Camille Cole

- About
- Education
- Awards & Honors
- Research
Biography
I am a historian of capitalism, law, and empire in the modern Middle East and late Ottoman Empire. I earned my PhD in history from Yale University, and held a postdoctoral fellowship at Jesus College, Cambridge before coming to Illinois State.
In addition to my own research, I collaborate on the digital humanities projects Svoboda Diaries Project (http://www.svobodadiariesproject.org/) and Open Gulf (https://opengulf.github.io//). Students interested in working with me on either project should be in touch!
Current Courses
HIS 497.001 Research in History
HIS 105.001 World History
HIS 105.002 World History
HIS 205.001 Work, Money, Power: Global Histories of Capitalism
HIS 105.003 World History
HIS 105.004 World History
Teaching Interests & Areas
world history, economic history, Middle East history
Research Interests & Areas
My first book project looks at how wealthy people in late Ottoman Iraq and the Persian Gulf used new legal and bureaucratic tools to accumulate capital and land; and how they used the resulting conflicts to talk about identity and belonging in new ways.
My second project examines resource and infrastructural concessions in the Ottoman Middle East and post-independence Latin America.
I have written more broadly on histories of technology, capital, state expansion, and archives in the late Ottoman Gulf.