Occupation Academic and Scholar | Nationality Canadian | |
 | ||
Born August 16, 1970 (age 46) ( 1970-08-16 ) Books The Shiites of Lebanon Under Ottoman Rule, 1516–1788 | ||
Stefan Winter is a Canadian historian specialising in the study of Ottoman Syria. His research revolves around Ottoman administrative policies toward the Shi‘i and ‘Alawi communities as well as Bedouin and Kurdish principalities in northern Syria and southern Anatolia, and he takes a generally Marxian approach to show how the co-optation or creation of so-called “tribal” elites by the Ottoman state authorities and their economic expansion under the twin impulse of European colonialism and Ottoman administrative reform, rather than their essential sectarian or ethnic identities, determined these groups’ fate in the early modern period. His first book, The Shiites of Lebanon under Ottoman Rule, 1516-1788, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2010; his second book, A History of the ‘Alawis: From Medieval Syria to the Turkish Republic, 947-1938 is due to be published by Princeton University Press in 2016. An edited volume entitled Requiem for Ottoman Aleppo/Alep à l’époque ottomane: un requiem is also in preparation.
Contents
Education
Born into a German-speaking family established in Québec since 1970, Stefan Winter completed his school education with a Diplôme d’études collégiales (DEC) in Commerce at CÉGEP St.-Lawrence in Sainte-Foy before studying at the University of Toronto (BA, Middle East and Islamic Studies, 1994), Universität Freiburg, Universität Erlangen (MA, Political Science, 1996), the Institut français d’études arabes in Damascus, Bilkent University in Ankara, and the University of Chicago (PhD, History, 2002). His thesis entitled The Shiite Emirates of Ottoman Syria, Mid-17th—Mid-18th Century was awarded the prize for best doctoral dissertation by the Syrian Studies Association in 2002.
Teaching
Stefan Winter has been professor of history (professeur régulier, Département d’histoire) at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM) since 2004. He also serves as director of the Groupe d’études turques et ottomanes (GÉTO). He previously taught at the University of Erfurt (2002-2003), and has been invited professor (Directeur d’études invité) at both the École pratique des hautes études (EPHE) and the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in Paris in 2007 and 2012, respectively. In 2014-15 he was associate researcher at the History Department of Bilkent University in Ankara.