Kyle Clark: The Eastern Question and the Crisis of Hegemonic Masculinity, 1875-78

This talk will argue that during the Great Eastern Crisis of 1875-78, masculinity was a major issue for both Ottoman and Great Power officials, a causal factor in the Russo-Ottoman War, and remains an understudied component of international relations today. Rhetoric in diplomatic correspondence as well as popular newspapers and satirical journals demonstrates that political legitimacy was explicitly connected to contemporary standards of hegemonic masculinity in elite men, and thus state officials sought to prove their own masculinity, even when it resulted in war and threatened their empires' material interests. 
Kyle Clark is a PhD candidate studying late Ottoman history in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. He earned his BA in History from the University of Arizona in 2013, an MA in Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Chicago in 2015, and a MA in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton in 2018. His dissertation is on the Great Eastern Crisis of 1875-78, and examines rhetoric on civilization, race, hegemonic masculinity, and masculine honor and their effects on international relations.