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Keith David Watenpaugh
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Associate Professor, Religious Studies B.A. (with Honors), University of Washington, History and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations |
Keith David Watenpaugh is a historian and Associate Professor of Modern Islam, Human Rights & Peace who teaches in the Religious Studies program. Trained at UCLA, he has lived and conducted research in Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, and Iraq.
Princeton University Press published his first book Being Modern in the Middle East: Revolution, Nationalism, Colonialism and the Arab Middle Class and he has written articles for the American Historical Review, the International Journal of Middle East Studies, Social History, and Middle East Report. His work has been translated into Arabic, French, German and Persian.
He is currently finishing the book, Bread from Stones: The Middle East and the Making of Modern Humanitarianism.
Recently he was the Jennings Randolph Senior Fellow in International Peace at the United States Institute of Peace (2008-2009). (Link)
He also serves on the editorial board of the International Journal of Middle East Studies. (Link)
He has received several noteworthy grants including the CIEE Fulbright, Fulbright-Hays, Social Science Research Council, Will Rogers and the American Academic Research Institute in Iraq fellowships; he was the Andrew W. Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow in Middle East Studies at Williams College (1998-2000), a Visiting Scholar at Harvard's Center of Middle East Studies (2004), and in 2005-2006 he was the George S. and Dolores Dore Eccles Distinguished Visiting Fellow in Democracy and Diversity at the Tanner Humanities Center, Univ. of Utah. Dr. Watenpaugh was a finalist for the Academic Senate's Distinguished Teaching Award, invited to teach in the Integrated Studies Program and received a UC Davis Washington Program Fellowship.
At Davis, Dr. Watenpaugh teaches a variety of courses on Islam, genocide, human rights, fundamentalism and the larger issues raised by the war in Iraq. He is currently coordinating efforts to introduce an Interdisciplinary Minor in Human Rights.
He is one of the only American academics to have conducted research in Iraq both before and after the 2003 US-led invasion and occupation. In June 2003 he traveled to Iraq leading the first independent assessment of Baghdad's libraries, research centers and universities. His team's efforts took the form of the widely-used report, “Opening the Doors: Intellectual Life and Academic Conditions in Post-War Baghdad.” He served on the Middle East Studies Association's Committee on Academic Freedom in the Middle East and North Africa (2003-2006), and has worked with the Scholars at Risk program on behalf of Iraqi academic refugees as well as the University of California Initiative on Human Rights.
A father of twins, he is an avid fly fisherman and bicyclist, enjoys working in his garden and growing California native species.
Publications
Book
Being Modern in the Middle East: Revolution, Nationalism, Colonialism, and the Arab Middle Class, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006. (Read the First Chapter) [pdf]
Recent Reviews:
- Sanjay Joshi, Comparative Studies in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia 29:2 (2009) [pdf]
- Nathan Goodley, Itinerario. 32:1 (2008) [pdf]
- Kimberly Katz, Journal of Urban History, April 2008 [pdf]
- Eyal Zizsser, H-Levant, January 2008
- Akram Khater, Social History, May 2007 [pdf]
- Donald Reid, International History Review, March 2007 [pdf]
- Uri Ram, Middle East Journal, Winter 2007 [pdf]
- James Jankowski, Historian, Fall 2007 [pdf]
- Kevin Martin, Bulletin of the Syrian Studies Association, Fall 2006 [pdf]
- Sherene Seikaly, Arab Studies Journal, Fall 2006 [pdf]
Also See:
Dr. Watenpaugh discusses his book with UCD reporter Paul Pfotenhauer
Middle East Needs Strong Middle Class for Social Change
Selected Juried Journal Articles and Book Chapters
"'A pious wish devoid of all practicability:' Interwar Humanitarianism, The League of Nations and the Rescue of Trafficked Women and Children in the Eastern Mediterranean, 1920-1927," American Historical Review, 115:4 (October 2010).
"Being Middle Class and Being Arab: Sectarian Dilemmas and Middle-class Modernity in the Arab Middle East (1908-1936)" forthcoming in "We Shall Be All:" Toward a Global History of the Middle Class, Barbara Weinstein and A Ricardo Lopez, eds. (Durham: Duke University Press, forthcoming)
"Scouting in the Interwar Arab Middle East; Youth, Colonialism and the Problem of Middle-Class Modernity." Scouting Frontiers: Youth and the Scout Movement’s First Century. Nelson R. Block and Tammy Proctor, editors. (Cambridge, 2009)
"The Uncomfortable Inhabitants of French Colonial Modernity: Mandate Syria's Communities of Collaboration (1920-1946)," in Hafid Gafaïti, Patricia Lorcin, and David Troyansky (eds.), Transnational Spaces and Identities in the Francophone World (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2007).
"Cleansing the Cosmopolitan City: Historicism, Journalism and the Arab Nation in the Post-Ottoman Eastern Mediterranean,” Social History 30:1 (2005)
"Colonial Cooperation and the Survivors' Bargain - The Post-Genocide Armenian Community of Syria under French Mandate," in The British and French Mandates in Comparative Perspective, Peter Sluglett et al., eds., (Leiden: Brill, 2004) 597-622.
"Middle-class Modernity and the Persistence of the Politics of Notables in Syria under French Rule," The International Journal of Middle East Studies, 35 (2003). 257-286.
"Steel Shirts, White Badges and the last Qabaday: Fascist Forms and the Transformation of Urban Violence in French Mandate Syria” in France, Syrie et Liban, 1918-1846 - les dynamiques et les ambiguïtés de la relation mandataire, Nadine Méouchy, ed., (Damascus: Institut Français d'Études Arabes de Damas Press, 2003) 325-347.
"Creating Phantoms: Zaki al-Arsuzi, The Alexandretta Crisis and the Formation of Modern Arab Nationalism in Syria," in The International Journal of Middle East Studies, 28 (1996), 363-389.
Recent Writings on Iraq
Death of Iraq's middle class: The country's best and brightest have fled, demolishing hope for the country's future [pdf] - Chicago Sun Times 1/25/2007
Middle East Brain Drain, National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation - 11/22/2006
Outrage over Haditha could explode: The alleged slaughter of civilians in Iraq reminds one historian of an ugly chapter in British history [pdf] - Chicago Sun-Times 6/11/2006
The coming civil war in Iraq - Salt Lake City Tribune 2/24/2006
Between Saddam and the American Occupation: Iraq's Academic Community Struggles for Autonomy - Academe: Bulletin of the American Assn. of University Professors, 90:5 (September-October 2004) 18-24.
Opening the Doors One Year Later: Reflections on the Iraq War and the Middle East Studies Community - Bulletin of the Middle East Studies Association, 38:1 (Summer 2004) 16-23.
A Fragile Glasnost on the Tigris Middle East Report, 228: Fall 2003
With Edouard Méténier, Jens Hanssen and Hala Fattah, Opening the Doors: Academic Conditions and Intellectual Life in Post-War Baghdad The Iraqi Observatory (15 July 2003)
The Guiding Principles and the U.S. "Mandate" for Iraq: 20th Century Colonialism and America's New Empire Logos (Winter: 2003)
Recent Conference Presentations
“America's Wards: Orphan Survivors of the Armenian Genocide and the Origins of American Humanitarian Exceptionalism (1920-1925)” IICAS, UC San Diego, 1/14/2010
"The Paradox of Humanitarianism: The League of Nations' Efforts to Rescue Trafficked Women and Children in the Middle East, 1920-1927, Department of History, UC Santa Barbara, 11/9/2009
"Interwar Humanitarianism, Refugee Sectarianism and ‘Soft’ Ethnic Cleansing: The League of Nations' Response to the Assyrian ‘Tragedy’ (1933-1940)," Annual Meeting, Middle East Studies Association, Boston, 11/23/2009.
"Mandate Humanitarianism and the Management of the Minority Refugee," Minorities in the Middle East, Department and Program in Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University 5/15/2009.
"'A Pious Wish Devoid of All Practicability': The League of Nations’ Eastern Mediterranean Rescue Movement and the Paradox of Interwar Humanitarianism," Histories of Humanitarianism, Columbia Center for International History and Consortium for Intellectual and Cultural History, Columbia University, 4/3/2009
“The League of Nations and the Origins of Armenian Genocide Denial,” American University of Armenia, 4/28/2008
"The Problem of Being Modern in the Middle East," Interdisciplinary Lecture Series, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, UC Berkeley, 5/3/2007
“Defending Higher Education in Iraq” Scholars at Risk Biennial Symposium Human Rights and Academic Repression, University of San Francisco, 4/14/2007
"The Generation of 1900 in Rashid Ali al-Kaylani's Baghdad (1940-1941): Reassessing the Iraqi Interregnum and Early Pan-Arabist Thought,” Iraq: Notions of Self and the Other since the Late-Ottoman Era, Royal Institute for Inter-Faith Studies (RIIFS) Amman, Jordan, 1/7/2005
"Killing Intellectuals and Violence against Publics in post-War Iraq," Thematic Conversation: "Rebuilding Public Spheres in Iraq," Annual Meeting, Middle East Studies Association, San Francisco, 11/21/2004
"Rebuilding Iraq’s Academic Community and the Challenges of Civil Society in Civil War," Center for Arab and Islamic Studies, Villanova University, Philadelphia, 9/29/2004
"Journalism, Media and the Culture of the American Occupation in Post-Baathist Iraq," 3rd International Conference on the History of Journalism in the Middle East, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus, 5/25/2004
"Opportunities and Challenges for Undergraduate International Studies Programs in Iraq and the Arab World" Undergraduate Title-VI Directors' Session, concurrent with the Annual Meeting, International Studies Association, Montreal, Quebec, 3/18/2004
"Whose Art Really Matters in Post-War Iraq: Islamic and Ottoman Architecture and the Culture of the American Occupation," Special Advocacy Session: Cultural Heritage in Time of War, Annual Meeting, College Art Association, Seattle, 2/20/2004
Thoughts on Teaching and Learning
POV @ DHI, "A University is Like a University"
Faculty Mentoring Faculty Presentation, Winter 2010
"Really Awful Things: Reflections on Teaching Genocide, Fundamentalism and Iraq"
Virginia Tech's Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Fall 2008
"Learning from Genocide"
Professor Watenpaugh and students Mohammed and Seif at the Mosque of Davis, 2/08
Links