President's Note

Abstract

President’s Note Amy Singer The “President’s Note” provides a summary of recent news of the organization and upcoming events. More immediate news and information are sent out to members by email, and some items are also posted to H-Turk, our H-Net network. If you are not currently an OTSA member and would like to join, please access our website at http://www.ottomanturkishstudiesassociation.org/. Students, faculty, retirees, and interested others will find a clear link on site under “join” or “renew membership.” Recognizing that earning power varies enormously over the field, we invite you to choose the category that fits your budget. If you are not currently subscribed to H-Turk, please find further details at: https://networks.h-net.org/h-turk. A warm welcome to newly joining and rejoining members. Hoş geldiniz! OTSA is a membership organization. Annual dues entitle members to receive the Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association and members may stand for election to become Board members and officers and serve on OTSA committees. Annual dues and contributions fund the OTSA prizes, cover the minimal administrative costs of the organization as well as disbursements associated with publishing and delivering JOTSA twice a year to the members. OTSA holds its regular members’ meeting in conjunction with the annual Middle East Studies Association conference in the fall of each year. This is the occasion for distributing awards that recognize scholarly achievements of various kinds and that support student development in Ottoman and Turkish Studies. The award committees are formed annually from the members of the organization. News of OTSA OTSA held elections in the beginning of November 2019. From among the nine governing officers, Amy Singer (Brandeis University) continues to serve [End Page 5] as president through the end of 2020. Baki Tezcan (University of California, Davis) was elected to succeed her, and will serve as president-elect for the coming year. Patricia Blessing (Pomona College) continues as treasurer. We acknowledge with deep gratitude the effective management and constant attention of OTSA’s outgoing secretary, Hale Yılmaz (Southern Illinois University). Nominated and confirmed by the OTSA Board, Maureen Jackson (Independent Scholar) succeeds Yılmaz as secretary. Board Members Lâle Can (City College of New York), Chris Gratien (University of Virginia), and İpek Yosmaoğlu (Northwestern University) now rotate off the Board. We are grateful to them for contributing their talents and their time tending to the current business of OTSA and thinking about how to strengthen the organization in the future. Senem Aslan (Bates College) and Murat Yıldız (Skidmore College) are now joined on the Board by newly-elected members Giancarlo Casale (University of Minnesota), Emine Evered (Michigan State University), and Will Hanley (Florida State University). We welcome them and look forward to their active contribution to the Board’s regular work as well as to the initiatives we are planning for the coming two years. With the most recent elections, Julia Philips Cohen (Vanderbilt University) finishes her term as head and rotates off the Nominating Committee. She is succeeded as head of the committee by Tijana Krstić (Central European University), serving together with members Aslı Iğsız (New York University) and Seçil Yılmaz (Franklin and Marshall College). 2019 Prize Winners We applaud the 2019 OTSA Prize winners and thank the various committee members for volunteering their time and expertise. The 2019 M. Fuat Köprülü Book Prize was awarded to Heather L. Ferguson (Claremont McKenna College) for The Proper Order of Things: Language, Power, and Law in Ottoman Administrative Discourses (Stanford University Press, 2018). The prize committee was chaired by Benjamin Fortna (University of Arizona) and included Alan Mikhail (Yale University) and Onur Bakıner (Seattle University). The 2019 winner of the Ömer Lutfi Barkan Article Prize, awarded biennially, is Amy Mills (University of South Carolina), for her article “The Cultural Geopolitics of Ethnic Nationalism: Turkish Urbanism in Occupied Istanbul (1918–1923),” Annals of the Amercian Association of Geographers 107, no. 5 (2017):1179–93. Committee members included Gamze Çavdar, chair (Colorado State University), Kyle Evered (Michigan State University), Michael Christopher Low (Iowa State University), and Roger Deal (University of South Carolina...