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James
Meyer
James
Meyer's Website
After graduating with a BA
in English Literature from
McGill University in 1991, I spent the years 1992-1999
as a resident of Istanbul, Turkey. During that time I was
employed as a teacher of English and published several articles
on current affairs in the Middle East and southeastern Europe
in a number of American and European journals. In 1999, I
returned to the United States to pursue a terminal Master’s
degree in the department of Near Eastern Studies at
Princeton
University.
At Princeton I studied with
a number of scholars from a variety of departments. From the
departments of History and Near Eastern Studies I took graduate
seminars with Mark Mazower (the 19th century Balkans),
Heath Lowry (the early Ottoman period), Norman Itzkowitz (the
Ottoman 18th century), and Şükru Hanioğlu
(the late Ottoman period). At Princeton I also took graduate
seminars in the department of Political Science and the in
the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs,
studied intermediate and advanced Russian in the department
of Slavic Languages and Literatures, and studied Ottoman Turkish
with Erika Gilson and Şükrü Hanioğlu. In May of
2001 I completed my master’s degree at Princeton, writing
the thesis “Memory and Political Symbolism in Post-September
12 Turkey: A History of the May 27th Debate”.
In September of 2001
I began my doctoral studies at Brown University, where I have
been working with Engin Akarli (Modern Middle Eastern history)
and Abbott Gleason (Russian history). In May of 2003 I completed
by preliminary examinations in the fields of the Modern Middle
East, Modern Russia, and Modern European Cultural and Intellectual
history (Mary Gluck). At Brown I have thus far completed two
years of Arabic in the department of Comparative Literature
and have studied rika-script paleographic documents
with my advisor, Engin Akarli.
My research interests fall
generally into three categories: Russian History, the history
of the Russian borderlands, and Ottoman History. At this juncture
my work is primarily concerned with the roles and activities
of Russian Muslim communities and institutions within the
Russian Empire. My dissertation is a study the ways in which
changing systems of community representation among Russian
Muslims impacted the manner in which community identity forms
were publicly articulated. Other research interests include
Muslim migration between the Ottoman Empire and Russia, Russian
Muslim religious institutions during the late imperial and
early Soviet periods, and the cultural policies of the Soviet
Union and the Republic of Turkey. Teaching interests of mine
include the Middle East, the Russian Empire, and the Soviet
Union more generally.
The period July 2003 to August 2005 was spent collecting material
for my doctoral dissertation. This research, which has been
based upon archival, periodical, and manuscript sources, has
given me the chance to work in archives and libraries in St.
Petersburg, Kazan, Ufa, Moscow, Baku, and Istanbul. During
this period I also received extensive paleographic training
in reading (handwritten) texts in Russian, Arabic-script Tatar,
and Arabic-script Azeri.
In addition to the institutions mentioned above, I have completed
coursework at the
Tomer program
of Ankara University (receiving a diploma in Turkish language
in 1999); the
Harvard
University Ottoman Summer School, where I studied
Ottoman Turkish in 2000; the
Debrecen
University Hungarian summer school, where I completed
(with honors) an advanced-level Hungarian course in 2001;
St. Petersburg
State University, where I studied Russian paleography
and Cyrillic-script Tatar in 2002; and
Kazan State
University, where I have studied both Cyrillic-script
and Arabic-script Tatar texts. I am able to work professionally
with documents written in Russian, Turkish, Ottoman Turkish,
Hungarian, Tatar, Azeri, French, and Italian, and have an
intermediate (and hopefully improving!) command of Arabic.
From September of 2005 onwards I will be back at Brown and anticipate
defending my dissertation by June of 2007.
(Picture above is from Northern Azerbaijan, August 2004).
Sample Syllabi:
History
of the Modern Middle East
Islam
in Russia
Russia
in the 20th Century
Some photographs from Russia,
Turkey, and Azerbaijan:
Links:
Brief biography from Fulbright with picture.
Official
website of city of Kazan, capital of Tatarstan. (Includes
maps.)
Website
of Kazan State University.
Some
information on the Volga Tatar language.
Debrecen University
Hungarian Summer Program website.
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