Pantheon of Heroes, Kazan 1912Sudak, CrimeaInterior of Blue Mosque, IstanbulSunset over the Black Sea, Sevastopol 2006Tatar Dancer, outside KazanSergiev Posad, RussiaOrtakoy, Istanbul

James H. Meyer

 

I am an historian of the Middle East and Russia. Employing sources written mainly in Turkish, Russian, Ottoman Turkish, and the Arabic-script versions of a number of Turkic languages from the former USSR, I look at issues like human mobility, communications, and cross-cultural interactions in late imperial Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and Turkey.

Having worked for seven years as an English teacher in Istanbul, I returned to the United States in 1999 to pursue a Master's degree in Princeton's program in Near Eastern Studies. After receiving my MA in 2001, I studied Middle Eastern and Russian history at Brown University, where I obtained my PhD in 2007. Since August of 2009 I have been an assistant professor of Islamic world history at Montana State University, located in the gorgeous ski town of Bozeman, MT. The classes I teach relate to Turkey, Russia, Central Asia and the Middle East.

My travels and research have taken me to more than forty countries, including stops in research centers such as the Harriman Institute and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Altogether I have spent approximately four years of my life researching in the archives and libraries of Istanbul and the former Soviet Union. Research trips to Turkey, Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, and Ukraine have been supported through grants provided by the Fulbright Program, the Social Science Research Council, IREX, and numerous other organizations.