This article traces Charles Taylor’s “secularity three” outside the West, finding that it was present among poets but not among novelists in twentieth-century Turkey. It explains this contrast between these two very similar groups by using network analysis, highlighting the greater availability, in poetry networks, of nonpious gatekeepers to aspiring pious actors, following an initial long period of religious conflict. In order to benefit from association with these gatekeepers, pious actors learned to split their selves into two, committing themselves simultaneously to their absolutist faith and to its practical impossibility in a secular age. If and when the prospect of cross-fertilization waned, however, they would effortlessly switch back to their earlier subjectivity. Pious novelists, by contrast, underwent no such learning process. Based on these findings, I argue, first, that the study of the secular must pay greater attention to religious conflict and the ways in which it is resolved, and second, that it must consider balancing its longue-durée approach with an eventful focus.

In contemporary Turkey, a growing interest in Ottoman history represents a change in both the official state discourse and popular culture. This nostalgia appropriates, reinterprets, decontextualizes, and juxtaposes formerly distinct symbols, ideas, objects, and histories in unprecedented ways. In this paper, we distinguish between state-led neo-Ottomanism and popular cultural Ottomania, focusing on the ways in which people in Turkey are interpellated by these two different yet interrelated discourses, depending on their social positions. As the boundary between highbrow and popular culture erodes, popular cultural representations come to reinterpret and rehabilitate the Ottoman past while also inventing new insecurities centering on historical “truth.” Utilizing in-depth interviews, we show that individuals juxtapose the popular television series Muhteşem Yüzyıl (The Magnificent Century) with what they deem “proper” history, in the process rendering popular culture a “false” version. We also identify four particular interpretive clusters among the consumers of Ottomania: for some, the Ottoman Empire was the epitome of tolerance, where different groups lived peacefully; for others, the imperial past represents Turkish and/or Islamic identities; and finally, critics see the empire as a burden on contemporary Turkey.

This article analyzes the reemergence of the film industry in İstanbul since the mid-1990s. In exploring the industrial and spatial dynamics of this process of reemergence, we employ the perspective of path dependence, conducted with the aid of historical analysis and in-depth interviews with the key actors of the sector. By zooming in on the details of this industry’s reemergence, we uncover the specifics of the process of revival in terms of both the industry itself and of location. Analysis of the industry reveals the impact on the revival of İstanbul’s film sector of system-wide developments, the key roles played by the advertising and television sectors, and entrepreneurial initiatives. Analysis of location, on the other hand, reveals that, following the collapse of Yeşilçam—the historical center of İstanbul’s film industry—two new clusters have emerged, one located in the vicinity of the old center (Beyoğlu) and the other in a rising commercial district (Levent).

The Young Turk Revolution of 1908 helped transform the time-honored Ottoman petitioning system. The reinstatement of parliamentary life, the reintroduction of the suspended constitution of 1876, and the lifting of the ban on the press and political action all generated profound political and social changes. Subjects’ petitions reflected these changes vividly and in often surprising detail. As the sultan became a figurehead with little actual power, petitions which hitherto had been addressed to the sultan either directly or through the grand vizier and had requested his benevolence and mercy, while also granting him much needed legitimacy, now began to be sent instead to the Council of State (Şura-yı Devlet), the parliament, and various government ministries. Their content changed as well, as will be shown in this article through an analysis of dozens of petitions from Ottoman Palestine. Petitions now sought to obtain political rights and ensure civil equity and constitutional rights. In focusing on rights, the rule of law, and the deficiencies of the former system, the petitions echoed changes in popular discourse and mirrored the transformation from justice as a sultanic prerogative to constitutional and civil law.

This article is about an aspect of the Ottoman-Rashidi partnership in the late Ottoman Empire that deeply influenced the order of things in Arabia and resulted in both the Ottomans and the Rashidis becoming more significant actors in regional politics. The main argument is that this partnership made a great contribution to the visibly increasing Ottoman influence in Najd (i.e., central Arabia) and the Persian Gulf in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. At the same time, the Rashidi family’s alliance with the Ottoman Empire paved the way for their emergence as a regional power. Since scholarship on the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century history of Najd and the Arab lands has tended to neglect the importance of this collaboration, the article sets out to analyze it from its inception until its end, drawing on documents from Ottoman, British, German, and Austrian archives.