Pamphlets and Polemics in the 17th-Century Ottoman Empire | Nir Shafir

E576 | The seventeenth century has often been characterized as a period of disorder and religious polemics in the Ottoman Empire. In this podcast, Nir Shafir takes us inside his new book, which argues that the polemics of the early modern Ottoman world were fueled in part by changes in communication, namely the rise of short pamphlets that circulated easily in handwritten copies. Pamphlets created a new arena largely independent from the institutional centers of knowledge production where people debated everyday questions of the time about what it meant to be Muslim. In exploring the world of Ottoman pamphlets, Shafir also offers a new introduction to the nature of Ottoman education, book production, and reading practices prior to the rise of print and modern state institutions. More at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2025/12/shafir.html Nir Shafir is Associate Professor of History at University of California, San Diego. His first book, The Order and Disorder of Communication: Pamphlets and Polemics in the Seventeenth-Century Ottoman Empire (Stanford, 2024), was awarded 2025 Book Prize from the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association. Shafir is also a longtime contributor to the Ottoman History Podcast, formerly serving as editor-in-chief and appearing in over 50 episodes since 2013. Maryam Patton is Assistant Professor of History at Wesleyan University. Her research interests span the cultural and intellectual history of the late medieval and early modern Ottoman Empire, the history and theories of time and temporality, and cross-cultural transmission in the Mediterranean world, among others. She received her PhD in History and Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University and is preparing her first book on the Ottoman conception of time. CREDITS Episode No. 576 Release Date: 6 December 2025 Sound production by Maryam Patton Music: "Vibing Over Venus" by Kevin MacLeod