This fortnight, we’re going east (and back in history) with fabulous historian Tuğçe Kayaal (Furman University). Tuğçe explains how she queers history and the archives, how she researches homoerotic intimacies in poetry and advice books, and what religion has to do with morals, relationships and friendships. She talks about the most frequently misunderstood aspects of the Ottoman empire and what it’s like teaching homoeroticism in texts from the Middle East.

If you want to learn more, why not follow @tkayaal and @queerlitpodcast on Twitter? The podcast also produces mediocre Instagram content for your perusal.

CW: We discuss paedophilia versus intergenerational relationships, sexual violence, homophobia, and religion.

References:

Miss Melina
Freddie Mercury
Beylik
George-Louis Buffon
Babayan, Kathryn. The City as Anthology: Eroticism and Urbanity in Early Modern Isfahan. Stanford University Press, 2021.
Semerdjian, Elyse. “Naked Anxiety: Bathhouses, Nudity, and Dhimmi Woman in 18th-Century-Aleppo.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 45, no. 4 (2013): 651-676.
Kayaal, Tuğçe. “ ‘ Twisted Desires,’ Boy Lovers, and Male-Male Cross-Generational Sex in the Late Ottoman Empire (1912-1918).” Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques 46, no.1 (2020): 31-46.
Najmabadi, Afsaneh. Women with Mustaches and Men without Beards: Gender and Sexual Anxieities of Iranian Modernity. University of California Press, 2005.
Andrews, Walter G. & Mehmet Kalpakli. Age of Beloveds: Love and the Beloved in Early-Modern Ottoman and European Culture and Society. Durham: Duke University Press, 2005.
Kobabe, Mai. Gender Queer: A Memoir. Oni Press, 2019. Sufism Sunni Mustafa Galib, Fahişeler Hayatı ve Redaet-i Ahlakiyye, 1922 Enderunlu Fazıl, Zenanname, 1695 Gelibolulu Mustafa Ali, Mevaidün Nefais Fi Kavaidil Mecalis, 16th Century.
Konya
The Queery

Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:

1. What is the Ottoman Empire?
2. Which factors play into the increasing emphasis on procreational heteronormative sex in the late Ottoman Empire?
3. Does Tuğçe see Sufism or Sunni Islam as more open to same-sex desire?
4. How is female sexuality viewed in the examples Tuğçe mentions?
5. What does the term cross-generational mean in the contexts we discuss? What are your thoughts on childhood in a historical context?