Norman Itzkowitz was an American academic who was a professor of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. He was an Ottoman historian who brought perception of psychoanalysis into Near Eastern Studies. Itzkowitz was also the Master of Wilson College at Princeton from 1975 to 1989. While doing this, he assisted the students in developing leadership skills in running the social, cultural, and academic aspects of the college's life. Out of all of his awards, his most meaningful one was the Buitoni Scholarship in 1952. This enabled him to study at the University for Foreigners Perugia, where he gained cultural and academic experience. Itzkowitz published many books and articles on The Ottoman Empire and Near Eastern studies. Much of Itzkowitz's work is collaborative, he did much of his studies with Robert Roswell Palmer, Gordon Craig, Cyril Black, his Ottoman history mentor Lewis V. Thomas and psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Vamık Volkan.
National Psychological Association for Psychoanalysis, member-in-training, 1972–80
Family life
Norman Itzkowitz was born into a Jewish working-class family in New York City. His father ran a sewing machine in a factory for children's clothing. Norman was the youngest of three; he had a sister who is six years older and a brother who is three years older. Both his brother and sister have doctoral degrees. Norman married Leonore Krauss on June 13, 1954. He died at the age of 87 in January 2019.
Employment
Princeton University, Instructor, Departments of History and Oriental Studies, 1958–61
Assistant Professor, Oriental Studies 1961-66
Associate Professor, Near Eastern Studies 1966-73
Professor, Near Eastern Studies, 1973-
Master,Wilson College, 1975–1989
Visiting Appointments:
CCNY, Summer 1959
Teachers College, Columbia University, 1964
New York University, 1969; 1972; 1974; Summer, 1985
Cunard Lines, Lecturer, May 1991, Black Sea Cruise MS. Vistafiord, Genoa
The Crimea-Genoa Classical Cruises, lecturer on Black Sea Cruise, September, 1998
Princeton University Alumni College—Led a tour of Western and Southwestern Turkey entitled "Turkey:Crossroads of Civilizations", for thirty-two Princeton Alumni, last two weeks of June 1994.
SEABOURN SUN, lecturer on Baltic Sea Cruise, July,2000
Cunard Lines, QEII, lecturer on New York-Halifax and return Cruise, September 2000.
Awards, Honors, Fellowships
Varsity Letters in Fencing and Lacrosse, CCNY
Phi Beta Kappa, CCNY, 1952
Buitoni Scholarship, Study in Italy, CCNY, Summer 1952
HEW, Near East Central Grant for Study Abroad, 1964–65; 1969–70
SSRC, Travel Grant, 1969–70
Littauer Foundation Fellow, 1970; 1974
Center for International Studies Fellow, Summer 1978
Director, NEH Summer Seminar for Secondary and Elementary School Teachers, Summer 1983 on The Ottoman Legacy in the Modern Middle East
Director, NEH Summer Institute for Secondary and Elementary School Teachers, Summer 1986 on Islam: History, Culture, and Religion
Director, NEH Summer Institute for College Teachers, Summer 1987 on Insights into Ottoman Statecraft for College Teachers of European History
Director, NEH Summer Seminar for Secondary and Elementary School Teachers, Summer 1988 on The Impact of the Islamic Historical Experience on the Contemporary Near East
Director, NEH Summer Institute for College Teachers, Summer 1989 on The Moderniation of the Ottoman Empire: Tanzimat and the Eastern Question
Director, NEH Summer Institute for Secondary School Teachers, Summer 1990 on a Comparison Between the Imperial Institutions of the Ottoman Empire and Ming China
Director, NEH Summer Institute for College Teachers, Summer 1992 on a Comparison Between the Imperial Institutions of the Ottoman Empire and Ming China
Representative publications
Books
Elementary Turkish, by Lewis V. Thomas, edited and revised by Norman Itzkowitz,. Reprinted in revised edition by Dover Press, New York, 1985.
Mübadele: An Ottoman-Russian Exchange of Ambassadors,,.
A Study of Naima, by Lewis V. Thomas, edited by Norman Itzkowitz,.
The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age, by Halil Inalcik, trans. by Norman Itzkowitz and Colin Imber,.
Ottoman Empire and Islamic Tradition,. Reprinted by the University of Chicago Press, 1980. Turkish trans. Osmanlı İmparatorluğu ve İslami Gelenek, Çıdam Yayınları, 1989. Chinese translation, Chinese University of Kong, 1987.
Psychological Dimensions of Near Eastern Studies, edited by L. Carl Brown and Norman Itzkowitz,.
The Immortal Atatürk: A Psychobiography,,.
Modernization in the Middle East: The Ottoman Empire and its Afro-Asian Successors, ed. Cyril E. Black and L. Carl Brown,.
Turks and Greeks: Neighbours in Conflict with Vamık Volkan,. Turkish translation, Bağlam Press, 1998.
Richard Nixon: A Psychobiography, with Vamık Volkan and Andrew Dod,.
The Balkans ,.
Articles
"Eighteenth-Century Ottoman Realties", Studia Islamica, fas. 16,, pp. 73–94.
"Health, Education and Welfare—Ottoman Style", Midway, Vol., No. 3,, pp. 59–68.
"Kimsiniz Bey Efendi, or a Look at Tanzimat through Namier-colored Glasses", Near East Round Table, ed., R. Bayly Winder, pp. 41–52.
"The End of the Ottoman Empire", History of the First World War, Vol. 8, No. 8, pp. 3351–3355
"The Office of Şeyh ül-Islâm and Tanzimat: A Prosopographic Enquiry",, Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 93–101
"Ankara", Encyclopædia Britannica, I, 927–34.
"The Ottoman Empire", The World of Islam, ed. Bernard Lewis,, pp. 273–300.
"Men and Ideas in the Eighteenth- Century Ottoman Empire", Studies in Eighteenth-Century Islamic History, ed. By Thomas Naff and Roger Owen,, pp. 15–26.
"The Problem of Perspectives", Imperial Legacy, ed. by L. Carl Brown,, pp. 18–30.
"Turkish and Greek Identities and a Comparison Between Them", Proceedings of the First International Congress on Cypriot Studies, ed. by Emel Doğramacı, William Haney, Güray König, pp. 179–216.
Long articles for Encarta on "The Ottoman Empire", "The Spread of Islam", "Istanbul"
