A conversation with Seçil Yılmaz, a historian of the late Ottoman Empire and the Middle East and an expert on epidemics. I talked to her about her research on syphilis in the late Ottoman Empire, early modern ideas of contagion, governmental techniques of regulating mobility, burial and mourning practices, gender, sexuality, and class in relation to health and disease. Seçil pointed out many parallels and differences between biopolitics today and at its time of inception. Many valuable lessons from the history of epidemics!
Seçil Yılmaz is an assistant professor of history at Franklin and Marshall College. She specializes in the social and political history of the Ottoman Empire and modern Middle East with a focus on gender, sexuality, and medicine. Her research concentrates on the social and political implications of syphilis in the late Ottoman Empire by tracing the questions of colonialism, modern governance, biopolitics, and gender. Her other projects include research on the relationship between religion, history of emotions, and contagious diseases in the late Ottoman Empire as well as history of reproductive health technologies and humanitarianism in the modern Middle East. She is currently revising her dissertation “Love in the Time of Syphilis: Medicine and Sex in the Ottoman Empire, 1860-1922” into a book manuscript. Before joining Franklin and Marshall College, she held Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Society for the Humanities and Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University as a part of the 2016 cohort on the theme of “Skin” and the 2017 cohort on the theme of “Corruption.” Her research appeared in the Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies and she is currently the co-curator of the podcast series on Women, Gender, and Sex in the Ottoman World at Ottoman History Podcast.
You can find out more about Seçil Yılmaz’s work on:
https://fandm.academia.edu/Se%C3%A7ilY%C4%B1lmaz
https://www.fandm.edu/secil-yilmaz
http://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/search/label/Se%C3%A7il%20Y%C4%B1lmaz
The Jadaliyya Roundtable by Seçil Yılmaz and three other Middle East historians on Epidemics:
https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/41253/Roundtable-Middle-East-History-in-the-Time-of-COVID-19-Disease,-Environment,-and-Medicine
Other references from the podcast:
Aslı Zengin’s work on the death and mourning practices for transgender women in Turkey: https://allegralaboratory.net/turkish-cemeteries-for-the-unknown-afterlives/
Shana Minkin - Imperial Bodies: Empire and Death in Alexandria, Egypt. Stanford University Press, 2019.
https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=23805
Nuran Yıldırım – “Karantina İstemezük”
https://www.academia.edu/4410620/_Osmanl%C4%B1_Co%C4%9Frafyas%C4%B1nda_Karantina_Uygulamalar%C4%B1na_%C4%B0syanlar_Karantina_%C4%B0stemez%C3%BCk_Toplumsal_Tarih_say%C4%B1_150_Haziran_2006_s_18_27
Intro Music: Herediya - Anadolu Quartet - Ahenk Müzik