This thesis examines late Ottoman discourses on the soul and emotions as reflected by a large corpus of psychological literature under the umbrella of ilm-i ahval-i ruh (the science of the states of the soul, psychology) in relation to the rise of the rhetoric concerning the 'new man' - an imaginary 'Ottoman individual' educated in 'new schools' to be in complete harmony with Ottoman modernization. It posits that the 'new man' was subjected to a process of design as a producing unit whether in possession of a soul or not, while the conceptual framework of the 'individual' was being formulated. The secondary literature on Ottoman modernization has illustrated intellectual efforts for designing the 'new man' in relation to the formation of national identity. In doing so it has focused on the process of indoctrination and the dissemination of normative accounts. Drawing on that literature, this thesis intends to complicate the picture and look beyond the normative accounts. By approaching the debate between materialism and spiritualism as a psychological argument and revolving the story around the metaphors of 'man as machine' and 'man as animal', it aims to display the influence of the scientific and technological changes that shaped the material as well as the intellectual culture these authors experienced. In an attempt to go beyond what lies beneath the national and religious underpinnings of the imagined 'new man', this thesis maintains a tight focus on the psychological writings of four intellectuals - all of whom gave serious thought to the debate about the soul: Abdullah Cevdet, Filibeli Ahmed Hilmi, Baha Tevfik, and Mustafa Şekip Tunç. By shifting the centre of focus of the rhetoric about the 'new man' from national or religious identity formation to the pressing concerns about economic and technological progress, it shows an Ottoman entanglement with science and technology and a deeper Ottoman inquiry into the conceptual framework of the individual. Accordingly it argues that the psychological literature on the soul and emotions bears testimony to the acute concern for how to integrate individuals into the frenzy of progressive discourses in the late Ottoman Empire. This concern constituted common ground among intellectuals from different backgrounds. Yet they held different understandings of the notion of progress and often gave different answers to deeper philosophical questions pertaining to the new man's soul, emotions, will, and relations with collective units. Such complexity demonstrates that multiple trajectories were possible before national identity formation took concrete forms in a much later context, and that transnational patterns of 'constructing the subjects' through psychological studies played an equally important role.

L'étude se focalise sur une période caractéristique de la fin de l'empire ottoman alors que l'administration urbaine était sujette à un processus de transformation d'une approche "traditionnelle" à une approche "moderne". De façon similaire, cette thèse se concentre sur une zone spécifique d'Istanbul marquée par l'étalement urbain de Pera, la partie occidentale de la ville. Le développement du "Secteur Nord de Pera" reposerait en grande partie sur l'évolution de l'administration urbaine qui a progressivement été mise en place autour d'une règlementation codifiée de l'ère Tanzimat. Comment l'étude de l'étalement urbain de Pera, en grande partie inhabité au milieu du 19ième siècle, révèlerait donc la matérialisation des "idéaux urbains" de l'État ottoman disposé à construire un système moderne d'administration urbaine et ce sous l'influence des minorités étrangère et non-musulmane toujours plus actives au sein de la vie socio-économique de la ville. Dans ce cadre, cette étude se concentre sur l'émergence et le développement du "Secteur Nord de Pera", à travers une analyse morphologique, en espérant clarifier les traits caractéristiques de la modernisation urbaine ottomane à travers ce domaine d'intérêt très spécifique. / This study concentrates on a distinctive period of the late ottoman era during which the urban administration was subject to a transformation process from a "traditional" approach into a "modern" one. Similarly, this thesis focuses on a distinctive zone of Istanbul representing the urban extension of Pera, the occidental part of the city. The development of "the Northern Sector of Pera" is expected to owe much to the evolution of the urban administration which was gradually being shaped around the codified regulations of the Tanzimat era. How then the study of the urban extension of Pera, largely uninhabited by the middle of the 19th century, would reflect the materialization of the "urban ideals" of the ottoman state who was willing to construct a modern system of urban administration and who was, doing this, under the influence of foreign and non-Muslim populations which were becoming more and more active on the socio-economic life of the city. In this framework, this study focuses on the emergence and development of "the Northern Sector of Pera" through a morphological analysis by hoping to shed light on the distinctive features of the ottoman urban modernization by this very specific field of interest.