The pen and the public

Ahmed Rasim’s literary engagement with Muslim women and family politics in the late Ottoman Empire

Bibliographic Data

ID24216690
AuthorsGüneş Sezen (0000-0002-7132-0832, Özyeğin University), Çimen Günay-Erkol (0000-0002-1607-9556, Özyeğin University)
Year2026
Pages1-21
Publication date2026-10-04
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueTurkish Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1468-3849 • E-ISSN: 1743-9663
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14683849.2026.2741558
OpenAlexW7220376946
LanguageEN
References cited11

Ahmed Rasim was a writer and political actor who influenced public opinion through literary circles and the press. This article examines his engagement with the politicization of the family in the late Ottoman Empire, a period marked by Sultan Abdülhamid II’s authoritarian rule. Focusing on his innovative use of the pocket novel genre, we analyze how Rasim, diverging from the mainstream literary tendency to depict non-Muslim, morally ambiguous, or enslaved women, strategically presented free, Muslim women as protagonists to explore evolving notions of sexuality, gender roles, and the fragility of the Ottoman family structure. By revisiting these fin-de-siècle anxieties about population and body control and drawing on the theories of governmentality (Michel Foucault) and resistance (Michel de Certeau), we argue that Rasim’s work offers a unique lens on politically motivated attempts to redefine manhood and womanhood amid the social transformations of the Hamidian era.

Abdülhamid II · family politics · gender roles · Governmentality · Hamidian era · Ottoman empire · Ottoman Turkish literature · Ottoman women · Population control · representation of women · Resistance · Sexuality · Historical Turkish Studies · Ottoman Empire History and Society · Turkish Literature and Culture

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