Emotions in the Ottoman Empire : Politics, Society, and Family in the Early Modern Era

Exploring the political, social and familial ties in early modern Ottoman society, this book is a timely contribution to both the history of emotions and the study of the Ottoman Empire. Spanning compassion in political discourse and shame in judicial courts, to affection in the home, and hate in divorce cases, Emotions in the Ottoman Empire considers the role of emotions in both micro and macro settings. Drawing on Ottoman primary sources such as advice manuals, judicial court records and imperial decrees, this book argues that emotions in early modern Ottoman society were not just linguistic expressions of inner feelings but acted as tools for social and political communication. Using emotions it also reveals the experiences of everyday, ordinary people; why shame was always expressed by men, why gratitude played such an important role in local guilds and why Ottoman women used public baths as emotional refuges. Highlighting a culture that has so far been neglected in the history of emotions, this book looks to globalise the field and think more deeply about Ottoman society in the early modern period.

Exploring the political, social and familial ties in early modern Ottoman society, this book is a timely contribution to both the history of emotions and the study of the Ottoman Empire. Spanning love and compassion in political discourse, gratitude in communal relations to affection in the home, Emotions in the Ottoman Empire considers the role of emotions in both micro and macro settings. Drawing on Ottoman primary sources such as advice manuals, judicial court records and imperial decrees, this book claims that the contested concept of ‘protection’, related to how and who to protect, was culturally specific and historically contingent and stands at the center of all debates about how the Ottoman empire and society itself employed the politics of difference. It explores what it felt like to protect and be protected in the early modern era and how Ottoman subjects conceptualized the unequal power relations. The central argument of the book is that it was emotions in the early modern era which provided the meaning of the concept of “protection”. It also traces change in meaning of protection in the nineteenth century and explores how emotions transformed or got lost in social, political and familial relations during the period of modernization. Highlighting a culture that has so far been neglected in the history of emotions, this book looks to globalise the field and think more deeply about Ottoman society in the early modern period.