For six hundred years, the Ottoman Empire stretched from southeastern Europe, through most of the middle east and across northern Africa, and rivaled any political power in Christian Europe. Today, the nation of Turkey prides itself on being a secular democracy and a NATO ally, while five new Turkic-language speaking independent republics have emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union.

This seminar will examine the kaleidoscope of the Turks from their origins in Central Asia down to their current political and cultural roles over a period of some three thousand plus years. We will ask questions such as: What made the Turks what they were? What identities did they establish and keep? How did they manage to maintain their separateness? In doing so, we will hope to draw some more generally applicable lessons about peoples, nations, and identity.

The Turks have given the world several empires and were a main contributor to the development of high Islamic civilization. The Ottoman Empire performed a six-hundred-year pas de deux with Europe, in which two cultures mirrored, mingled, and opposed one another. We will examine art, history, music, and literature. Orhan Pamuk’s novel The White Castle, set in the 16th century, will serve as one point of departure, and the movie Head-On, set in contemporary Berlin and Istanbul, will provide another, postmodern one. We will study how Turkey grew from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire and modernized, and the questions that this process continues to raise. The issue of Turkey’s role today as a possible model for other nations in the area, and the important role of Turkey in regard to the current geopolitical problems of the region—including Iraq and Iran—will serve as focal points of discussion. In addition, we’ll look at Turkish immigration to the U.S. and the growing contribution of Turks to cultural, intellectual, and social life in this country.
We’ll also touch on the Ottoman legacy in the Balkans, particularly in Bosnia, and look briefly at the Christian Turks in Moldova and the controversial history of the Jewish Khazar Turks. We will consider the Central Asian Turkic republics, their sense of identity, their efforts to assert themselves vis-à-vis Russia and in their regional and international relationships. We will necessarily talk about ethnic relations within Russia and the Caucasus and aspects of the global war on terror.

The materials for the course will include Rene Grousset’s The Empire of the Steppes, Lord Kinross’ Ataturk, Bernard Lewis’ The Emergence of Modern Turkey, as well as poetry, music, and films. There will definitely be food involved, maybe dancing as well, and at least one field trip. Students will each make a class presentation and write a research paper.