Leaving the Ottoman Empire: Ottoman Amer

This course will examine the experience of Ottoman American communities before, during, and after their migration to the United States, with a particular focus on Ottoman Armenians pre- and post-genocide. Through close readings of the scholarship on Ottoman Armenian, Turkish, Jewish, Arab, and Greek immigration, we will ask: what global forces compelled Ottoman journeys to America (e.g. economic opportunity, Christian imperialism, state-sponsored violence, interethnic strife)? And what ideologies informed the way these migrants were received in a new country (e.g. nativism, nationalism, Orientalism, philhellenism)? In answering these questions and raising new ones, we will also aim to understand how Ottoman American immigration stories both fit into and challenge the existing scholarship on “American immigration” as well as race, whiteness, and citizenship studies. Throughout the course, we will pay special attention to the experience of Ottoman American immigrants in New York City through field trips, museums, and other primary and secondary source materials.