Provincial Challenge: Regionalism, Crisis, andIntegration in the late Ottoman Empire, 1792-1812” and postdoctoral study in the Program of Hellenic Studies at Princeton University.

Research Interests

My main research interest is the Middle East and the Balkans under the Ottoman Empire. In my forthcoming book, Partners of the Empire: The Rise of Provincial Notables and the Crisis of the Ottoman Order (1700-1820), which is a revised version of my dissertation, I analyze the rise of the provincial notables in different parts of the Ottoman World and their challenge to the imperial system. I depict how the provincial formations were integrated with the imperial establishment in the 18th and early 19th centuries as a result of an institutional restructuring of the Ottoman Order. I am currently working on a project about capital accumulation and imperial confiscations in the Ottoman Empire, roughly from 16th to the early 19th centuries. In this project, I focus on economic and social implications of imperial confiscations and examine how some individuals and families developed strategies to maintain their wealth and power they accumulated and to escape from the constant threat of imperial seizure. I also analyze how this instability of property rights affected attitudes towards inheritance, life and mortality in Ottoman society. My other project is on the imaginations of the imperial space in the Ottoman World and beyond. In this project, I try to understand how some individuals from different backgrounds imagined and experienced the Ottoman space constituted by diverse regions, cultures and climates but integrated under an imperial umbrella in the early modern times.  

Teaching Interests

My primary focus in my teaching is the early modern Middle East and Southeast Europe, and the history of the Ottoman Empire. In addition to Ottoman History, my teaching interests span history of the broader Islamic World; empires, markets and networks in global context of the early modern period; and memory studies.

Courses

• The Making of the Islamic World, 600-1300
• Empires, Markets and Networks: Early Modern Islamic World and Beyond, 1500-1800
• The Ottoman World: The Middle East and Southeast Europe under the Ottoman Empire, 1300-1920
• Research Seminar in History of the Ottoman Empire
• Communities and Empire: Jews, Christians, and Muslims in the Ottoman Empire
• Istanbul: History, Memory and Global Experience (Bing seminar)

Publications

Book

Partners of the Empire: The Rise of Provincial Notables and the Crisis of the Ottoman Order (1700-1820). In progress.

Articles

•  “Provincial Elites and the Empire in the Late Ottoman World: Conflict or Partnership?” In The Ottoman World, edited by Christine Woodhead (London: Routledge Press, 2012).
• “Sened-i İttifak (1808): Bir Entegrasyon ve Ortaklık Denemesi.” In Nizam-ı Kadimden Nizam-ı Cedide: III.Selim ve Dönemi, edited by Seyfi Kenan (Istanbul: İSAM, 2010).
• “Heirs of Genghiz Khan in the Age of Revolutions: The Gerays and Cengiz Mehmed Geray Sultan between the Ottoman and Russian Empires in the late 18th and early 19th Centuries.” With Hakan Kirımli (Forthcoming)
• “Rumeli’nde Geraylar ve Cengiz Mehmed Geray Sultan’ın Hikayesi,” XV. Türk Tarih Kongresi, Ankara: 11-15 Eylül 2006 , vol. 2, (Ankara, 2010). (With Hakan Kırımlı).
• “Ottoman-Turkish Manuscripts in the Islamic and other Libraries of McGill Univeristy.” Fontanus 10 (1998): 41-64.  (With Adam Gacek).

Encyclopedia Entries

“Ayan,” Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire, edited by Gabor Agoston (Washington DC, 2008).

Fellowships and Awards

• Mary Seeger O’Boyle Fellowship, Princeton University, 2008-09
• Aga Khan Postdoctoral Fellowship for Islamic Art and Architecture, Harvard University, 2008
• Harvard University - Dissertation Completion Fellowship, 2006-07
• Harvard University Merit Fellowship, 2004-05 
• KRUPP Foundation Fellowship of Center for European Studies, 2003-04
• ARIT (American Research Institute in Turkey) Fellowship, 2003-04      
• Harvard University, Graduate, Fellowship, 1998-2002
• McGill University, Islamic Studies Fellowship, 1996-98
• Bilkent University Graduate Fellowship, 1994-97