Introduction

Welcome! It is our pleasure to present to you the latest issue of JOTSA. The centerpiece of this issue is a thematic section on panayırs, or fairs and festivals, in modern Turkish history. The section, guest edited by Hale Yılmaz and Roger Deal, includes a brief introduction by the guest editors, along with five essays addressing different aspects of panayırs, an underexplored topic in the scholarship. The section also features a brief essay by the Turkish photographer Yusuf Darıyerli—a commemorative piece originally written in Turkish, then translated into English by the guest editors, along with a small selection of photographs taken by Darıyerli himself. The thematic section approaches fairs, festivals, and commemorations from the interdisciplinary perspectives of history, geography, folklore, anthropology, sociology, and economics, and as such, is a trailblazing effort that presents a blueprint for future studies. We hope our readers will enjoy reading this thematic section that brings to life this long forgotten chapter of Turkish history.

In this issue, we are delighted to feature articles by Fatih Torun, Betül İpşirli Argıt, Erdem Çıpa, and Abdulhamit Kırmızı addressing a diverse array of themes and topics in Ottoman history from the early modern to the modern era. Through new sources, questions, and methodologies, these articles provide insightful discussions on religion, ideology, slavery, gender, entertainment, technology, bureaucracy, and the Jews in the Ottoman Empire.

We are pleased to present the second installment of our Voices of Emerging Scholars series that includes eleven essays drawn from four webinars that took place from June through September 2021. As our readers may remember from our last issue, these short essays are the output of the ongoing series of webinar workshops that aims to highlight the research of emerging scholars in late Ottoman and early Turkish Republican history, organized by our Editorial Board member and the Sakıp Sabancı Visiting Professor at Columbia, Zeynep Çelik, in collaboration with Columbia Global Centers Istanbul and Columbia University’s Sakıp Sabancı Center for Turkish Studies. We present the workshop papers of the webinars five through eight with the goal of promoting the work of our junior colleagues. This issue of JOTSA concludes with seven book reviews showcasing the latest additions to scholarship in our field.

As always, we would like to express our appreciation to Indiana University Press and its staff for publishing and distributing the journal. JOTSA continues to be available online and in print. All issues of the Turkish Studies Association Journal (TSAJ), the Turkish Studies Association Bulletin (TSAB), and the Turkish Studies Association Newsletter are available on JSTOR and Project MUSE. Additionally, we thank all the anonymous reviewers who have so willingly given their time to peer-reviewing this issue’s articles. We understand that this is a sacrifice of precious time and sincerely appreciate their efforts in making this a high-quality journal. We would like to thank our volunteer Graduate Editorial Assistant, İrem Buse Aksoy (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), the members of our Editorial Board, and our dedicated team of Book Review Editors: Metin Atmaca (Ankara Sosyal Bilimler University), Ahmet Tunç Şen (Columbia University), Senem Aslan (Bates College), Ayşecan Terzioğlu (Sabancı University), and Nilay Özok-Gündoğan (Florida State University).

JOTSA’s editors and editorial board wish to thank the Institute of Turkish Studies (ITS) for its continued support of the journal in providing publication subvention funds, Rutgers University—Newark for its generous support of our journal, Princeton University’s Near Eastern Studies Department, Columbia Global Centers Istanbul. We would also like to thank the University of South Carolina-Aiken for generously subsidizing some of the printing costs for this issue. We are grateful to İpek Cem Taha (Director) and Merve T. Ispahani (Academic Programs Coordinator) from Columbia Global Centers Istanbul for their support of the Voice of Emerging Scholars section. We also thank the discussants serving the four workshops, Peter Hristoff, Merve Ispahani, Özen Nergis Dolcerocca, and Alice Friedman, respectively, for their generous feedback on the workshop...