This course gives students the opportunity to get acquainted with multilingual sources and the methods of archival work. The approach is transnational: Sources from different Mediterranean states and societies will be considered. The focus will be on sources from late Ottoman / post Ottoman regions (1878-1938) ranging from the Balkans, the Aegean, Anatolia, to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant. Apart from English, no specialized language skills are required. The aim is to make the students familiar with non-German sources’ materiality, genres, informative value and their accessibility in non-German archives as well as in digital databases online. At the same time, the students acquaint themselves with several theoretical and methodological frameworks (intellectual history, discourse and press analysis, family and gender history, etc.) that will help them contextualize the sources and develop research questions of their own.
Faroqhi, Suraiya (1999): Approaching Ottoman History. An Introduction to the Sources. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
