Elyse Semerdjian

Bio: Elyse Semerdjian is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Waqf & Islamic studies. The author has an hindex of 2, co-authored 2 publications receiving 26 citations.

Sinful Professions: Illegal Occupations of Women in Ottoman Aleppo, Syria

Abstract: What was the economic role of women in the Islamic world? Archival sources such as court records reveal that women were employed in a number of legal occupations as moneylenders, buyers and sellers of property, midwives, administrators of religious endowments ( waqf s) and textile workers. On the other hand, women were just as active in illegal occupations as prostitutes, procurers of prostitution and distillers of alcohol. This study will show that punishment for crimes such as prostitution was light due to the fact that customers were often linked to the Ottoman military and government. Furthermore, all three occupations involved tax evasion; alcohol in particular was legal to distill for non-Muslims as long as it was properly taxed and produced within the all-powerful guild system. These crimes reveal the diversity of occupations within which women were employed and the standards of morality within the city of Aleppo.

The SAGE Handbook of Historical Theory

Abstract: PART ONE: FOUNDATIONS: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORKS FOR KNOWLEDGE OF THE PAST - Nancy Partner Modernity and History: The Professional Discipline The Turn towards 'Science': Historians Delivering Untheorized Truth - Michael Bentley The Implications of Empiricism for History - Lutz Raphael The Case for Historical Imagination: Defending the Human Factor and Narrative - Jan van der Dussen The Annales School: Variations on Realism, Methods and Time - Joseph Tendler Intellectual History: From Ideas to Meanings - Donald R Kelley Social History: A New Kind of History - Brian Lewis Postmodernism: The Linguistic Turn and Historical Knowledge The Work of Hayden White I: Mimesis, Figuration, and the Writing of History - Robert Doran The Work of Hayden White II: Defamiliarizing Narrative - Kalle Pihlainen Derrida and Deconstruction: Challenges to the Transparency of Language - Robert M Stein The Return of Rhetoric - Hans Kellner Michel Foucault: The Unconscious of History and Culture - Clare O'Farrell History as Text: Narrative Theory and History - Ann Rigney The Boundaries of History and Fiction - Ann Curthoys and John Docker PART TWO: APPLICATIONS: THEORY-INTENSIVE AREAS OF HISTORY - Nancy Partner The Newest Social History: Crisis and Renewal - Brian Lewis Women's History/Feminist History - Judith P Zinsser Gender I: From Women's History to Gender History - Bonnie Smith Gender II: Masculinity Acquires a History - Karen Harvey Sexuality and History - Amy Richlin Psychoanalysis and the Making of History - Michael Roper New National Narratives - Kevin Foster Cultural Studies and History - Gilbert B Rodman Memory: Witness, Experience, Collective Meaning - Patrick H Hutton Postcolonial Theory and History - Benjamin Zachariah PART THREE: CODA. POST-POSTMODERNISM: DIRECTIONS AND INTERROGATIONS - Nancy Partner Post-Positivist Realism: Regrounding Representation - John H Zammito Historical Experience beyond the Linguistic Turn - Frank Ankersmit Photographs: Reading the Image for History - Judith Keilbach Digital Information: 'Let a hundred flowers bloom...' Is Digital a Cultural Revolution? - Valerie Johnson and David Thomas Recovering the Self: Agency after Deconstruction - David Gary Shaw The Fundamental Things Apply: Aristotle's Narrative Theory and the Classical Origins of Postmodern History - Nancy Partner

Islamic cultures and societies to the end of the eighteenth century

Abstract: Introduction ROBERT IRWIN Part I. Religion and Law: 1. Islam JONATHAN BERKEY 2. Sufism ALEXANDER KNYSH 3. Varieties of Islam FARHAD DAFTARY 4. Islamic law WAEL B. HALLAQ 5. Conversion and the Ahl al-Dhimma David J. Wasserstein 6. Muslims and the natural world Richard Bulliet Part II. Societies, Politics and Economics: 7. Caliphs, kings and regimes Said Arjomand 8. The city and the nomad Hugh Kennedy 9. Rural life and economy Andrew M. Watson 10. Demography and migration Suraiya N. Faroqhi 11. Mechanisms of commerce Warren C. Schultz 12. Women, gender and sexuality Manuela Marin Part III. Arts, Literature and Learning: 13. Education Francis Robinson 14. Philosophy Richard C. Taylor 15. Sciences in Islamic societies Sonja Brentjes with Robert G. Morrison 16. Occult sciences and medicine S. Nomanul Haq 17. Literary and oral cultures Jonathan Bloom 18a. Arabic literature Julia Bray 18b. Persian literature Dick Davis 18c. Turkish literature Cigdem Balim 18d. Urdu literature Shamsur Rahman Faruqi 19. History writing Li Guo 20. Biographical literature Michael Cooperson 21. Art and architecture Marcus Milwright 22. Music Amnon Shiloah 23. Cookery David Waines 24. Muslim accounts of the Dar al-Harb Michael Bonner and Gottfried Hagen.