Will Smiley
@will-smiley.bsky.social
History (Ottoman and Russian Empires) and international law.
Author, "From Slaves to Prisoners of War" (Oxford, 2018) and co-author, "To Save the Country" (Yale, 2019).
All views strictly my own.
Author, "From Slaves to Prisoners of War" (Oxford, 2018) and co-author, "To Save the Country" (Yale, 2019).
All views strictly my own.
Reposted by Will Smiley
Learning to love Virginia Aksan
www.jstor.org/stable/26004...
www.jstor.org/stable/26004...
Whatever Happened to the Janissaries? Mobilization for the 1768–1774 Russo-Ottoman War on JSTOR
Virginia H. Aksan, Whatever Happened to the Janissaries? Mobilization for the 1768–1774 Russo-Ottoman War, War in History, Vol. 5, No. 1 (January 1998), pp. 23-36
www.jstor.org
November 26, 2025 at 6:36 PM
Learning to love Virginia Aksan
www.jstor.org/stable/26004...
www.jstor.org/stable/26004...
Reposted by Will Smiley
#Employment The History Department of the University of Massachusetts Amherst invites applications for a nine-month tenure-system appointment, at the rank of Assistant Professor in the History of the Modern Middle East. mesana.org/resources-an...
Middle East Studies Association
The History Department invites applications for a nine-month tenure-system appointment expected to start on September 1, 2026, at the rank of Assistant Professor in the History of the Modern Middle Ea...
mesana.org
November 26, 2025 at 4:04 PM
#Employment The History Department of the University of Massachusetts Amherst invites applications for a nine-month tenure-system appointment, at the rank of Assistant Professor in the History of the Modern Middle East. mesana.org/resources-an...
Reposted by Will Smiley
On the construction and practice of "ordinary" Islam through the lens of one eighteenth century Ottoman traveler and his encounter with a rather unusual saint's shrine in Homs:
At the Tomb of Bābā 'Amr in Homs
A Glimpse at Early Modern Ottoman Islam
jonathanparkesallen.substack.com
November 26, 2025 at 4:39 AM
On the construction and practice of "ordinary" Islam through the lens of one eighteenth century Ottoman traveler and his encounter with a rather unusual saint's shrine in Homs:
Pro-tip: if your public library has Hoopla, you can listen to all of these in a great audiobook version. You won’t regret it.
November 26, 2025 at 12:09 AM
Pro-tip: if your public library has Hoopla, you can listen to all of these in a great audiobook version. You won’t regret it.
Reposted by Will Smiley
Read our statement in response to the USCIS memo ordering the revetting of resettled refugees, "one more in a long line of efforts to bully some of the most vulnerable members of our communities": refugeerights.org/news-resourc...
November 25, 2025 at 7:59 PM
Read our statement in response to the USCIS memo ordering the revetting of resettled refugees, "one more in a long line of efforts to bully some of the most vulnerable members of our communities": refugeerights.org/news-resourc...
Reposted by Will Smiley
New issue of my newsletter: "The Writing Is on the Wall for Handwriting Recognition" — One of the hardest problems in digital humanities has finally been solved, and it's a good use of AI newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/the-...
The Writing Is on the Wall for Handwriting Recognition
One of the hardest problems in digital humanities has finally been solved
newsletter.dancohen.org
November 25, 2025 at 4:35 PM
New issue of my newsletter: "The Writing Is on the Wall for Handwriting Recognition" — One of the hardest problems in digital humanities has finally been solved, and it's a good use of AI newsletter.dancohen.org/archive/the-...
I am a week late posting this, but congratulations to Du Fei for winning the Jane Burbank Global Legal History Article Prize at this year's American Society for Legal History Annual Meeting!
As chair of this year's committee, it was a privilege to read this great article. As the committee said,...
As chair of this year's committee, it was a privilege to read this great article. As the committee said,...
Fatima’s inheritance: Law, Islam, and gendered archive-making in India’s early modern global connections*
Abstract. Sometime around the first half of the seventeenth century, a Muslim woman known by the name Fatima brought her slaves to court over an inheritanc
academic.oup.com
November 25, 2025 at 7:51 PM
I am a week late posting this, but congratulations to Du Fei for winning the Jane Burbank Global Legal History Article Prize at this year's American Society for Legal History Annual Meeting!
As chair of this year's committee, it was a privilege to read this great article. As the committee said,...
As chair of this year's committee, it was a privilege to read this great article. As the committee said,...
When someone is posting Avigdor Levy, you reskeet. I don't make the rules.
November 25, 2025 at 7:36 PM
When someone is posting Avigdor Levy, you reskeet. I don't make the rules.
Reposted by Will Smiley
“This is yet another rollback of academic freedom & shared governance. It’s not the place of a state—it’s not the place of politicians—to tell faculty such things & it opens a door for political reprisal, for other ways to limit academic freedom.”
- Noor O'Neill, President AAUP Indiana Conference
- Noor O'Neill, President AAUP Indiana Conference
Ind. May Reject Degrees That Don’t Commit to American “Values”
Indiana may reject proposed degree programs at public institutions that don’t “cultivate civic responsibility and commitment to the core values of American society.” Earlier this month, the Indiana Co...
www.insidehighered.com
November 25, 2025 at 4:49 PM
“This is yet another rollback of academic freedom & shared governance. It’s not the place of a state—it’s not the place of politicians—to tell faculty such things & it opens a door for political reprisal, for other ways to limit academic freedom.”
- Noor O'Neill, President AAUP Indiana Conference
- Noor O'Neill, President AAUP Indiana Conference
This is the real challenge: there are lots of ways to maintain education in the AI age. But all of them require more class time and smaller classes. Who is going to pay for that?
I appreciate the approach these professors are taking, but once again, it's missing some context. How many students are enrolled in these classes? Is it possible to take this AI-resistant approach in a class of 30, 40, 50+ students...?
I’m a Professor. A.I. Has Changed My Classroom, but Not for the Worse.
www.nytimes.com
November 25, 2025 at 2:38 PM
This is the real challenge: there are lots of ways to maintain education in the AI age. But all of them require more class time and smaller classes. Who is going to pay for that?
Reposted by Will Smiley
He has now been released
November 25, 2025 at 1:57 PM
He has now been released
The thing about monarchies is their time horizon is all too often not actually endless, but limited to the lifetime of one person. It’s kind of an endemic problem, actually, which successful monarchies only overcome by transferring power away from the monarch. Historians know a lot about this!
If Isaac Chotiner ever said this to me, I would move to the woods.
November 25, 2025 at 1:34 AM
The thing about monarchies is their time horizon is all too often not actually endless, but limited to the lifetime of one person. It’s kind of an endemic problem, actually, which successful monarchies only overcome by transferring power away from the monarch. Historians know a lot about this!
“Landis said he received an email instructing him to direct all inquiries about Abedini’s detainment to OU Marketing and Communications. OU Marketing and Communications wrote in an email to OU Daily Monday afternoon that it did not have a comment on Abedini’s detainment.”
November 24, 2025 at 11:59 PM
“Landis said he received an email instructing him to direct all inquiries about Abedini’s detainment to OU Marketing and Communications. OU Marketing and Communications wrote in an email to OU Daily Monday afternoon that it did not have a comment on Abedini’s detainment.”
Reposted by Will Smiley
Reposted by Will Smiley
This is the logical next step after Trump v US. If you won’t hold accountable the president, who has the world’s best lawyers, how can you put that burden on the rank-and-file? This line of thinking inevitably leads to recognizing a “just following orders” defense.
BLITZER: I want to be precise. Should members of the US military obey clearly illegal orders?
McCLAIN: You're asking an enlisted person for their opinion on what they think is legal. That's a pretty slippery slope. Follow your commander in chief. That's the oath that you took
(Not a no!)
McCLAIN: You're asking an enlisted person for their opinion on what they think is legal. That's a pretty slippery slope. Follow your commander in chief. That's the oath that you took
(Not a no!)
November 24, 2025 at 5:38 PM
This is the logical next step after Trump v US. If you won’t hold accountable the president, who has the world’s best lawyers, how can you put that burden on the rank-and-file? This line of thinking inevitably leads to recognizing a “just following orders” defense.
The Trump v US majority worried a president might hold back from ordering an action that’s necessary to protect the country for fear of prosecution. So he’s immune. But that just pushes the problem down onto every service member, who needs to weigh the risk of prosecution vs necessity of action...
Important aspect of the standard articulated in US v Calley & quoted here is that there is no defense of superior orders if the subordinate *knew* the order was unlawful.
Irregular lawyering in the admin (eg overriding SOUTHCOM SJA) & subsequent legal criticism ought to put officials on notice.
Irregular lawyering in the admin (eg overriding SOUTHCOM SJA) & subsequent legal criticism ought to put officials on notice.
“Trump has put the military in an impossible situation,” our columnist David French writes. “He’s making its most senior leaders complicit in his unlawful acts, and he’s burdening the consciences of soldiers who serve under his command.”
November 23, 2025 at 7:00 PM
The Trump v US majority worried a president might hold back from ordering an action that’s necessary to protect the country for fear of prosecution. So he’s immune. But that just pushes the problem down onto every service member, who needs to weigh the risk of prosecution vs necessity of action...
Reposted by Will Smiley
My review of LAUREN BENTON’s book on colonial ‘small wars’ just came out. Laurie does as convincingly global history as anyone in the history of law, tying wonderfully sculpted microhistories from various continents to a larger picture.
academic.oup.com/ejil/advance...
academic.oup.com/ejil/advance...
Lauren Benton. They Called It Peace: Worlds of Imperial Violence
With her new book, They Called It Peace, Lauren Benton has produced another immensely important and provocative study in her global work on law and empire.
academic.oup.com
November 23, 2025 at 3:28 PM
My review of LAUREN BENTON’s book on colonial ‘small wars’ just came out. Laurie does as convincingly global history as anyone in the history of law, tying wonderfully sculpted microhistories from various continents to a larger picture.
academic.oup.com/ejil/advance...
academic.oup.com/ejil/advance...
As a scholar of Abdülhamid I (the eighteenth-century sultan no one remembers, not the famous nineteenth-century autocrat), I can relate.
funniest thing for me abt rfk, funny and sad, is that whenever i'm driving and see signs for the RFK bridge my instinctive reaction is 'ahhh nahh fuck that dude'
November 22, 2025 at 2:41 PM
As a scholar of Abdülhamid I (the eighteenth-century sultan no one remembers, not the famous nineteenth-century autocrat), I can relate.
The YLS class of 2013 has embarrassed itself enough; now it’s 2014’s turn.
From what we have seen so far, Driscoll is far more incompetent than Witkoff. Moscow believes that Putin will easily convince Driscoll and his team to remove all points from Trump's plan that are embarrassing for Russia.
November 22, 2025 at 1:26 PM
The YLS class of 2013 has embarrassed itself enough; now it’s 2014’s turn.
Reposted by Will Smiley
Good pushback by Philippe Sands against John Bew's defeatist ad apologetic remarks
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Trump and his ilk imagine a world without international law – but they will not achieve it | Philippe Sands
History shows us that the creation of international rules and institutions is followed by their partial destruction, and a reconstruction that builds on what came before, says professor of law Philipp...
www.theguardian.com
November 21, 2025 at 5:04 PM
Good pushback by Philippe Sands against John Bew's defeatist ad apologetic remarks
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
Reposted by Will Smiley
In this new @usnews.com article, five law profs (including me) with vastly different views on most issues explain why colleges should reject Trump's "Compact" with higher ed, for both constitutional and policy reasons: www.usnews.com/opinion/arti...
www.usnews.com
November 20, 2025 at 9:47 PM
In this new @usnews.com article, five law profs (including me) with vastly different views on most issues explain why colleges should reject Trump's "Compact" with higher ed, for both constitutional and policy reasons: www.usnews.com/opinion/arti...
It's fun to see how Wikipedia gets better every year. For example, in my dissertation/book, I wrote about two Russian officers, Semyon Zorich and Francesco Zambeccari, whom the Ottomans captured in different wars. I couldn't really find much about them except Ottoman records on their captivity...
November 21, 2025 at 12:33 AM
It's fun to see how Wikipedia gets better every year. For example, in my dissertation/book, I wrote about two Russian officers, Semyon Zorich and Francesco Zambeccari, whom the Ottomans captured in different wars. I couldn't really find much about them except Ottoman records on their captivity...
Reposted by Will Smiley
Fascinating to think about the longterm consequences of this for social science. Might it lead to a reversal of the 'empirical turn' in economics and return to theory? A growth in popularity of in person qualitative research? Prioritisation of objective indicators in quant work?
new paper by Sean Westwood:
With current technology, it is impossible to tell whether survey respondents are real or bots. Among other things, makes it easy for bad actors to manipulate outcomes. No good news here for the future of online-based survey research
With current technology, it is impossible to tell whether survey respondents are real or bots. Among other things, makes it easy for bad actors to manipulate outcomes. No good news here for the future of online-based survey research
November 20, 2025 at 10:53 PM
Fascinating to think about the longterm consequences of this for social science. Might it lead to a reversal of the 'empirical turn' in economics and return to theory? A growth in popularity of in person qualitative research? Prioritisation of objective indicators in quant work?