Virginia H. Aksan

Virginia Aksan is Professor of History at McMaster University which she joined in 1991 after completing her Ph.D. at the University of Toronto. She is also an Associate member of the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto. She has served as chair of her department and more recently as Acting Director of the School of Arts. Her scholarship in eighteenth and early nineteenth century Ottoman history has produced many articles and four books, the most recently published one entitled Ottoman Wars, 1700-1870: An Empire Besieged. Her current project, "Who was an Ottoman?" invites reflections on how ordinary and extraordinary subjects of the sultan experienced the enormous transformation underway in Ottoman society from 1750-1850. She has served as President of both the Turkish Studies and the Middle East Studies Associations of North America.

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