Bilkent University\u2019s CCI Program is hosting an academic talk via ZOOM by:
\nSpeaker: Henry Clements, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, Yale University<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Problem of History in an Age of Reform: Secularism, Civilization, and the Syriac Christians of the Late Ottoman Empire\u201d<\/p>\n
The administrative reforms of the late Ottoman Empire presented the Syriac Christians and other religious communities in Ottoman domains with certain opportunities as well as hazards. Overturning centuries of institutionalized Islamic supremacy and formalizing the secular ideals of religious equality and political representation, the Ottoman state\u2019s modernizing reforms afforded the Syriac Christians the possibility of independent recognition as a religious community that was equal to and distinct from others. Yet the recognition of the Syriac Christians\u2019 distinctiveness was predicated upon their minoritization within Ottoman governance on the one hand, and their classification within an Orientalizing scheme of \u201ccivilizational\u201d development on the other. In this talk, I specify the role of modern historical thought in facilitating these processes, considering the promise and perils of history for the Syriac Christians in secular modernity. I illustrate how the Syriac Christians came to conceive of themselves\u2014and to be interpellated by others\u2014as historical, arguing that this new historical consciousness contained within it a tension between identity and difference, universality and particularity, and judgment and equality, which registered the central challenge of historicism for modern subjects more broadly.<\/p>\n
ZOOM Information:
\nTopic: CCI Meeting\u2019s Zoom Meeting
\nTime: March 15, 2022 07:00 PM Istanbul<\/p>\n
***This is an online event. To obtain Zoom link and password, please contact to the department.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bilkent University\u2019s CCI Program is hosting an academic talk via ZOOM by: Speaker: Henry Clements, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, Yale University \u201cThe Problem of History in an Age of Reform: Secularism, Civilization, and the Syriac Christians of the Late Ottoman Empire\u201d The administrative reforms of the late Ottoman Empire [\u2026] <\/p>\n