Jews as Intermediaries in the Ottoman Empire during the Early Modern Period - Detailseite

The course will examine the intermediary and translation activities of Ottoman Jews during the early modern period. In the course of this period some Ottoman Jewish families managed to rise to prominence by acting as cultural, social, and financial brokers between the Ottoman Empire and Europe. Chronologically, the course will span from the beginning of the seventeenth until the early nineteenth century. We will reconstruct the details of cultural translations conducted by Ottoman Jews for European embassies in Istanbul, for Ottoman ambassadors to Europe, and among the various Jewish communities. The course will investigate the significance of cultural translators and intermediaries for the exchange of information and knowledge. Moreover, central is also the examination of the Ottoman Jews in comparison to other cultural brokers such as Ottoman Greeks or Levantines in the Ottoman-European context. Finally, inspired by translational and cultural studies as well as post-colonial approaches, the course will attempt to link questions of transculturality, hybridity, and entanglement to the practices of Ottoman intermediaries. In light of current debates on globalization processes, we will try to explore the flows and frictions entailed in early modern transcultural practices of mainly Ottoman Jews but also of other intermediaries.

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