Disliking Others ― Loathing, Hostility, and Distrust in Premodern Ottoman Lands

Recent historical studies on the Ottoman Empire have taken for granted that subjects of the Ottoman polity flourished under a so-called “Pax Ottomanica.” This edited volume probes the rosy narrative of Ottoman tolerance that has long dominated the discussions. The articles carefully strive to contextualize the many issues that sound like ethnic slurs, racial stereotyping, religious discrimination, misogyny and elitism to modern ears. The goal of the volume is not to prove that Ottoman society was a persecuting one, or that dislike or distrust was its defining characteristic, but to investigate the axes of tension, blemishes, and fractures in the everyday practice of coexistence in a dynamic, multi-religious, multi-confessional and multi-ethnic empire in which difference was the norm rather than the exception.

Hakan T. Karateke?is Professor of Ottoman and Turkish Culture, Language, and Literature at the University of Chicago. He earned his doctorate in Ottoman and Turkish Studies from Bamberg University, Germany and completed his habilitation in the same field at Vienna University. He is a cultural historian, and has published on Ottoman court ceremonies, historiography, and travelers.

H. Erdem Cipa?is Associate Professor of Ottoman History at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He earned his doctorate in History and Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University. The primary focus of his work is the history and historiography of the Ottoman Empire, with a specific emphasis on dissident movements and succession struggles.

Helga Anetshofer?(PhD, Vienna University 2001) is an Ottoman philologist by training, and her work focuses on Old Anatolian Turkish language and narrative literature. Her research interests also include women, gender and sexuality issues, as well as topics in cultural history as reflected in popular storytelling and epic romances.