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Exploration of the Dim Fringes: Children’s Sexuality, Gender, and Corporeality in Ottoman Empire during the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
Abstract
Prevailing modernization movement in Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were highly influential on children’s everyday lives which underwent a significant change. Reconceptualization of and discussions on their sexuality, gender, and corporeality as well as regulations of these aspects through different tools was one of them. My paper focuses on these three aspects and examines them through discussions in various children’s magazines. In what ways and to what extent were children’s sexuality, gender, and corporeality defined and discussed? What were substantial discourses used in discussions regarding each aspect? What were some of the important practices promoted for healthy bodies? In what ways did debates on sexuality, gender, and corporeality show differences between different magazines and between different time periods (Tanzimat, Hamidian, and the Second Constitutional Monarchy)? By constellating around these questions, the main goals of my paper will be to reveal various discussions on these three aspects and to investigate their influences on configuration and reconfiguration of ideal femininity/masculinity norms and ideal types of bodies as well as it aims to discuss the abject bodies, the excluded femininities and masculinities. In so doing, one of the most important contributions of my paper will be to bring these uncovered topics, specifically gender and sexuality, with a focus on children. In my paper, I will mainly use various children’s magazines published from 1869 to 1914. Besides them, I will also utilize some women’s magazines and some other magazines published for adults on healthcare, sports, and public health. In this way, my paper will have a comparative aspect and will be able to show similar and different discourses, practices, and images between adults and children regarding these three aspects.
Discipline
History
Geographic Area
Ottoman Empire
Sub Area
19th-21st Centuries