Near and Middle Eastern Studies

December 7, 2020

Student profile: Canan Bolel – Epidemics and the Politics of Pestilence in Ottoman Izmir and in the Present

Canan Bolel, a PhD candidate in the University of Washington’s NMES program, is finishing up her dissertation focusing on the experiences of the Jewish population in mid to late 19th century Ottoman Izmir. When she set out to conduct archival research into the city’s historical cholera epidemics though, she little realized how far 2020’s events would soon mirror those in the material she was working with.

Canan’s dissertation project, entitled “Constructions of Jewish Modernity and Marginality in Izmir, 1860–1907”, re-approaches the history of the Ottoman port city of Izmir from the perspective of its large and dynamic Jewish population, and their varied experiences of bodily, social and legal marginality. Focusing specifically on multilingual official and print discourses around issues of disease, conversion, crime and migration, her research highlights the dynamism and diversity of both Izmir and the Jewish community, challenging straightforward idea of ‘Jewish’ experience by showing the diverse kinds of marginality and ideas of modernity which coexisted in this period. As she says:

“People were coming from all over the world, but weren’t all a part of the same dream or integrated into this little part of the Levant to the same degree. And that doesn’t mean that my marginals were excluded or were on the fringes. On the contrary, the main argument of my dissertation is that they were right at the center of the city. The criminals, Jewish converts and the diseased weren’t hiding or being pushed around – they were active participants in the social life of the city and participants in Ottoman modernity. I especially realized this while working on criminals, who were often very sophisticated. There were counterfeiters using multiple languages and very advanced tools to fake coins and even banknotes and who had multiple passports and fake identities to escape. . . In the Levant we always think about French style ̶ speaking French or dress, hairstyles ̶ but why can’t being part a successful counterfeiting criminal ring be as much modern as wearing a fancy hat?”

In the Levant we always think about French style  ̶  speaking French or dress, hairstyles  ̶  but why can’t being part a successful counterfeiting criminal ring be as much modern as wearing a fancy hat?

Canan also talks about how her own personal experiences of a serious pandemic this year changed her thinking about the documents on Cholera epidemics she was working with and vice versa – a theme she explores in depth in a recent blog piece for the University of Washington’s Stroum Center for Jewish Studies: “Learning from the history of Ottoman Jews & 19th-century cholera outbreaks during COVID-19.” She describes how in a strange way, “writing this piece was like going to the therapist, because I always thought about pandemics as something in the past which couldn’t happen again, very distant even though it was in my hometown, and I always heard stories about Izmirli experiences of the epidemics.”

One parallel which she found particularly striking was the ways in which particular minority groups became discursively and politically associated with certain diseases, as with Asian and Asian American groups in the US or Hasidic communities in Israel during COVID, or poor Jewish immigrants from Russia with cholera in Izmir, and not only because of their perceived role as internationally mobile carriers of disease, but stereotypes around their lives, cultural habits, housing, hygiene etc. In the case of Izmir, this culminated with local authorities actually sending these poor migrant communities to live in tents in an isolated place far from the center to prevent the spread of the disease.

it’s easy to feel very trapped in this academic writing style and in English, which of course isn’t my native tongue, so writing for non-academic journals or blog posts was very liberating.

As someone nearly at the end of her PhD experience and one who has been particularly successful in building a digital and public profile as a graduate student, publishing a wide range of articles, blogs and other publications, including another recent piece for the AJS,Me, Myself, and I (and Marginal Bodies of Ottoman Jews)”, she also has some useful tips for those just starting out. She is particularly positive about finding opportunities to write more informally for different audiences, whether through calls put out on H-net or other circulars, fellowship-giving organizations or other connections. As she says, “it’s easy to feel very trapped in this academic writing style and in English, which of course isn’t my native tongue, so writing for non-academic journals or blog posts was very liberating. And since my dissertation is based on the stories of people, gossip, sometimes juicy stories from the papers of that era and non-academic writing, I found that I could draw on that element of storytelling in the historical materials to reach a broad contemporary audience.” Another advantage she found is that these spaces enabled her to approach her work from a fresh perspective and express her ideas in a freer way which could then be channeled back into the dissertation. Her experience has been that one thing often opens up further opportunities, with people getting in touch after seeing online pieces, or at conferences, generating new connections, discussions and further possibilities for work.

Canan’s academia profile can be seen at https://washington.academia.edu/cananbolel

Her most recent blog is at https://jewishstudies.washington.edu/jewish-history-and-thought/history-ottoman-jews-19th-century-cholera-outbreaks-covid-19/


Learn more about the Interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Near and Middle Eastern Studies

About the Author

Will Bamber

William is a Ph.D. candidate in the University of Washington’s Interdisciplinary Near and Middle Eastern Studies program, with an additional specialization in South Asia studies. His research focuses on the global history of the nineteenth century, with particular emphases on historical evolutions of male costume and masculinity, movements of aesthetic forms and the social history of Ottoman Turkey and South Asia.