• Istanbul Latitude: Transnational Jazz and the Construction of Difference in the 1920s

In the aftermath of World War One, the capital of the Ottoman Empire took in a confluence of actors ranging from U.S. navy soldiers patrolling “Turkish Waters” to foreign visitors, from refugees to relief workers, from circuit performers of musicians and dancers to impresarios. The congregation of groups in Istanbul taxed a population that was experiencing a “crisis” (tr. buhran) of direction, as claimed by both contemporary writers in the pages of the illustrated press as well as scholars of early republican history. In the African-American press, black performers conveyed job prospects and site information. The jazz circuit for non-Turks was curtailed with the passing of Law on Activities and Professions in Turkey Reserved for Turkish Citizens of June 16, 1932 (Law No. 2007). In contrast, the post-Ottoman press contoured a debate of difference intersecting race, gender, and ethnicity, vis-à-vis a concern over “modern addictions” (tr. asrî iptilalar), e.g., dancing, alcohol, tobacco, narcotics, which marked and marginalized (trans)local actors.  This paper plots Istanbul and post-Ottoman writers on a transnational latitude and in dialogue with other cities, e.g., Cairo, Alexandria, New York City, Berlin. I isolate the 1920s as a moment in the post-Ottoman republican narrative in which the shifting positions of bodies and practices highlighted an ambivalence and anxiety attached to larger economic, political, and social realities. Transnational jazz and its respective dance forms was, I argue, part and parcel of a larger debate on what it meant to become post-Ottoman modern.