Thomas Kuehn - Managing the Hazards of Yemen’s Natural Environment

Prof. Thomas Kuehn (Simon Fraser University) discusses his forthcoming chapter, ‘Managing the hazards of Yemen’s natural environment. Nature and imperial governance in Ottoman South West Arabia, 1872-1914.’ Key themes include imperial governance, human-environment interaction in the context of ‘challenging’ environments, and knowledge production in the late Ottoman Empire.

Prof. Kuehn is also the author or several publications related to the topics related to this podcast. See, for example:

Thomas Kuehn, Empire, Islam and Politics of Difference. Ottoman Rule in Yemen, 1849-1919 (Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2019).

“‘We Know Nothing About Yemen!’ Ottoman Imperial Governance in Southwest Arabia and the Politics of Knowledge Production, 1871–1914”, Journal of Arabian Studies, 8, 1 (2018), pp. 5-24.

“Translators of Empire: Colonial Cosmopolitanism, Ottoman Bureaucrats and the Struggle over the Governance of Yemen, 1898-1914”, in Cosmopolitanisms in Muslim Contexts, eds. Derryl N. Maclean and Sikeena Karmali Ahmed (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2013), pp. 51-67.

“Shaping and Re-Shaping Colonial Ottomanism: Contesting Boundaries of Difference and Integration in Ottoman Yemen, 1872-1919”, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, 27, 2 (August 2007), pp. 315-331.

“Colonialisme” and “Yémen” in Dictionaire de l’Empire ottoman – XVe-XXe siècle, eds. François Georgeon, Nicolas Vatin, and Gilles Veinstein (Paris: Fayard, 2015).

This podcast was produced with the help of Renée Manderville (Project Manager, IOWC), Philip Gooding, and Archisman Chaudhuri (both postdoctoral fellows, IOWC, McGill).