Preliminary Programme

The historiography of European diplomacy in the late Ottoman Empire has been dominated by, or perhaps even obsessed with the so-called 'Eastern Question' (EQ). The expression was commonly used by contemporary European politicians, intellectuals, military men and journalists to refer to the supposedly unavoidable disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and its potentially devastating consequences for the 'balance of power' on the Continent. However, this preoccupation with the EQ has tended to reduce diplomatic history of Ottoman-European interactions to analyses of hard-core politics solely, and therefore has obstructed the development of new perspectives on these contacts. Most importantly, lacking in these studies is a critical engagement with postcolonial critiques of Middle Eastern historiography and especially with the ongoing debate on Orientalism. As a consequence, diplomatic historians have paid relatively few attention to the ways in which the ideas and attitudes of European diplomatic actors were shaped, influenced and tainted by Orientalist discourses.
My aim therefore is to reorient the focus, away from the Foreign Cabinets, onto the diplomatic arena of Istanbul itself. I will do so for a specific case, namely by studying Belgian diplomats sent to the Ottoman capital during the long nineteenth century. I will not only analyze their perceptions of Ottoman otherness, but also map their social networks in Istanbul, investigating especially their relationships with Ottoman officials. Combining these two approaches allows for a nuanced reconsideration of Orientalist attitudes toward the Ottomans in the Age of Empire. Leaving the occasional Turcophile aside , most Belgian diplomats were undoubtedly racist when describing Ottoman reform projects, and lived highly segregated from their ‘Turkish’ hosts. At the same time, however, their overall attitude towards the Ottoman Empire could be characterized as fundamentally ambiguous, rather than supremacist: many of them were on good terms with Ottoman policy makers – some of these relationships being of an amicable nature – and often openly expressed their support for Ottoman sovereignty, criticizing Great Power meddling in Ottoman affairs. Though Orientalist clichés undoubtedly had an effect on the mindset of these diplomats, it is difficult, if not impossible to uphold the notion of a unified, monolithic Orientalist discourse.
(Show less)

In 1873, the Jubilee Singers, a group of young men and women from Nashville’s Fisk University, embarked on their first overseas tour. For the next two decades, the Jubilee Singers won international acclaim as the premier African American singing ensemble. They performed around the globe for presidents, kings, and queens while spawning dozens of imitators. In their concerts, the Jubilee Singers performed a repertoire of songs drawn from the distinctly African American musical genre referred to as Negro spirituals, sorrow songs, or plantation melodies. This paper seeks to situate the history of the Jubilee Singers within the broader context of cultural diplomacy. While scholars have investigated the complex role played by African American jazz performers within U.S. foreign policy during the Cold War, earlier forays into musical diplomacy by African Americans have received little attention. I will argue that the Jubilee Singers identified, and were perceived by others, as representatives of their race. By embracing the role of “race ambassadors,” the group turned its domestic and international fund-raising tours into a form of musical diplomacy.
Like later state-sponsored cultural relations programs, the Jubilee Singer’s musical diplomacy strategy had a dual objective: to project a positive image of the race to foreign audiences and to counter negative stereotypes of the race abroad. In their dress, manners, and personal biographies the men and women of Jubilee Singers—many of whom were born into slavery—embodied a triumphant narrative of African American progress following emancipation. At their concerts, the Jubilee singers performed “authentic” Negro spirituals that provided white audiences with a small window into the emotional struggle of slavery. At the same time, during each concert they were also performing an image of the race calculated to demonstrate that African Americans could indeed possess the virtues of middle-class, Protestant respectability coveted by white Victorian society.
At the same time, the Jubilee Singers and other similar groups had to compete with massively popular vaudeville troupes and black-face minstrel shows that traded in racist stereotypes and imagery. In the first decades of the twentieth century, the global expansion of jazz would pose another challenge to spirituals. The contested arena of African American musical diplomacy offers a rich site for the study of cultural relations. It is also ideally situated to illustrate the ways in which a deeper examination of race and non-state actors can breathe new life into the field of diplomatic history. African Americans have previously been integrated into the field as actors within the confines of official U.S. foreign policy and officially sanctioned cultural relations programs dating to World War II and the Cold War. There remains little discussion of the ways in which African Americans acted as racial representatives before this time or how African Americans engaged in cultural diplomacy to bolster the image of the race at home and abroad. This paper is meant to invite a conversation along these lines.
(Show less)

The U.S.-Japan immigration dispute of 1913 underscores how bilateral relations were impacted by domestic politics and the larger transnational aspirations and anxieties of the early twentieth century. Ignoring the local and global dynamics, most studies in English and Japanese claim that the dispute nearly brought the two countries to blows and began a long period of racially-charged hostility that eventually exploded in the Pacific War. In fact, bilateral relations in 1913 never approached the breaking point. The bellicose voices worldwide that shrilly warned of racial conflict across the Pacific and globe were by no means dominant. Officials and private citizens from both countries effectively collaborated via official and unofficial channels to quiet the dispute.
What decisively animated the discussion were the respective rhetorical afterglows of the U.S. presidential election of 1912 and Taisho political crisis of early 1913. Both events had mainly been depicted by their participants as battles to advance popular political rights against entrenched interests. This basic binary was central even to what scholars see as the most belligerent reaction of the Japanese, whose emotional sensitivities supposedly exacerbated the rift. Specifically, prominent journalist Tokutomi Soho advocated not military retribution against the United States, but the end of global white privilege, an anachronism he accused Americans of reinforcing through restrictive immigration policies. Here, Tokutomi extended the language of Japanese politics to international affairs and echoed the call for racial equality that was then rising among the disenfranchised worldwide, including African Americans.
Scrutiny of domestic segregation during the Woodrow Wilson Administration, together with the immigration dispute with Japan, addresses what remains a highly contentious issue for specialists: how integral maintaining white supremacy was to Wilsonianism. Though Wilson sought diplomatic accommodation with Japan and avoided public racial demagoguery, his rhetorical subtlety and utilization of such common values as democracy made him more adept at impeding the liberalization of race relations at home and abroad. The principal Japanese diplomats involved in negotiations in 1913 continued to believe that a proper understanding of mutual compatibilities could reduce bilateral tensions. The paper thus analyzes the “education campaigns” begun by the Foreign Ministry in 1913 to sway U.S. public opinion in favor of Japan. It also highlights the unofficial Japanese efforts to pressure the Wilson Administration by enlisting the help of prominent Republicans, including Theodore Roosevelt, who independently began to bemoan the “weak” diplomacy and lack of military preparedness of his Democratic rival.
(Show less)