1. Reforming the Ottoman State: State Narratives in the Struggle for Legitimacy • Vasfiye Toprak, University of Virginia.

2. Through the Red Cross to the Near East Relief: American Humanitarian Institution-Building in the late Ottoman Empire • N. Yasemin Bavbek, Brown University.

3. Elite Networks, Cultural Fluency, and Epistemic Authority in the Making of Regime Change in Iraq • Wisam Alshaibi, UCLA.