In this insightful volume, a range of scholars from different backgrounds and disciplines delves into the intricate world of Levantine Studies, unraveling the multifaceted history, identities, and communities that have shaped the region. Spanning the long nineteenth century until the present day, this collection offers a fresh and nuanced perspective on the Levant, challenging traditional paradigms and shedding light on previously unexplored aspects of Levantine life. Through their meticulous research and compelling narratives, the authors explore the hidden histories of marginalized populations, examine the formation of communal ties beyond conventional affiliations, and shed light on the daily complexities of Levantine life through the lens of individual experiences and microhistories. As the field has undergone shifts in focus and methodology, this volume reflects – and pushes the boundaries of – the diversity and complexity of contemporary Levantine Studies. It opens up new avenues for research and grapples with the pressing questions of our era, including the environmental and material foundations of cosmopolitan lifestyles, the sociocultural reverberations of imperialism, and the impact of global crisis on our understanding of the Levant. With its rich insights and thought-provoking analysis, Levantines of the Ottoman World: Communities, Identities, and Cultures offers a compelling and comprehensive exploration of Levantine Studies that will captivate readers, offer an indispensable resource for scholars, and spark further inquiry into this fascinating field.

Since the Mediterranean connects cultures, Mediterranean studies have by definition an intercultural focus. Throughout the modern era, the Ottoman Empire has had a lasting impact on the cultures and societies of the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean. However, the modern Balkans are usually studied within the context of European history, the southern Mediterranean within the context of Islam. Although it makes sense to connect both regions, this is a vast field and requires a command of different languages not necessarily related to each other. Investigating both Greek and Arabic sources, this book will shed some light on the significance of ideas in the political transitions of their time and how the proponents of these transitions often became so overwhelmed by the events that they helped trigger adjustments to their own ideas. Also, the discourses in Greek and Arabic reflect the provinces of the Ottoman Empire and it is instructive to see their differences and commonalities which helps explain contemporary politics.

The first full length volume to approach the premodern Mediterranean from a fully interdisciplinary perspective, this collection defines the Mediterranean as a coherent region with distinct patterns of social, political, and cultural exchange. The essays explore the production, modification, and circulation of identities based on religion, ethnicity, profession, gender, and status as free or slave within three distinctive Mediterranean geographies: islands, entrepôts and empires. Individual essays explore such topics as interreligious conflict and accommodation; immigration and diaspora; polylingualism; classical imitation and canon formation; traffic in sacred objects; Mediterranean slavery; and the dream of a reintegrated Roman empire. Integrating environmental, social, political, religious, literary, artistic, and linguistic concerns, this collection offers a new model for approaching a distinct geographical region as a unique site of cultural and social exchange.

Volume 7 of the Posen Library captures unprecedented transformations of Jewish culture amid mass migration, global capitalism, nationalism, revolution, and the birth of the secular self Between 1880 and 1918, traditions and regimes collapsed around the world, migration and imperialism remade the lives of millions, nationalism and secularization transformed selves and collectives, utopias beckoned, and new kinds of social conflict threatened as never before. Few communities experienced the pressures and possibilities of the era more profoundly than the world's Jews. This volume, seventh in The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, recaptures the vibrant Jewish cultural creativity, political striving, social experimentation, and fractious religious and secular thought that burst forth in the face of these challenges. Editors Israel Bartal and Kenneth B. Moss capture the full range of Jewish expression in a centrifugal age--from mystical visions to unabashedly antitraditional Jewish political thought, from cookbooks to literary criticism, from modernist poetry to vaudeville. They also highlight the most remarkable dimension of the 1880-1918 era: an audacious effort by newly secular Jews to replace Judaism itself with a new kind of Jewish culture centering on this-worldly, aesthetic creativity by a posited "Jewish nation" and the secular, modern, and "free" individuals who composed it. This volume is an essential starting point for anyone who wishes to understand the divided Jewish present.

The Routledge Companion to Cultural History in the Western World is a comprehensive examination of recent discussions and findings in the exciting field of cultural history. A synthesis of how the new cultural history has transformed the study of history, the volume is divided into three parts – medieval, early modern and modern – that emphasize the way people made sense of the world around them. Contributions cover such themes as material cultures of living, mobility and transport, cultural exchange and transfer, power and conflict, emotion and communication, and the history of the senses. The focus is on the Western world, but the notion of the West is a flexible one. In bringing together 36 authors from 15 countries, the book takes a wide geographical coverage, devoting continuous attention to global connections and the emerging trend of globalization. It builds a panorama of the transformation of Western identities, and the critical ramifications of that evolution from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century, that offers the reader a wide-ranging illustration of the potentials of cultural history as a way of studying the past in a variety of times, spaces and aspects of human experience. Engaging with historiographical debate and covering a vast range of themes, periods and places, The Routledge Companion to Cultural History in the Western World is the ideal resource for cultural history students and scholars to understand and advance this dynamic field.

This book is about homemaking in situations of migration and displacement. It explores how homes are made, remade, lost, revived, expanded and contracted through experiences of migration, to ask what it means to make a home away from home. We draw together a wide range of perspectives from across multiple disciplines and contexts, which explore how old homes, lost homes, and new homes connect and disconnect through processes of homemaking. The volume asks: how do spaces of resettlement or rehoming reflect both the continuation of old homes and distinct new experiences? Based on collaborations with migrants, refugees, practitioners and artists, this book centres the lived experiences, testimonies, and negotiations of those who are displaced. The volume generates appreciation of the tensions that emerge in contexts of migration and displacement, as well as of the ways in which racial categories and colonial legacies continue to shape fields of lived experience.