Profile

İlkay Yılmaz is currently a DFG-funded research associate at the Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut at the division of Modern History/Prof. Dr. Oliver Janz at the Freie Universität Berlin. She was an Einstein Fellow at the division of Modern History from January 2020- March 2022 and a research fellow at “Europe in the Middle East – The Middle East in Europe” (EUME) in 2020-21. She was a research fellow at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (Berlin) in 2010-11 and in 2017-19. She was working as an assistant professor at Istanbul University from 2014 to 2016; she also worked as a research assistant at Istanbul University in 2005-2013 during her Master and Ph.D. studies. She was a visiting Ph.D. candidate at Leiden University in 2009-2010 with TUBITAK scholarship. She conducted research on passport history, inter-imperial collaboration on policing, public order, state formation, security history and history of violence in the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Teaching

2022

State Formation and Empire: State and Society in the Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Empire (Freie Universitat Berlin, Global History M.A.-fall)

2021

Transimperial History of Violence and the Late Ottoman Empire (Freie Universitat Berlin, Global History M.A.-spring)

2020

Transnational History of Security Regimes and Political Crime (Freie Universitat Berlin, Global History M.A.-fall)

State Formation and Empire: State and Society in the Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Empire (Freie Universitat Berlin, Global History M.A.-fall)

2018    

State Formation and Empire: State and Society in the Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Empire (Humboldt University, M.A.-spring)

2016    

Theories of State (Istanbul University Faculty of Political Science, Ph.D.-fall)

Security, Violence and Sovereignty (Istanbul University Faculty of Political Science, M.A.-fall)

Political Institutions in Turkey (Istanbul University Faculty of Political Science, B.A.-fall)

History of Political Thought (Istanbul University Faculty of Political Science, BA-spring)

Administrative History of Turkey (Istanbul University Faculty of Political Science, B.A.-spring)

2015   

Theories of State (Istanbul University Faculty of Political Science, Ph.D.-fall)

Security, Violence and Sovereignty (Istanbul University Faculty of Political Science, M.A.-fall)

Political Institutions in Turkey (Istanbul University Faculty of Political Science, B.A.-fall)                

2014    

Administrative History of Turkey (Istanbul University Faculty of Political Science, B.A.-spring)

Research

Ilkay Yılmaz's research interests are in the field of security history in the late Ottoman Empire, with special interest on cartography, history of registration, gendarmerie, political geography, colonialism/internal colonialism, impunity regimes, inter-imperial knowledge exchange and violence. Her dissertation, which was published, mainly focused on anti-anarchism and passport regime in the Ottoman Empire.

Yılmaz also made a field research on memory politics and practices in Istanbul and in Budapest comparing Erdogan’s and Orban's policies on history and memory.

Yılmaz's new project focuses on district governance and the security regime during the late Ottoman Empire. This research is mainly investigating the interplay between European colonialism and internal colonialism of Ottoman Empire focusing on administrative divisions, gendarmerie and security infrastructures.  For more information about the project, see here.

Publications

Books

Ottoman Passports, Security and Geographical Mobility (1876-1908), New York, Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2023.

Serseri, Anarşist ve Fesadın Peşinde, II. Abdülhamid Döneminde Güvenlik Politikaları Ekseninde Pasaport, Mürür Tezkeresi ve Otel Kayıtları, (trans. Pursuit of Vagrant, Anarchist and Conspirator: Internal Passports, Passports and Hotel Registers Through The Security Policies During the Abdulhamid II Era), Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, Istanbul: 2014.

Articles in peer-reviewed journals 

“Ottoman Security Perceptions, Political Geography and Internal Colonization of the Ottoman East (1895-1899)”, Journal of Middle East Studies, online first- April 2023.

“Governing the Armenian Question Through Passports in The Late Ottoman Empire (1876-1908)", Journal of Historical  Sociology, 32, 2019.

“The Ottoman State, Police Photographs and Anthropometry”, Journal of Photography, Photoresearcher-European Society for History of Photography, 31, 2019.

“Propaganda by The Deed and Hotel Registration Regulations in The Late Ottoman Empire”, Journal of Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association, vol.4 /1, May 2017.

“Anti-Anarchism and Security Perceptions during the Hamidian Era”, Zapruder World, 1, Spring 2014.

“II. Abdülhamid Dönemi İdare ve Söylem Arasında: Fesad, Serseri, Anarşist”, [Between Administration and Discourse During the Hamidian Era: Fesad, Vagrant and Anarchist, in Journal of Social History], Toplumsal Tarih, 241, 2014.

“Osmanlı Kadın Tarihine İlişkin Birkaç Not” [Some Notes on Ottoman Women’s History, in Journal of Women’s Studies], Kadın Araştırmaları Dergisi, 10, 2012.

“Osmanlı – Türk Tarih Yazımındaki Temel Eğilimler Ve Eleştiriler Çerçevesinde Bürokrasiye Yaklaşım Biçimleri” [Discussions on Bureaucracy within The Mainstream Trends and Critiques in The Ottoman-Turkish Historiography], Yakın Dönem Türkiye Araştırmaları, vol: 11, no: 21, 2012.

Articles in edited volumes

“Conspiracy, International Police Cooperation and the Fight against Anarchism in the Late Ottoman Empire (1878-1908)”, Age of Rogues-Transgressive Politics at the Frontiers of the Ottoman Empire, eds. Alp Yenen, Ramazan Hakkı Öztan, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2021.

“Turkey: Intelligence, Culture and History,” Handbook of Asian Intelligence Cultures, ed. Bob De Graaff, Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc., 2020.

“Anarşizm Tehdidi ve Osmanlı Güvenlik Politikaları”, Öncesi Ve Sonrasi ile 1915, Ermeni Siyaseti, Tehcir ve Soykırım [Threat of Anarchism and Ottoman Security Policies, in The Pre- and Post-History of the Year 1915: Armenian Policies, Relocation and Genocide],eds.Fikret Adanı, Oktay Özel, Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 2015.

For more on my publications, see my Academia site: https://zmo.academia.edu/ilkayyilmaz