Based on archival records, newspaper articles, travelogues, personal letters, diaries, photos, and interviews, Professor Mostafa Minawi brings to life the precarious lived experience of Arab imperialists living in Istanbul and working in the Ottoman palace at the turn of the 20th century. In this talk, he will invite us to reconsider what we know of the rise of ethno-racialisation and nationalism(s) in the empire and how it impacted the lives of loyalists from Damascus to Istanbul.
Participant Information
Mostafa Minawi is professor of history at Cornell University. His first book, The Ottoman Scramble for Africa: Empire and Diplomacy from the Sahara to the Hijaz (Stanford University Press, 2016), was translated into Turkish and Arabic, and his latest, Losing Istanbul, was the co-winner of the Albert Hourani Book Prize in 2023 and was translated into Turkish and is currently being translated into Arabic by the Arab Studies Institute in Doha. He has published a number of articles dealing with questions of imperialism, international law, and belonging in the Middle East, from Istanbul to the Horn of Africa. He is currently working on his third monograph, tentatively titled A Global History of a Roof Top in Jerusalem.
