Interrupting Grand Narratives: Ottoman History and Decolonial Perspectives

• Department of History

Inaugural Lecture of the History Department

Taking my research in the Ottoman court records of Egypt as a starting point, I propose to interrogate the idea of decolonizing Ottoman history. What would that look like, from Egypt and from Europe? This intervention, conceived as a conversation with the audience, will begin with a more general question: what was colonialism, and when did it end (if indeed it has)? What was the impact of colonialism on education in a place like Egypt, and what would decolonizing it entail? In higher education, especially in disciplines like anthropology and history, institutions in the US and Britain continue to ratify only the research their students produce. The American academy, no less than the European, is encased in layers of privilege that it extends to a chosen few scholars from the periphery, rewarding those who master value systems and discourses that may appear diverse, but in fact never stray outside a narrow range of shared preconceptions. These preconceptions appear so self-evident that it becomes difficult to take seriously, or even imagine, the existence of alternatives. 

What kind of scholarship would a decolonized understanding of Ottoman history generate?