Seyfi Kenan, Ph.D. (2003), Columbia University, is Professor of Educational Philosophy and History at Marmara University. He has published books and articles on intellectual history and educational modernization including Selim III and His Era from Ancien Régime to New Order (İSAM, 2010).Selçuk Akşin Somel, Ph.D. (1993), Bamberg University, teaches the History Programme at Sabancı University. His research interests include Ottoman education, women and gender, and peripheral populations. He is the author of The Modernization of Public Education in the Ottoman Empire (1839-1908). Islamization, Autocracy and Discipline (Brill, 2001).