The Ottoman World of Sports | Murat Yıldız

E590 | In the late Ottoman capital, imperial politics became a field of collaboration and competition between Muslim, Christian, and Jewish communities, especially in the years following the 1908 constitutional revolution. And as our guest Murat Yıldız argues in a new book, the world of sports also emerged as an arena of political contestation, as gymnasts, footballers, weightlifters, boxers, coaches, teachers, journalists, and fans pursued a civic project that blended athletics, aesthetics, morality, and community. Sport did not erase the communal boundaries that existed off the field, but it often transcended them, as middle and upper class men participated in a shared culture that equated the physical development of the body with the moral development of the person. In this conversation, we explore the Ottoman world of sports at the end of empire, as the growth of a multiethnic civil society facilitated to the proliferation of sports club and writing about athletics, gender, and the body in the Ottoman public press. More at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2026/07/sports.html Murat Yıldız is Associate Professor of History at Skidmore College, where he teaches classes on popular culture, communal boundaries, the body, and the Middle East. He is the author of The Ottoman World of Sports: Refashioning Bodies, Men, and Communities in Late Ottoman Istanbul (The University of Texas Press). Sam Dolbee is Assistant Professor of History at Vanderbilt University, where he teaches classes on environment, disease, and the modern Middle East. His book Locusts of Power is out now with Cambridge University Press. CREDITS Episode No. 570 Release Date: 2 August 2026 Sound production by Sam Dolbee Music: Zé Trigueiros Images and bibliography courtesy of Murat Yıldız available at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2026/07/sports.html