Personal Profile

Nazan Maksudyan is Einstein guest professor at the Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut at the Freie Universität Berlin and a research associate at the Centre Marc Bloch (Berlin). She was a “Europe in the Middle East – The Middle East in Europe” (EUME) Fellow in 2009-10 at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin and an Alexander von Humboldt Stiftung Postdoctoral Fellow at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (Berlin) in 2010-11 and in 2016-18. From 2013 to 16, she worked as a professor of history in Istanbul and received her habilitation degree in 2015. Her research mainly focuses on the history of children and youth in the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, with special interest in gender, sexuality, education, humanitarianism, and non-Muslims.

Among her publications, Orphans and Destitute Children in the Late Ottoman Empire (Syracuse University Press, 2014) is one of the pioneering contributions to the social history of children and youth in the Ottoman Empire. Her edited volume, Women and the City, Women in the City (Berghahn, 2014), provided an under-researched gendered lens to Ottoman urban history. Her forthcoming book, Ottoman Children & Youth During World War I, adds a new dimension to the historiography of the war by exploring the variegated experiences and involvement of Ottoman children and youth. (http://syracuseuniversitypress.syr.edu/spring-2019/ottoman-children.html)

She also published numerous articles on the social history children and youth, gender, and non-Muslims in the Ottoman Empire. “Orphans, Cities, and the State: Vocational Orphanages (Islahhanes) and ‘Reform’ in the Late Ottoman Urban Space” (2011), “Foster-Daughter or Servant, Charity or Abuse: Beslemes in the Late Ottoman Empire,” (2008); “Agents or Pawns? Nationalism and Ottoman Children during the Great War” (2016).

Maksudyan is among the founders of the Association of Middle East Children’s and Youth Studies (AMECYS) and she serves on the Board of Directors (2017-2019). She is also one of the Managing Editors of the “1914-1918-online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War.”

Teaching

FU Berlin

Courses offered in the summer term 2019

"Global Mobilities” in the Late Ottoman Empire (Di 14:00 – 16:00)

This course will offer a social history of the global mobility of peoples, ideas, and things in the late Ottoman Empire. From the spread of diseases to the “landing” of Pergamon in Berlin, from English and German governesses in Istanbul households to the introduction of devices of pasteurization and sterilization in Darülacaze foundling asylum, the late Ottoman history was stage for a wide range of mobile entities. This was mostly caused by the emergence and spread of new communication technologies, as much as by a novel interest in and a new value attached to the movement itself. Nineteenth century Ottoman rulers dared not only to move their imperial palace after four centuries and twenty-five sultans, but also traveled themselves to “infidel lands”, this time not for conquest but for inspiration. The contrast between those who benefit from “global mobility” and those who are disadvantaged by it had not been yet on the agenda. However, the misery of the refugees and the violence of expulsion and deportation were well-known. By focusing on traveling of peoples, ideas, and things in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this course aims to provide a wide panorama of a moveable empire and a moveable globe.

Istanbul Kemerburgaz University

History of Turkey through Literature (Fall 2015-2016)

History of Turkey through Cinema (Spring 2016)

History of Modern Turkey (Fall & Spring terms 2013 – 2016)

History of Civilizations (Fall & Spring terms 2014 – 2016)

Sabancı University

The History of Childhood and Youth in Modern Europe and the Ottoman Empire (Summer 2009)

Family, Childhood, and Gender in European and Ottoman History (Spring 2009)

Boğaziçi University

Family, Childhood, and Gender: Major Approaches to European Social History (Spring 2008)

Research

Nazan Maksudyan's research interests lie in the field of social history of children and youth in the late Ottoman Empire, with special interest in education, gender, sexuality, and non-Muslims. In her dissertation, that was later published, Maksudyan focused on the agency and testimony of children in order to provide an alternative gaze upon new and unnoticed discourses and developments of the Ottoman reform period (Orphans and Destitute Children in the Late Ottoman Empire, Syracuse University Press, 2014). Her postdoc research that she recently completed was on the experiences of Ottoman children and youth during the First World War (Ottoman Children & Youth During World War I , Syracuse University Press, 2019).

Maksudyan also conducted a parallel research on women suicides in Istanbul in the 1920s and 30s. Focusing on detailed statistical data, together with legal, moral, and medical discourses around the issue, she attempted to place the suicides within the larger contexts of gender regime, reorganization of the social sciences, and authoritarian state mechanisms.

Nazan Maksudyan's new project as an Einstein Guest Professor, which builds upon her MA project on anthropology in Turkey and aforementioned research on women suicides, is on the emergence and reshaping of humanities and social sciences in Turkey from the 1920s to 1940s, with a specific focus on Turkish-German academic entanglements.

Workshop: Post-WWI Exiles in Transregional Context. Microglobal and Biographical Perspectives, Friedrich-Meinecke Institut, Freie Universität Berlin, 26 - 27. September 2019 (Flyer)

Publications

For more on my publications, see my Academia site (https://fu-berlin.academia.edu/NazanMaksudyan)

Books

Nazan Maksudyan, Ottoman Children and Youth during the World War One (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2019, forthcoming, http://syracuseuniversitypress.syr.edu/spring-2019/ottoman-children.html).

Nazan Maksudyan & Hilal Alkan (eds.), Close-up Cities: Making and Unmaking of Neighbourhoods in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia (Routledge, under contract).

Nazan Maksudyan, Orphans and Destitute Children in the Late Ottoman Empire (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2014).

Nazan Maksudyan, (ed.), Women and the City, Women in the City: A Gendered Perspective to Ottoman Urban History (New York: Berghahn Books, 2014).

Nazan Maksudyan, Türklüğü Ölçmek: Bilimkurgusal Antropoloji ve Türk Milliyetçiliğinin Irkçı Çehresi, 1925-1939 [Measuring Turkishness: Science-Fictive Anthropology and Racist Face of Turkish Nationalism, 1925-1939] (Istanbul: Metis, 2005; 2nd ed. 2007).

Review of Books

Review of Orphans and Destitute Children in the Late Ottoman Empire by Heidi Morrison, in Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 8/2 (2015): 327-329.

Review of Orphans and Destitute Children in the Late Ottoman Empire by Özge Ertem, New Perspectives on Turkey 53 (2015): 228-231.

Review of Orphans and Destitute Children in the Late Ottoman Empire by Cihangir Gündoğdu, Journal of Near Eastern Studies 76 (2017): 209-211.

Review of Women and the City, Women in the City by N. İpek Hüner-Cora, in Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association 3/1 (2016): 203-206.

Review of Women and the City, Women in the City by Derya İner, in Women’s History Review 26 (2017): 660-662.

 Journal Articles

Nazan Maksudyan, “Feminist Perspectives on Ottoman Urban History,” Moderne Stadtgeschichte 1 (2018): 26-38.

Nazan Maksudyan, “La jeunesse ottomane, enjeu des luttes nationales (1914-1922)”, Le Mouvement Social 261 (2017): 9-29.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Acıların Mezatı: Yetimler, Hayırseverlik ve Sinema,” [Auction of Sorrows: Orphans, Philanthropy, and Cinema], şerhh 6 (2017): 36–44.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Max Bonnafous and 'Female Suicide Epidemic' in Istanbul in the 1920s,” Études Sociales 165 (2017): 157-181.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Franz Werfel'de Suçluluk ve Cezasızlık,” [Franz Werfel on Guilt and Unpunished Crimes], şerhh 5 (2017): 47-52.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Hem Ermeni Hem Yetimdik / Soykırım Tanıklıklarında Çocukluk ve Büyümek,” [We were both Armenians and Orphans: Childhood and Growing up in Genocide Testimonies] Notos 55 (2015 – 2016): 52-58.

Nazan Maksudyan, “A New Angle of Observation: History of Children and Youth for Ottoman Studies,” Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association (JOTSA) 3/1 (2016): 111-114.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Agents or Pawns? Nationalism and Ottoman Children during the Great War,” Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association (JOTSA) 3/1 (2016): 147-172.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Control over Life, Control over Body: Female Suicide in Early Republican Turkey,” Women's History Review 24/6 (2015): 861-880.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Üç Kuşak Üç Katliam: 1894’ten 1915’e Ermeni Çocuklar ve Yetimler,” [Three generations, three massacres: Armenian orphans from 1894 to 1915], Toplum ve Bilim [Society and Science] 132 (2015): 33-49.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Cihan Harbi Yıllarında Almanya’da Osmanlı Yetimleri: Mavi Kep ve Pelerin,” [Ottoman orphans in Germany during the Great War: Blue Ceps and Pelerins] Toplumsal Tarih [Social History] 243 (2014): 68-73.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Amerikan Kaynaklarında Merzifon Anadolu Koleji’nin Kısa Tarihçesi,” [Short history of the Anatolia College in Merzifon in American missionary sources], Kebikeç: İnsan Bilimleri İçin Kaynak Araştırmaları Dergisi 18/36 (2013): 131-154. [OA]

Nazan Maksudyan, “Des convois de gamins. L'envoi de jeunes orphelins ottomans en Allemagne pendant la première guerre mondiale,” Revue d’histoire de l’enfance 'irrégulière' 152 (2013): 111-141.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Evli evine, köylü köyüne, evi olmayan?: Osmanlı Kent Reformu ve Şehirlerde İstenmeyen Çocuklar,” [Ottoman Urban Reform and Unwanted Children in Cities] Kebikeç: İnsan Bilimleri İçin Kaynak Araştırmaları Dergisi 17/34 (2012): 159-183. [OA]

Nazan Maksudyan, “Orphans, Cities, and the State: Vocational Orphanages (Islahhanes) and 'Reform' in the Late Ottoman Urban Space,” International Journal of Middle East Studies (IJMES) 43/3 (2011): 493-511.

Nazan Maksudyan, “State 'Parenthood' and Industrial Orphanages (Islâhhanes): Transformation of Urbanity and Family Life,” The History of the Family 16/2 (2011): 172-181.

Nazan Maksudyan, “ 'Being Saved to Serve': Armenian Orphans of 1894-96 and Interested Relief in Missionary Orphanages,” Turcica 42 (2010): 47-88. [OA]

Nazan Maksudyan, “Walls of Silence: Translating the Armenian Genocide into Turkish and Self-Censorship,” Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory 37/4 (2009): 635-649.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Modernization of Welfare or Further Deprivation? State Provisions for Foundlings in the Late Ottoman Empire,” Journal of History of Childhood and Youth 2/3 (2009): 361-392.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Fight over 'Nobody's Children': Religion, Nationality, and Citizenship of Foundlings in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Empire,” New Perspectives on Turkey 41 (2009): 151-180.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Erken Cumhuriyet Döneminde Kadın İntiharları: Islah, İnkâr, İskât,” [Women Suicides in the Early Republican Era: Reform, Denial, Silencing] Toplumsal Tarih [Social History] 188, (2009): 60-66.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Foster-Daughter or Servant, Charity or Abuse: Beslemes in the Late Ottoman Empire,” Journal of Historical Sociology 21/4 (2008): 488-512.

Nazan Maksudyan, “'Öldürmeden utan, ölmeden usan!': Geç Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nda Savaş Karşıtı Hissiyatın Açık ve Örtük Dışavurumları,” ['Be ashamed to kill, get tired of dying': Manifest and Latent Expressions of Anti-War Sentiments in the Late Ottoman Empire] Toplumsal Tarih [Social History] 180 (2008): 34-41.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Cemal Bey'in Adana Valiliği ve Osmanlıcılık İdeali,” [Cemal Bey's Adana Governorship and the Ideal of Ottomanism] Toplumsal Tarih [Social History]176 (2008): 22-28.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Türklüğün Hazineleri ve Mimar Sinan: Kafatasları, Kemikler, Mezarlıklar,” [Treasures of Turkishness and Sinan the Architect: Skulls, Bones, Cemeteries] Arredamento 202 (2007): 60-63.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Bir Sözlükten Büyülenmek: Sir James W. Redhouse Üzerine,”[A Fascinating Dictionary: On James W. Redhouse] Toplumsal Tarih [Social History] 158 (2007): 34-39.

Nazan Maksudyan, “The Turkish Review of Anthropology and the Racist Face of Turkish Nationalism,” Cultural Dynamics 17/3 (2005): 291-322. [OA]

Nazan Maksudyan, “Resmi Din – Sivil Din Çatışması: Dinin Meşru Kullanımı Üzerinde Devlet Tekeli,” [Tension Between State vs. Civil Islam: State Monopoly over the Legitimate Use of Religion] Toplumsal Tarih [Social History] 135 (2005): 56-61.

Book Chapters

Nazan Maksudyan, “Boys Without a Country: Ottoman Orphan Apprentices in Germany During the First World War,” in More Than Victims: War and Childhood in the Age of the World Wars, ed. by Mischa Honeck, James Marten (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019, forthcoming).

Nazan Maksudyan, “In den Park gehen und spielen: Eine neue öffentliche Existenz als Kinder und Jugendliche,” in Fluchtpunkt. Das Mittelmeer und die europäische Krise, ed. by Franck Hoffman, Markus Messling, (Kulturverlag Kadmos, 2017), 326-340.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Civilian and Military Power (Ottoman Empire),” in 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed. by Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan Kramer, and Bill Nasson, issued by Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin 2017-02-01. DOI: 10.15463/ie1418.11037. [OA]

Nazan Maksudyan, “A Triangle of Regrets: Training of Ottoman Children in Germany During the First World War”, in Childhood in the Late Ottoman Empire and After, ed. by Benjamin C. Fortna (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 141-172. [OA]

Nazan Maksudyan, “Missions, 1800-1918”, in Dictionnaire de l'Empire Ottoman, ed. by François Georgeon, Nicolas Vatin, Gilles Veinstein (Paris: Fayard, 2015), 803-804.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Children and Youth (Ottoman Empire),” in 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War, ed. by Ute Daniel, Peter Gatrell, Oliver Janz, Heather Jones, Jennifer Keene, Alan Kramer, and Bill Nasson, issued by Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin 2014-10-08. DOI: 10.15463/ie1418.10595. [OA]

Nazan Maksudyan, “Un débat sur la conquête d’istanbul. Silvestre de sacy et la traduction d’une élégie arménienne,” in Silvestre de Sacy: Le projet européen d’une science orientaliste, ed. by Michel Espagne, Nora Lafi, Pascale Rabault- Feuerhahn (Paris: Les Editions du Cerf, 2014), 125-134.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Introduction: A Gendered Perspective to Ottoman Urban History,” in Women and the City, Women in the City: A Gendered Perspective to Ottoman Urban History, ed. by Nazan Maksudyan (New York: Berghahn Books, 2014), 1-12.

Nazan Maksudyan, “'This time women as well got involved in politics!': Nineteenth Century Ottoman Women's Organizations and Political Agency,” in Women and the City, Women in the City: A Gendered Perspective to Ottoman Urban History, ed. by Nazan Maksudyan (New York: Berghahn Books, 2014), 107-135.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Refugee Ottoman Orphans in Germany during the First World War,” in The World During the First World War, ed. Helmut Bley, Anorthe Kremers ((Essen: Klartext Verlag, 2014), 151-166.

Nazan Maksudyan, “New 'Rules of Conduct' for State, American Missionaries, and Armenians: 1909 Adana Massacres and the Ottoman Orphanage(Dârü'l-Eytâm-ı Osmânî),” in L’ivresse de la Liberté: La Révolution de 1908 dans l’Empire Ottoman, ed. by François Georgeon (Paris: CNRS, 2012), 137-171.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Genel Dünya ve Avrupa Tarihçilerinde1915-16 Olayları,” [The Massacres of 1915-1916 in World and European History Books] in İmparatorluğun Çöküş Döneminde Osmanlı Ermenileri: Bilimsel Sorumluluk ve Demokrasi Sorunları [Ottoman Armenians during the Demise of the Empire: Issues of Scientific Responsibility and Democracy], ed. by Fahri Aral (Istanbul: Bilgi Üniversitesi Yayınları, 2011), 57-84.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Helden, Opfer, Ikonen: Massenmobilisierung und osmanische Kinder während des Ersten Weltkriegs,” in Der Erste Weltkrieg auf dem Balkan,ed. byJürgen Angelow (Berlin: Be.bra Verlag, 2011), 161-173.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Children as a Transgressors in Urban Space: Delinquency, Public Order and Philanthropy in the Ottoman Reform Era,” in Expertise and Juvenile Violence, 19th-21st century, ed. by Aurore François, Veerle Massin and David Niget (Louvain: Presses Universitaires de Louvain, 2011), 21-39.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Servants,” in AnEncyclopedia of Infanticide, ed. by Brigitte Bechtold and Donna Cooper Graves (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2010), 232-235.

Nazan Maksudyan, “On Dokuzuncu Yüzyılda Osmanlı Kadın Örgütleri ve Siyasi Eylemlilik,” [Women's Osganizations and Political Agency in the Nineteenth Century] in İstanbul Kadın-Kadın İstanbul [Women and Istanbul] ed. by Fatma Türe (Istanbul: Kadın Eserleri Kütüphanesi, 2010), 44-53.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Armenia,” in Encyclopedia of Play in Today's Society, ed. by Carlisle, Rodney P. (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications, 2009), 38-39.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Merzifon Anadolu Koleji'nin Kısa Tarihçesi ve Boğos Piranyan,” [Epilogue, Short History of Anatolia College of Merzifon and Boğos Piranyan] in Aşçının Kitabı: Merzifon Amerikan Anadolu Koleji Aşçısı 1914 [The Book of the Cook: From the Cook of the American College of Merzifon, 1914], Boğos Piranyan (Istanbul: Aras Yayıncılık, June 2008), 133-178.

 Book Reviews

Nazan Maksudyan, “Ottoman Women during World War I: Everyday Experiences, Politics, and Conflict,” by Elif Mahir Metinsoy (Book review) Journal of Social History shy044, https://doi.org/10.1093/jsh/shy044, 2018.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Urban Planning in North Africa,” by Carlos Nunes Silva (Book review) Planning Perspectives 33/4 (2018): 678-681.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Recovering Armenia: The Limits of Belonging in Post-Genocide Turkey,” by Lerna Ekmekcioğlu (Book review) New Perspectives on Turkey 55 (2016): 136-140. doi:10.1017/npt.2016.26

Nazan Maksudyan, “The Armenians in Modern Turkey: Post-Genocide Society, Politics and History,” by Talin Suciyan (Book Review) Global Affairs 2 (2016): 234-236.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Muslim Midwives: The Craft of Birthing in the Premodern Middle East,” by Avner Giladi (Book Review) The American Historical Review 121 (2016): 682-683 doi:10.1093/ahr/121.2.682

Nazan Maksudyan, “Self, Family, and Society: Individual and Communal Reflections on the Armenian Genocide,” (Review Essay) Journal of Levantine Studies 5/2 (2015): 197-206.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Prisons in the Late Ottoman Empire: Microcosms of Modernity,” by Kent F. Schull, (book review) International Journal of Middle East Studies 47/1 (2015): 202-204.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Domestic Frontiers: Gender, Reform, and American Interventions in the Ottoman Balkans and the Near East,” by Barbara Reeves-Ellington (book review) Journal of Church and State 56/4 (2014): 778-781.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Architecture in Translation: Germany, Turkey, and the Modern House,” by Esra Akcan, (book review) Middle East Media and Book Reviews Online 1 (2013): http://middleeastreviewsonline.com/membr_review/architecture-in-translation-germany-turkey-and-the-modern-house/ [OA]

Nazan Maksudyan, “Kidnapped Souls: National Indifference and the Battle for Children in the Bohemian Lands, 1900–1948,” by Tara Zahra, (book review) Canadian Journal of History 45/2 (2010): 391-393.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Sous le Signe des Réformes: État et Société, de l’Empire Ottoman à la Turquie Kémaliste (1789-1939),” by François Georgeon, (book review) New Perspectives on Turkey 42 ( 2010): 265-268.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Subalterns and Social Protest: History from Below in the Middle East and North Africa,” by Stephanie Cronin (ed.), (book review) International Journal of Middle East Studies (IJMES) 42/2 (2010): 336-338.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Producing Desire: Changing Sexual Discourse in the Ottoman Middle East, 1500-1900,” by Dror Ze’evi, (book review) AGOS Kirk 4 (2009): 6-7.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Smyrne, la Ville Oubliée? : Mémoires d'un Grand Port Ottoman, 1830-1930,” by Marie-Carmen Smyrnelis (ed.), (book review) AGOS Kirk 2 (2008): 8-9.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Cumhuriyet'te Çocuktular,” [They were Children in the Republic], by Mine Göğüş Tan, Özlem Şahin, Mustafa Sever, Aksu Bora (eds.), (book review) Journal of History of Childhood and Youth 1/3 (2008): 472-474.

Nazan Maksudyan, “Enfance et Jeunesse dans le Monde Musulman / Childhood and Youth in the Muslim World,” by François Georgeon, Klaus Kreiser (eds.), (book review) New Perspectives on Turkey 38 (2008): 275-79.