The Order and Disorder of Communication - Pamphlets and Polemics in the Seventeenth-century Ottoman Empire

"The seventeenth-century Ottoman Empire was rife with polemical debate, around worshipping at saints' graves, medical procedures, smoking tobacco, and other everyday practices. Fueling these debates was a new form of writing, the pamphlet - a cheap, short, and mobile text that provided readers with simplified legal arguments. These pamphlets were more than simply a novel way to disseminate texts, they made a consequential shift in the way Ottoman subjects communicated. This book offers the first comprehensive look at a new communication order that flourished in seventeenth-century manuscript culture. Through the example of the pamphlet, Nir Shafir investigates the political and cultural institutions used to navigate, regulate, and encourage the circulation of information in a society in which all books were copied by hand. He sketches an ecology of books, examining how books were produced, the movement of texts regulated, education administered, reading conducted, and publics cultivated. Pamphlets invited both the well and poorly educated to participate in public debates, thus expanding the Ottoman body politic. They also spurred an epidemic of fake authors and popular forms of reading. Thus, pamphlets became both the forum and the fuel for the polarization of Ottoman society. Based on years of research in Islamic manuscript libraries worldwide, this book illuminates a vibrant and evolving premodern manuscript culture"--

List of contents

List of Figures

Note on Transliteration and Translation

Acknowledgments

Map

Introduction

Part I: Order

1. Production

2. Circulation

3. Education

4. Reading, Elite

Part II: Disorder

5. Polemics

6. Pamphlets

7. Polarization

8. Reading, Popular

9. Publics

10. Pamphleteer

Conclusion

Notes

Bibliography

Index

About the author

Nir Shafir is Assistant Professor of History at the University of California, San Diego.

Product details

• Authors: Nir Shafir
• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 30.07.2024
• EAN: 9781503638952
• ISBN: 978-1-5036-3895-2
• No. of pages: 416
• Series: Stanford Ottoman World Series: Stanford Ottoman World Series: Critical Studies in Empire, Nature, and Knowledge
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > Modern era up to 1918; Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; Ottoman Empire, HISTORY / World, HISTORY / Middle East / Turkey & Ottoman Empire, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / General, General & world history, Turkey, 17th century, c 1600 to c 1699, Middle Eastern history, Early modern history: c 1450/1500 to c 1700, General and world history, Literary studies: c 1500 to c 1800, Literary studies: c 1600 to c 1800, C 1600 To C 1700, LITERARY CRITICISM / European / Eastern