Analysis of Historical Sources

Course content

The course is designed to train Ph.D. students in the analysis of sources ranging from Anatolia to Central Asia and from medieval to modern times. Special attention will be given to the intellectual environment in which the given political culture of a certain time period came into emergence. For pre-modern periods, readings will concentrate on mirror of princes literature, early Ottoman chronicles, the universalist historical literature of the 13th-14th centuries, and on the histories of the regional empires after the 16th century. Aspects of history in the modern age will be tackled through the eyes of foreigners by means of a wide range of travel literature.