Amy Singer

Sylvia K. Hassenfeld Chair in Islamic Studies and Professor of History

amysinger@brandeis.edu
781-736-2281
Olin-Sang American Civilization Center, 217

Departments/Programs

History
Near Eastern and Judaic Studies

Degrees

Princeton University, Ph.D.
Princeton University, M.A.
Swarthmore College, B.A.

Expertise

Ottoman history, history of charity in Islamic societies, history of Islamic endowments (waqf), the city of Edirne, Palestine in the Ottoman period

Profile

Amy Singer (Ph.D. Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University, 1989) holds the Hassenfeld Chair in Islamic Studies and is Professor in the Department of History, and professor emerita in the Department of Middle Eastern and African History at Tel Aviv University. Her research began with an in-depth study of the relations between Ottoman officials and Palestinian peasants, in an effort to move Ottoman agrarian history beyond cataloging the demography and agricultural production of villages (Palestinian peasants and Ottoman officials, 1994). This first study revealed the importance of the Haseki Sultan waqf, a large, endowed public kitchen (imaret) founded in mid-sixteenth-century Jerusalem by the wife of Sultan Suleyman (Constructing Ottoman Beneficence, 2002). One endowment led to others, and to broader questions about of benevolent giving (Charity in Islamic Societies, 2008). Each monograph has also appeared in Turkish translation. Singer’s research now focuses on Ottoman Edirne (Byzantine Adrianople) to explore how this city and its region fostered the formation of Ottoman state and society in the first half of the fifteenth century. She is part of OpenOttoman, an initiative to consider how digital tools and capacities can enhance and sustain Ottoman studies. From 2018-2020, she is president of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association.

Courses Taught

HIST	134b	The Ottoman Empire: From Principality to Republic by way of Empire
HIST	140b	Charity and Poverty in Islamic Societies
HIST	165a	Starting from Food: New Perspectives on the Middle East and Islam
HIST	173b	Digital History, Digital Historians: What's it All About?
HIST	185b	Turkey: From Ataturk to Erdogan
HIST	230a	Capital Cities in History
HIST	301c	PhD Dissertation Writers' Seminar

Awards and Honors

ARNOVA (Assoc. for Research on Nonprofit Orgs. & Voluntary Action, Book Prize for "Charity in Islamic Societies" (2010)

Sakıp Sabancı International Research Award, First Prize for the article "The Persistence of Philanthropy" (2008)

Scholarship

Singer, Amy. "Edirne: An Excellent Place to Spend the Winter." Mélanges Nicolas Vatin. Ed. E. Borromeo, F. Hitzel, and B. Lellouch. Louvain: Peeters, 2021. 406-414. (forthcoming)

Singer, Amy. "Translation: "On the Natural Advantages of Edirne," by an anonymous author, 15th-16th century." The Ottoman World: A Cultural History Reader, 1400-17. Ed. Hakan Karateke and Helga Anetshof. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2020 (forthcoming)

Singer, Amy, with Michael Polczynski. "The OpenOttoman Initiative and the Challenge of Building an Ottoman Gazetteer." Spatial Webs: Mapping Anatolian Pasts for Research and the Public. Ed. Christopher H. Roosevelt. Istanbul: Istanbul: Koç University Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations (ANAMED), 2021. 117-136.

Singer, Amy. "In Search of Early Ottoman Edirne." The Heritage of Edirne in Ottoman and Turkish Times. Continuities, Disruptions, and Reconnections. Ed. Birgit Krawietz and Florian Riedler. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020. 25-43.

Singer, Amy. "Enter, Riding on an Elephant: One Approach to Early Ottoman Edirne." Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association 3. 1 (2016): 89-109.

Singer, Amy. "Making Jerusalem Ottoman." Living in the Ottoman Realm: Sultans, Subjects and Elites. Ed. Christine Isom-Verhaaren and Kent F. Schull. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2016. 123-136.

Singer, Amy, ed. Starting with Food: Culinary Approaches to Ottoman HIstory. Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2011.

Singer, Amy. "The Persistence of Philanthropy." Comparative Studies in South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 31. 3 (2011): 557-568.

Singer, Amy, Christoph K. Neumann and Selçuk Akşin Somel, ed. Untold Histories of the Middle East: Recovering Voices from the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. London: Routledge, 2010.

Singer, Amy. Charity in Islamic Societies. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2008.

Ergin, Nina, Christoph K. Neumann and Amy Singer, ed. Feeding People, Feeding Power: Imarets in the Ottoman Empire. Istanbul: Eren Yayıncılık, 2007.

Singer, Amy, Israel Gershoni and Y. Hakan Erdem, ed. Middle East Historiographies: Narrating the Twentieth Century. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2006.

Bonner, Michael, Mine Ener and Amy Singer, ed. Poverty and Charity in Middle Eastern Contexts. Albany: SUNY Press, 2003.

Singer, Amy. Constructing Ottoman Beneficence: An Imperial Soup Kitchen in Jerusalem. Albany: SUNY Press, 2002.

Singer, Amy. "The Mülknames of Hurrem Sultan's Waqf in Jerusalem." Muqarnas 14. (1997): 96-102.

Singer, Amy. Palestinian Peasants and Ottoman Officials: Rural Administration around Sixteenth-century Jerusalem. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1994.