Ph.D., Ohio State University, History
M.A., Ohio State University, History
B.A. Koc University, History
B.A. Ankara University, School of Communication

Ayşe Baltacıoğlu-Brammer
Assistant Professor of History and Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies & Director of Ottoman and Turkish Studies Initiative (OTS-NYU)
Early Modern Middle East, Ottoman Empire, Iran, Sunni-Shiite Divide, Sects and Sectarianism in the Middle East, Empire and Identity Formation in the Middle East
I am a specialist in Middle Eastern history with a focus on early modern Ottoman and Safavid Empires. The questions surrounding the Sunni-Shi‘ite conflict during the early modern period and its enmeshment with issues of political, religious, and fiscal legitimacy in inter-confessional and inter-imperial contact zones is at the core of my research interests. By examining the religiosities of early modern Ottoman Anatolia/Iraq and Safavid Iran, my research provides an accurate picture for a deeper understanding of both the religious transformation of the Ottoman and Safavid polities in the early modern era and the current geo-political and demographic make-up in the region today. My current book project, tentatively titled Politics of Sectarianism in the Early Modern Middle East: Ottoman Sunnism, Safavid Shiism, and the Qizilbash, explores the Sunni-Shiite divergence in the early modern period, not merely as a religiously derived, but as a meticulously carried out geo-political and fiscal battle that formed the base of the sectarian configuration in the region today.
Fellowships and Honors
- 2020-2021 Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study
- 2020-2021 NYU Center for the Humanities Fellowship
- 2015-2016 Presidential Fellowship at Ohio State University
- 2015 Ruth Higgins Research Grant
- 2013-2014 Bradley Foundation Research Grant
- 2013 Mershon Center for International Security Studies, Graduate Student Research Grant
- 2010 Sydney N. Fisher Award, Ohio State University
Publications
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The Safavids, ed. Rudi Matthee, (London: Routledge, 2021), 15-31
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Berkley Forum, March 2021
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Neither Victim nor Accomplice: The Qizilbash as a Borderland Actor in the Early Modern Ottoman RealmRethinking “Sunnitization” in the Ottoman Empire, c. 1450-1700 (Leiden: Brill, November 2020), 423-450Tijana Kristic and Derin Terzioğlu (eds.)
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Beyond Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy: New Perspectives on Ottoman Sunnism (forthcoming, Edinburg: Edinburgh University Press, 2019), 47-70Vefa Erginbaş (ed.)
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Journal of Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association 6/1 (Spring 2019): 39-60
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International Journal of Turkish Studies Vol 20, Nos. 1&2 (2014): 21-48
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Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective, November 2013
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Politics of Sect and Sectarianism in the Middle East: Ottoman Sunnism, Safavid Shiism, and the Qizilbash(book manuscript in preparation)