Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2024, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures

This thesis analyzes the domains and procedures of the dead as described in Enoch's tour of the underworld in the Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 22). It further seeks to elucidate certain themes within this chapter through a historical and comparative approach. Of particular interest is the location of the dead, the legal suits of the murdered, primarily Abel against Cain and his children, and how this may relate to the coming judgement of the flood on the earth in the Book of the Watchers

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2024, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures

Work on the Agreement systems of Modern Arabic varieties often provides diachronic explanations for the variations seen in modern Arabic varieties, leaving aside how the variation manifests. For example, Bettega and D'Anna (2022) have argued that an individuation system operated in a prior state of Arabic, and the current agreement patterns represent the gradual loss of this system. Versteegh (1984) has argued that Arabic was simplified due to contact, and agreement patterns reflect that contact. Grammarians of modern Arabic varieties often compare it to Modern Standard Arabic, focusing on the difference between the modern varieties and the standard. I explore the linguistic situation of 6 varieties (Modern Standard Arabic, Beirut, Cairo, Doha, Rabat, Tunis) using a parallel multi-dialectal corpus. Through this exploration, I argue that the focus on diachronic development is premature. Instead, in order to understand the development of agreement, we must first understand the variation present in the synchronic situation. In particular, the data shows that there is a continuum of agreement systems from those most like Modern Standard Arabic with defective agreement to those without evidence for the Modern Standard Arabic system. However, this data does not suggest that the systems differ in geographical distance as would be predicted by areal diffusion. Instead, animacy is shown to affect the selection of agreement in Modern Standard Arabic, Cairo, and Doha. I argue that the deflected agreement rule of Modern Standard Arabic has been overly used as a foil to the rules of the dialects and claim that in order to understand the development of agreement in Arabic, we must look at its variation in modern varieties.

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2024, Media and Communication

The World Bank classifies the Lebanese economic crisis as one of the 10 worst such crises globally since the 19th century—and possibly one of the top three. Azma fawq ‘azma [crisis upon crisis] includes financial collapse, inability to care for 1.5 million refugees, the highest number of refugees per capita in the world, the devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic on an already fragile healthcare system, and the catastrophic explosion in Beirut, one of the worst non-nuclear explosions in human history, that killed 218 people, injured 7,000, and left 300,000 unhoused. Due to unprecedented levels of inflation, the Lebanese pound has lost 90% of its value, food prices have risen 500%, and 80% of the population lives in poverty. These crises have transformed Lebanon from a beacon of success to a failed state. Given the severe lack of organizational communication research in the Mashreq (Middle East), this dissertation is of particular importance as it fills a critical gap in research. The dissertation takes an interdisciplinary approach to examine how NGOs mobilize support, provide services, and engage in interorganizational collaboration to support citizens, residents, and asylum seekers struggling to survive in Lebanon. The triangulated methodological approach includes policy analysis, two phases of field research in Lebanon, and in-depth interviews with leaders, administrators, employees, and volunteers representing 52 NGOs. Interview respondents (n = 64) provided first-hand experiences, insights, and assessments of NGOs' efforts to combat intersecting crises, reflected on the complexity of these crises, and highlighted the need for economic and political reform to assuage the feelings of being trapped in the azma fawq ‘azma. Emergent themes include the importance of collective identity through interorganizational collaboration, the benefits of group cohesion in providing support and services, a sense of purpose that has expanded alongside the crises, a continuing (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2024, Anthropology

Across three articles, this dissertation analyzes patterns of dental defect formation and childhood physiological stress within the population of Neolithic Catalhoyuk (ca. 7100-5950 BCE), in order to contribute to a better understanding of biological, temporal, and social variation within this important early “megasite” community. Article one addresses biological questions with important methodological implications regarding the impact of linear enamel hypoplasia (LEH) defects on inter- and intra-population variability in relationships between incremental enamel microstructures. Relationships between perikymata (PK) periodicity and distribution were tested from high-definition epoxy replicas and histological thin-sections of unworn mandibular canines (n = 15) with high LEH prevalence from Catalhoyuk. Findings re-affirm the existence of significant inter-population variability and suggest that high LEH prevalence likely increases PK distribution variability and weakens relationships with periodicity. PK distribution-based methods may nevertheless help narrow likely periodicity ranges and improve microstructure-based chronological age estimation accuracy even in highly LEH-impacted samples. To better understand relationships between population aggregation and physiological stress in early human settlements, Article two tests whether LEH prevalence or timing change significantly over time alongside population levels at Neolithic Catalhoyuk. LEH defect frequency scores (n = 109), defect-per-individual (DPI, n = 44), and defect initiation age (DIA, n = 44) were collected from epoxy canine replicas. LEH measures did not differ significantly by sex or age-at-death, nor did they significantly change over time in parallel with population size. Developmental stress episodes were very common (DPI: all defects M = 11, pronounced defects M = 6; DIA: all defect M = 3.9 years, pronounced defects M = 4.0 years), with 100% of observable individuals experiencing at least one de (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2023, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures

Agriculture and power are deeply intertwined in Moroccan society, and a central pillar of this control is the role played by forms of soft power—one form being institutional media. This relationship was seen during the implementation of the Green Morocco Plan from 2008 to 2020, typified by apolitical, and government source reliant reporting. The advent of the new Green Generation 2020-2030 Strategy presents a new opportunity to check in on this relationship, and the new cracks that have formed through the pressures of COVID-19, a changing political landscape, and unfulfilled promises of the previous program. Specifically, this thesis asks what changes exist in coverage between the two agricultural reform programs? Eight media sources, connected to the various web of business interests, political factions, and the nobility itself are surveyed for use of the Green Generation strategy, with analysis on various factors regarding the goals, values, and support offered by Morocco's institutional media, with findings demonstrating a noteworthy shift in journalistic practice between the two programs.

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2022, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures

The purpose of this study is to develop a better understanding of the Mediterranean ambiance and climate in Columbus, Ohio and in some sense the United States at large, through the ways Arab Americans market their cuisines and present themselves to the community. Little scholarship is available on Arab American cuisine in the States. The aim is to find out if Arab American owned restaurants and grocery stores are selling an experience for their clientele, if the Mediterranean label has become a reinvention of their homeland and/or a reconstructed experience of the Arab American, and if their various ways of self-portrayal has undergone a transformation within the larger context of Arab American identity. I use an ethnographic approach to interview Arab American food franchise owners to learn more about concepts such as identity, agency, homebuilding, and orientalism. Arab Americans are reframing the meaning of the Mediterranean through their franchise spaces in the context of their identity and agency as they engage their clientele.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2022, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures

This dissertation assesses biblical prophets' claims to possess access to suprahuman knowledge. A common modern scholarly construct of biblical prophecy holds that prophets were primarily social critics who denounced social injustice and exhorted repentance. The problem with that construct is not that it acknowledges prophets as decrying social ills and admonishing repentance, but that the construct marginalizes prophets' alleged suprahuman knowledge to the function of social criticism. A close analysis of the prophetic texts of the Hebrew Bible, as provided herein, reveals that the modern construct has inverted the primary focus of the ancient texts. Rather than present the prophets as primarily social critics who denounce social injustice and exhort repentance, the biblical authors principally emphasized the prophets as suprahuman knowledge specialists who occasionally decried social ills and preached repentance. The introductory chapter demonstrates the prevalence of the modern scholarly construct by citing numerous statements by scholars who explicitly marginalize biblical claims that prophets possessed access to suprahuman knowledge in favor of interpreting prophets as social critics denouncing social ills and exhorting repentance. Chapter two provides a history of scholarship from the Dead Sea Scrolls through the twentieth century that establishes the origin of the modern construct as a product of the nineteenth century. Prior to the nineteenth century, exegetes never understood prophetic claims of suprahuman knowledge as subordinate to issues of social justice and repentance. In chapter three, I expose how biblical prophetic texts only occasionally depicted the prophets as social critics. Even in cases where the prophets were portrayed as decrying social injustice or exhorting repentance, the authors paired those statements with claims of prophets announcing information beyond normal human ken. Whereas relatively few prophetic texts paint the prophets as (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2021, History

This dissertation explores how a modern historical consciousness developed during the late Ottoman and early Republican Turkish periods (roughly between the 1840s and the 1930s). By examining the transformation of modern history writing from an imperial context to a national one, this study analyzes how institutionalization, professionalization and the gradual nationalization of Ottoman and Turkish history writing shaped historical production in this period. Existing scholarship on late nineteenth and early twentieth century history writing has long argued that the emergence of modern history writing in the Ottoman Empire and early Republican Turkey was a mere adaptation of European historiographical trends. This dissertation, however, evaluates the role of both internal and external conditions that played a major role in the development of modern history writing. It argues that internal political and cultural dynamics, including constitutional and nationalist movements, changes in the state's educational policies and the emergence of learned societies, as well as external factors, such as the arrival of Muslim emigre intellectuals from the Russian Empire, affected historiographical trends in late Ottoman and early Republican Turkish society. Additionally, by focusing on how late Ottoman historical institutions and intellectual trends were appropriated by the newly founded Turkish Republic, this study accentuates the continuity of history writing practices between the Ottoman Empire and Turkey.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2021, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures

Examining language and performance in Tunisia since the 2011 revolution provides insight into the changing dynamics of the linguistic situation and the society. Previous studies of Arabic-speaking communities have too often employed diglossia as a faithful description of reality rather than as an ideology or useful framework for conducting research. Similarly, prestige as a variable has been ill-defined when applied to many Arabic sociolinguistic studies. This research aims at more thoroughly interrogating prestige as a sociolinguistic variable that is negotiated in each social performance, influenced by previous encounters and ideologies but not dictated by them. The samples for this research are drawn from YouTube videos of speeches by presidents and presidential candidates, a news broadcast, a cooking show, and a soap opera, as well as a post by Tunisian Instagrammers. This selection effectively demonstrates how the nuances of each performance impact the type of language used. Furthermore, analysis of the comments left about these various media make it clear that the democratization process led to a dramatic increase in the number of Tunisians interacting in online spaces thus elevating Tunisian Arabic in written forms and giving voice to the opinions of everyday people in a wider variety of discussions. This approach and the resultant analysis challenge traditional notions of Arabic diglossia as well as sociolinguistic theories of language prestige by rooting the discussion in actual practice rather than on ideological interpretations.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2020, Greek and Latin

This dissertation explores myths from cultures of the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean that depict gods performing sacrifice and gods as the victims of sacrifice. The author investigates how the motif of divine sacrifice or ritualized deities is connected to aitiologies of sacrifice and the typology of dying and rising gods. The author situates the myths within a historical framework of cultural exchange in the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean to show how different cultures in contact adapted and creatively reworked myths about gods involved in sacrifice. The author begins with a new reading of the Mesopotamian story of Atrahasis and shows through an analysis of Mesopotamian ritual texts that the slaughter of the god Ilawela in Atrahasis should be interpreted as the first sacrifice, which results in the creation of humans who then provide offerings to the gods. The author then uses the Hebrew Bible as a case study to show how the theme of sacrifice and anthropogeny was adapted by a neighboring culture. Then, with a close reading of Hesiod's myth of Prometheus and Pandora and the Greek story of the flood preserved by Pseudo-Apollodoros, the author argues that Greek authors borrowed the Mesopotamian motif of sacrifice and anthropogeny and adapted it to fit Greek theology. Next, in an investigation of the fragmentary Phoenician myth of Melqart, the author offers a new reading of the myth about the attempted sacrifice of Herakles recorded by Herodotos and argues that the historian preserves a Greek adaptation of the myth of the sacrifice of Melqart, who was syncretized with Herakles by the fifth-century BCE. The author then reads the Phoenician myth of the sacrifice of the infant god Ieoud, preserved by the Roman period author Philo of Byblos, as an adaptation of the pattern of a dying and rising god known from the Ugaritic myth of Baal, the historical antecedent of Melqart. Accordingly, the author shows how Philo's myth of Ieoud provides crucial information for reconst (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2020, EDU Teaching and Learning

This dissertation aims at describing various ways women artists in Saudi Arabia navigate and negotiate their identities. Drawing on the concepts of intersectionality (Crenshaw, 1991 & Collins 1991) and positional identities (Holland et al, 1998), I used narrative inquiry as a methodology to highlight internal and external identities for Saudi women artists. These narratives were told during in-depth interviews and through the photos they shared while I used the visual ethnographic method, photovoice. With a minimum of four one-hour interviews, four Saudi women artists aged between 30-40 engaged in conversation to share the support they receive from the community, their daily struggles, passions, educational experiences, and lived experiences. The purpose of this dissertation is to display these narratives and show how these factors have intersected to shape these artists' identities. Finding suggests that these artists have continually showed vulnerability in three places, in their art, on their body, and within their speech. It concludes with a call out for art educators, policy stakeholders, and artists in Saudi Arabia to give a special attention to art education for girls and women artists in the country. It also includes implications of enriching young artists' experiences and develop their identities as artists inside and outside the school walls.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2020, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures

Since the 1979 Iranian Revolution that led to the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI), Iranians have been subjected to stigmatization, suspicion, and discrimination in American political and media discourses and public images they create. Based on one year of ethnographic fieldwork (2017-18), the present work inquires into how Iranian Angelinos respond to and challenge these images by conducting public events such as religious rituals, national festivals, and political rallies. I study the discursivity of behaviors and objects such as the so-called "traditional" dances, clothes, cuisines, religious discussions, and political placards in the public events, and highlight how Iranian Angelinos utilize these practices to respond to the negative portrayal of Iranians in particular and Muslims in general in the US. The studies of Muslims in the US have primarily focused on the macro-dynamics and relations that suspect, exclude, racialize, mark, disparage, and marginalize Muslims. These macro-dynamics include dominant political, ideological, and racial power relations and institutions and discourses they produce on Islam and Muslims. My work intervenes in discussions on Muslims in the US and Iranian diaspora studies by shifting the focus from "America" and its dominant public discourses to a set of Muslim Iranian diaspora communities, their vernacular practices, and the ways they respond to these public discourses. Instead of concentrating on macro-dynamics of power, I expand the focus to include the micro-dynamics and theorize the discursive capacities of vernacular practices that are usually ignored, uncharted, and undetected by technologies of power. My research demonstrates how and why supposedly unimportant practices such as foodways, folk dances, or jokes (micro-dynamics) are meaningful; that is, ordinary people and excluded groups manifest their agencies and engage with relations of dominance (macro-dynamics) by modifying and staging their vernacula (open full item for complete abstract)

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2020, Leadership and Change

This dissertation concerns how Jewish-Muslim and Israel-Palestine grassroots activism can persist in the face of threats to the safety, freedom, lives, or even simply the income and employment of those engaged in acts of sustained resistance. At the heart of the study are the experiences of participants in the Hashlamah Project, an inter-religious collaboration project, involving Jews and Muslims. Across chapters and even nations, chapters of this organization faced similar threats and found universally-applicable solutions emerging for confronting those threats and persisting in the face of them. This raised the question of whether revolutionaries and activists in general can persevere with such work in the face of this sort of menacing. The study found answers to this in determining what methods were most widely employed and which had the best results. The results of the study showed an array of widely-employed methods for navigating threats in high risk activism, and persevering with such work in the face of these threats. This dissertation is available in open access at AURA: Antioch University Repository and Archive, http://aura.antioch.edu/ and OhioLINK ETD Center, https://etd.ohiolink.edu/.

PHD, Kent State University, 2019, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Modern and Classical Language Studies

Image construction in translation has recently attracted the interest of scholars in Translation Studies (Doorslaer, Flynn & Leerssen 2016). Much of the discussion, however, has been on the target culture's construction of the image of the Other. Rarely discussed is the construction and projection of self-images (auto images) through translation. The Cold War was perhaps the single most important period in contemporary history in which this self-image construction manifested itself. Both the United States and the Soviet Union initiated massive translation programs in the developing world to boost their images and reputations, often referred to as “soft diplomacy.” The goal was to present themselves as the exemplary models for modernity and in the process “win the hearts and minds” of the newly independent nations of the developing world. The non-governmental Franklin Books Program (1952–1979) marks one important and highly visible attempt to increase the political and cultural cachet of the US in the Arab World during this period. The books chosen for translation appear to propagate and reinforce the self-proclaimed image of the US as a “shining city on a hill,” as well as, on a more profound level, a developmental model of history. The Franklin Books Program operated at a time when the US information and cultural agencies in the region were actively seeking to discredit and dismiss the USSR as the antithesis of modernity, liberty and progress. By drawing mainly on notions of image construction, this dissertation examines whether and—if so—how FBP participated in this image-building campaign. The dissertation relies primarily on two sets of archival paratextual material: 1) FBP's archival records, and 2) the prefaces, introductions to and covers of the translated titles themselves. The former sheds light on FBP's selection process as well as on how those in charge viewed the program's mission. The latter illuminates whether and—if so, how—these materials emphasized (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures

This dissertation examines two literary works and two rap songs by Palestinian citizens of Israel (`48 Palestinians) that challenge the Jewish state: Emile Habibi's satirical novel Saeed The Pessoptimist (1974); DAM's rap song “Innocent Criminals” (2000); MWR's rap song “Ashanak Arabi” (2001); and Sayed Kashua's semi-autobiographical novel Dancing Arabs (2002). Habibi and Kashua participated in Israel's mainstream literary scene: their two novels were read by contemporary Israeli readers and published by Israeli presses. The rappers of MWR and DAM participated in an underground `48 Palestinian rap scene in Israel: aside from MWR's short-lived radio popularity, the selected rap songs were not consumed by mainstream Israeli listeners, played on Israeli radio, or produced by Israeli record labels. How can we account for these discrepancies? I suggest they are more reflective of attitudes within Israeli society than differences between the works themselves. As a result, factors such as genre (rap or literary text); candor (explicit or implicit critique); and language (Hebrew or Arabic) allow the artists to accomplish different things through their art. With a horizontal form of analysis that replaces more traditional hierarchical genre analysis with an emphasis upon the similar rhetorical force of both oral and written communications, I maintain that the “low” art of rap contains as much depth, substance, and nuance as the “high” art of written fiction.

BA, Oberlin College, 2019, Religion

This capstone thesis examines the human-nature relationship in the Genesis primeval history (Gen. 1-11) and compares it to the human-nature relationship in the Mesopotamian Enuma Elish, Atrahasis, and Epic of Gilgamesh myths. Despite common threads running in the two sources of mythology, I argue that Genesis is the only text that portrays humans in a religiously and royally authoritative position that includes responsibility for nature. To clarify, modern Jewish or Christian thought on Genesis in relation to the environment is not the focus of this study. Instead, this study examines Gen. 1-11 in the context of the ancient Near East, millennia before modern anthropogenic environmental issues existed. The primary sources in each section are incorporated by first focusing on the biblical episode in question and then considering the episode in relation to the Mesopotamian myths. This comparative approach reveals that although Gen. 1-11 has strong Mesopotamian parallels, it fundamentally differs from its Mesopotamian counterparts because it gives humans a degree of environmental responsibility.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, Comparative Studies

My project, Modernity, Multiculturalism, and Racialization in Transnational America: Autobiography and Fiction by Immigrant Muslim Women Before and After 9/11, interrogates the enduring notion of America as the promised land of freedom and social mobility in the narratives of Muslim immigrant women. Informed by the critical theories of minority discourse, U.S. borders studies, and postcolonial scholarship, I argue that autobiography and fiction by Muslim American women writers indicate an ideological flexibility, demonstrating a spectrum of discursive negotiations and stances that strategically claim secular, religious, modern, feminist, capitalist, transnational, and multiracial identities that altogether challenge the hegemonic and binary configurations of the figure of “the Muslim” and reformulate the terms of citizenship and belonging in the U.S. I read these strategies in three different writings: Selma Ekrem's autobiography Unveiled: The Autobiography of a Turkish Girl (1930), Mohja Kahf's novel The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf (2006), and Leila Halaby's novel Once in A Promised Land (2007). Collectively, these texts articulate and address anxieties about the presumed “incommensurability” of Muslim/Middle Eastern identity with the imaginary ideal of normative Anglo-American modern society, and they offer a unique ethnic, religious, and cross-racial perspective that challenges dominant U.S. conceptions of the minority difference and exclusion. My project contributes to the theorizing of transnational minority literature in a context that goes beyond the simplistic framework of minor to major anti-hegemonic discourse. While I discuss these texts as counternarratives to hegemonic articulations of citizenship and exclusionary discourses of American identity, I also focus on minor-to-minor sensibilities, paying attention to the ways in which literature offers a space for articulations of cross-ethnic alliances, solidarities, and tensions amongst immigrants and other (open full item for complete abstract)

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2018, English

Within this dissertation, I pay exclusive attention to methodologies of cross-cultural communication in post–World War II Anglophone Arab literature. Hitherto critical accounts discussing cross-cultural communication in this kind of literary tradition focused special attention on the use of English to reach a wide audience and on the process of cultural representation. Most accounts examine methods of delivery as an expected consequence of more complex representations without devoting much space for theorizing cross-cultural communication. Much of post-1960 Anglophone Arab literary production in the diaspora addresses the problem of cross-cultural communication differently. As cultural translators, interpreters, and mediators, Anglophone Arab writers insist on reframing current misconceptions about themselves. Negative depictions manifested in representing a collective Arabic identity stand in contrast to the actual heterogeneous identities of Arabic-speaking individuals and their descendants. In addition to these superficial representations, dramatic events such the Arab-Israeli conflict (1948–present), the Six-Day War (1967), the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990), the Persian Gulf War (1990–1991), the Iraq War (2003–present), and 9/11 and the consequent War on Terror enlarged divisions between “East” and “West,” which resulted in conflating Arabic and Arab diasporic identities with global politics. In order to overcome this dilemma of conflation and association, Arab writers produced literary pieces that depict more complicated representations of themselves as individuals who exhibit cultural and political diversity. This self-appropriation is not only limited to producing more complicated and heterogeneous representations via Arab diasporic writing, but also extends to posing major challenges to approaches about expressing the Self. Nowhere are these challenges more keenly evident than in contemporary Anglophone Arab writers' literary production. My disserta (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2018, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures

The Rare Books Collection at the Ohio State University's Thompson Library contains two Syriac manuscripts, neither of which has been extensively investigated or properly identified until now. There is no record of where they came from or how they came to be at Ohio State. Both manuscripts are written in the East Syriac script. The larger, Ms. B, is a collection of East Syriac Christian liturgy, including the Psalms, a variety of hymns, and excerpts from the Hudra, the yearly cycle of feast and fast days. Two smaller texts have been inserted into the codex of Ms. B. One, inside the front cover, is a fragmentary collection of metrical homilies, at least one of which is by the famous fifth-century poet Narsai. The other, inside the back cover, is a description of the Creation, written in the Neo-Aramaic dialect of Alqosh (in modern Iraq). The smaller manuscript, Ms. C, also contains excerpts from the Hudra. There are more entries than in Ms. B, although each is shorter, and while the two manuscripts naturally feature many of the same feast days, the liturgies themselves are entirely different. This paper includes descriptions and discussion of the manuscripts, updated catalog entries, and text and translation of the metrical homilies inserted inside the front cover of Ms. A.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2018, History

This dissertation examines how the Ottoman state incorporated Bosnians and Hercegovinians, and how Bosnians and Hercegovinians incorporated themselves, into the Ottoman bureaucratic, military, and social apparatus. This was a multilayered and multilateral process of Ottomanization and Islamization that involved the state and its subjects, two groups that were not mutually exclusive. I focus on the devshirme institution, a levy of mostly Christian young men from among Ottoman subjects in Anatolia and the Balkans. These youths were converted and trained as elite slaves of the sultan, instrumental in the governance and defense of the empire. I argue that the devshirme was a tool of integration and socialization used by the state and its subjects. I contend that the peculiar ways in which it functioned in Bosnia and Hercegovina, and the ways in which its products were mythologized, contributed to the establishment of Ottoman Bosnian and Hercegovinian communities and identities that still resonate. Chapter 1 explores how the Kingdom of Bosnia, following the Ottoman conquest in 1463, made the transition into the provinces of Bosnia and Hercegovina. This is the origin point of the provinces' Muslim populations. Chapter 2 focuses on Bosnian and Hercegovinian Muslims in the Ottoman military and administration during the sixteenth century, a period of ascendancy for these groups in the Ottoman state. I analyze how this ascendancy shaped Bosnian and Hercegovinian identity and how and why particular individuals from these provinces came to prominence. Chapter 3 is devoted to the period of empire-wide crisis in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Military rebellions by devshirme elements were a hallmark of this crisis, and Bosnians and Hercegovinians, along with other devshirme recruits, were denounced by rival factions within the military and administrative elite. During this period, an origin myth emerged rationalizing the distinctive and privileged status (open full item for complete abstract)