Interview with Christine Philliou, Assistant Professor of History at Columbia University. Interview conducted in Ithaca, NY on March 23, 2009.

Dr. Philliou specializes in the political and social history of the Ottoman Empire, particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries. Her forthcoming book, Biography of an Empire: Practicing Ottoman Governance in the Age of Revolutions examines Phanariot networks and their role in Ottoman Empire prior to the mid-19th century. Phanariots were an Orthodox Christian elite intimately involved in the day-to-day work of Ottoman governance, most notably in the Danubian Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia (present-day Romania).

Interview Themes

Southeastern Europe from the Ottomanist perspective (01:12)

What students of 20th century history can learn from studying the 18th century (03:26)

How to increase cross-over between Balkan/East European and Ottoman historians (07:39)

Coherence of the Balkans as a region to Ottomanists (09:25)

Conceptual geography of the Balkans from the Ottoman perspective (11:59)

How Philliou views the work of East Europeanists on the region (15:06)

On nostalgia about empire and the Ottoman history field (18:07)

On the "next frontier" for Ottomanists and the study of the Empire (20:44)

Strategies for training the next generation of scholars of the region (22:04)

Inspiring trends in historiography outside the field (24:01)

To access interview, click here: http://hdl.handle.net/1813/12124