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A REPLY TO TIMUR KURAN

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 April 2016

Extract

Scholars are justified in complaining that Ottoman studies, from its maturation in the 1950s until today, has been far too integrated into social science disciplines. Traditionally, political and economic history has dominated the field at the expense of cultural history, literary studies, and the history of art, architecture, and material culture. The recent juncture of social science concerns and the sensitivities of the humanities is a welcome but long overdue development. Social science disciplines have long held sway over the field, but scholars of Ottoman history have always exercised rigor and meticulous care in editing and publishing historical documents and literary texts. Editors often discuss the literary, philological, and codicological problems of historical documents in great detail, the conceptual universe in which the documents exist, and their limits and possibilities. Of course, “editing” often includes textual criticism, the conscientious work of transliteration, and, sometimes, translation. Despite numerous invaluable editions of archival and nonarchival material drawn from the Ottoman centuries, we still lack substantial statistical information and data to answer major questions that historians and social scientists have long asked. In this respect, what Timur Kuran (and his team) initiated marks an important step. They published a massive compilation of ten volumes of documents selected from the two qadi courts of Istanbul during the 17th century.

Type
Notes and Comments
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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