About
I am a historian ofthe Modern Middle East, specializing in social histories of war in the Late Ottoman Empire and post-Ottoman continuities in law, society, and institutions in contemporary Turkey and the Arab East. I am currently an Assistant Professor of Global and Intercultural Studies at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where I teach courses on Middle East history and Global Studies. I currently serve as the the Ottoman History book review editor for Review of Middle East Studies.
My first book, Conscripting Breadwinner Soldiers in the Late Ottoman Empire: Family, Law & War, was published in 2026 with Edinburgh University Press. My scholarship has appeared in the International Journal of Middle East Studies and the Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association. The Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program, the Library of Congress Kluge Center Fellowship, and the American Research Institute in Turkey have provided support for my research.
My broader research and teaching interests lie at the intersection of gender studies, feminst political economy, critical security studies, and social histories of militarization, war, and migration in the Middle East. I bring an interdisciplinary background in Middle Eastern Studies and extensive experience living in the Arab world and Turkey to my teaching and research.
I received my Ph.D. in History with distinction from Georgetown University. I hold an M.A. with distinction in Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Manchester, and I received my B.A. in Middle Eastern Studies with honors from the American University in Cairo.
Books
Breadwinner Soldiers
My first book, Conscripting Breadwinner Soldiers in the Late Ottoman Empire: Family, Law & War (Edinburgh University Press, 2026), examines the gender and family dimensions of mobilization for the First World War and the conflicts that preceded it, addressing a pivotal moment in the modern history of the Middle East that has long awaited further study from bottom-up perspectives. Reading military laws, bureaucratic documents, life writings, Islamic court records, and pressmaterials in Ottoman Turkish from a feminist perspective, it arguesthat mobilization for World War I–and the broader history of militarization inthe Late Ottoman Empire–should be viewed as processes that worked through the (gendered) family. The book illuminates how gender, family, the body, and affect were imbricated withmilitarization and mobilization in practice, with a focus on everyday experience and how it shaped, and was shaped by wartime policy.
Elliptical Lives
My second book project, Elliptical Lives: Contingent Citizenship between the Ottoman and American Empires, is a study of the historical dynamics of family, social reproduction, and care that shaped migration between the Ottoman Empire and the United States between the 1880s and 1920s. Working with English,Ottoman Turkish and Arabic archival sources, this project aims to understand how social reproduction shaped historical global householding at the family level, and to trace how these experiences of migrants and their families made institutions, law, and policy during a period of momentous change.
Peer-Reviewed Articles
"A Prolonged Abrogation?"
Dannies, Kate and Stefan Hock. “A Prolonged Abrogation? The Capitulations, the 1917 Law of Family Rights and the Ottoman Quest for Sovereignty in World War I.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 52:2 (2020): 245-260.
"A Pensioned Gentleman"
Dannies, Kate. “‘A Pensioned Gentleman’: Women’s Agency and the Political Economy of Marriage in Istanbul duringWorld War I.” Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association 6:2 (Fall 2019): 13-31.
Teaching
Middle East History
I teach survey courses and upper-level seminars in history:
Middle East History 600-1800
Middle East History 1800-Present
Gender & Conflict in the Middle East
Global Studies
I teach introductory and advanced writing courses in Global Studies:
Introduction to International Studies
Problem Solving in International Studies
Disaster, Crisis, and Survival
Migration & Refugees
Gender Studies
I teach upper-level seminar courses and senior capstones in gender studies:
Gender & Population Policy
Gender & Conflict in the Middle East
Gallery
