Caleb Shelburne

Research Interests: Ottoman history; history of the social sciences; history of knowledge transfer; history of gender and sexuality; history of race science; history of literature.

Caleb Shelburne is a doctoral candidate in the History of Science Department at Harvard University. His research combines modern Middle Eastern studies and the history of science and technology, addressing themes of imperialism, social thought, and transnational connections.

In his dissertation, "Knowing Ottomans: Transnational Social Science and the Ottoman Empire, 1856-1908," Caleb explores the history of scholarship on the Muslim, Turcophone Ottoman elite in the age of the Eastern Question. Drawing on published and archival sources in Ottoman, French, English, and other languages, he argues that Ottoman and foreign intellectuals together developed a new social category, the “Osmanli,” to bring rigor and impartiality to their field. In chapters that range across race, family life, language, and science itself, he traces the academic work behind defining and understanding this people. While the idea of an Osmanli identity proved ephemeral, these scholars offered alternative conceptions of human difference, knowledge, and civilization that influenced later politicians and academics and deserve more attention today. Caleb concludes that nineteenth-century Ottoman authors—knowing Ottomans themselves—must be read neither as imitators of the West nor unsophisticated reactionaries, but as active participants in the global history of science.

Caleb is also actively researching the trade of medicinal leeches in the nineteenth-century Ottoman empire and France, a project that engages histories of medicine, technology, and the environment. His previous research has covered topics in Middle Eastern and European history including slavery, railways, and travel writing.

Caleb has received numerous awards and fellowships for his research and teaching, including a Krupp Foundation Fellowship from the Minda de Gunzberg Center for European Studies, a Bok Center Pedagogy Fellowship to support graduate teaching in his department, and—his personal favorite—the 2020 Walter G. Andrews Ottoman Turkish Translation Award. He also currently serves as an editor for the History of Anthropology Review (https://histanthro.org/).

In his spare time, Caleb enjoys playing ultimate frisbee, modular paper folding, and doting on his cats.

Previous Degrees
B.A., History and Literature, Harvard College
M.Phil., Multi-disciplinary Gender Studies, University of Cambridge