Friday, August 29, 2008
Over 100 Academic Citations!!!
Checking on Google Books and Google Scholar today I noticed a number of new scholarly citations of my work. Most of them were in languages other than English. In particular a large number were in German, a language I can read. But, others were in Romanian, French, Polish and Turkish, languages I can not read. A few of them were even in English. Unfortunately, almost all of these newly found sources only have very small snippets available on the Internet. So it is impossible for me to get the context of these citations. Nevertheless, my goal of being cited by other scholars in at least 100 publications has now been fulfilled.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
New Publication Coming Soon.
Cynthia J. Buckley, Blair A. Ruble and Erin Trouth Hofmann, eds., Migration, Homeland, and Belonging in Eurasia (Washington DC and Baltimore: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and John Hopkins University Press, 2008) can now be ordered online. For a description of the book and table of contents go here. I wrote chapter seven, "The Loss, Retention and Reacquisition of Social Capital by Special Settlers in the USSR, 1941-1960." The book cover looks rather nice.
Monday, August 25, 2008
The First Day of Classes for Fall 2008
The first day of classes went well. This semester in addition to teaching four courses in ICP I am also teaching a course in American Studies. It is the first time I have taught a course dealing with US history.
I also got some gifts from one of my Turkmen students today. For which I am very grateful. Maksat gave me a bunch of cool Turkmen gear. He gave me a hat, a necklace, a bracelet and some feet warmers. So all day I have been walking around dressed like a Turkmen. People kept asking who "Turkmenized" me.
I also got some gifts from one of my Turkmen students today. For which I am very grateful. Maksat gave me a bunch of cool Turkmen gear. He gave me a hat, a necklace, a bracelet and some feet warmers. So all day I have been walking around dressed like a Turkmen. People kept asking who "Turkmenized" me.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
American Society Syllabus
American Society
American Studies 260
3 Credits
American University of Central Asia
Fall Semester 2008
J. Otto Pohl, Ph.D.
Meeting Time: Monday room 225 and Thursday 312 at 8:00
Course Description: This course will examine the ethnic diversity of the United States within the historical context of colonization and immigration. The course will start with an examination of the core Anglo-Saxon or WASP ethnicity in the US. It will then deal with Native Americans, immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe including the Russian Empire and their descendants, Mexican Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans and finally Arab Americans.
Requirements: This course will consist of lectures, class discussion, short writing assignments, an oral report and a research paper. Students will have to write two short reflection papers between 600 and 800 words. The first one should be on differences between the initial British settlers and later European immigrants. The second one should be on the differences between European immigrants and later immigrants from either Latin America, Asia or the Middle East. Finally, students will be required to write a 1500 to 2000 word research paper on the history of one specific ethnic group in the US. Prior to submitting the paper, students will be required to give a short oral presentation on their chosen subject followed by a question and answer session. Late papers will lose one letter grade for each day they are late. Students must come to class on time. Being more than fifteen minutes late will count as an absence. Students will lose one letter grade after four unexcused absences and fail the course after seven. Written proof of an emergency from a doctor or other appropriate authority is required for an absence to be excused. No mobile phones are to be visible during class. They are to be out of sight and turned off. I will eject any student from class that has a visible cell phone or whose cell phone rings during class. This will count as an unexcused absence. Finally, I have a significant hearing loss and may have to ask people to repeat their questions or statements from time to time. You can minimize this by speaking loudly and clearly. This syllabus is tentative and subject to change.
Readings: All the readings are contained in the course packet.
Plagiarism Policy: Policy on Plagiarism and Citations: I have a zero tolerance policy regarding plagiarism. If I catch any student plagiarizing once I will fail them from the course and recommend to the chairman of the ICP department that they be expelled from the program. Plagiarism includes any verbatim copying of from a source without using quotation marks or setting the text up as an indented single spaced block quotation. If I find that more than four words in a row in your paper show up in the same order in a Google search and you do not have the words in quotation marks or set up as a block quotation I will fail you. Putting a footnote, endnote or other citation after the copied words without the quotation marks or block quotation form is still plagiarism, you are claiming to have paraphrased verbatim text, and you will still receive an F for the course and be recommended for expulsion from ICP. Taking text from a source without citing it and rearranging the words so that it does not show up in a verbatim Google search is also plagiarism. I will also do Google searches to see if you have taken text and merely rearranged the words. You must either paraphrase the sentence by putting it completely in your own words and citing it with the proper footnote, endnote or in text citation or quote the actual text verbatim complete with the proper citation. Completely paraphrasing sentences in your own words, but neglecting to cite the source of the information is also plagiarism. All information that would not be known to the average person on the street with no university education must be cited. When in doubt always cite a legitimate source. Wikipedia is not a legitimate source. Books published by university presses and academic journal articles found on JSTOR are legitimate sources. Other sources may or may not be legitimate. If you have questions about whether a particular source is legitimate you can ask me. Using Wikipedia or other illegitimate sources will result in a reduction of one letter grade for each citation in a paper.
Grading:
Class participation – 30%
Two reflection papers – 30% (15% each)
Oral report on research paper – 10%
Written version of research paper – 30%
Grading Scale:
100-96 = A
95-91 = A-
90-86 = B+
85-81 = B
80-76 = B-
75-71 = C+
70-66 = C
65-61 = C-
60-56 = D+
55-51 = D
50-46 = D-
45 and lower = F
Class Schedule:
Week One: Introduction to Course and Review of Syllabus
Week Two and Three: Is there an American Ethnicity?
Eric Kaufmann, “Ethnic or Civic Nation? Theorizing the American Case”, pp. 1-45.
Week Four: Native Americans
William H. Lyon, “The Navajos in the Anglo-American Historical Imagination, 1807-1870,” Ethnohistory, Vol. 43, No. 3 (Summer 1996), 483-509.
Week Five: Eastern and Southern European Immigrants and their Descendants
John A. Kromkowski, “Eastern and Southern European Immigrants: Expectations, Reality, and a New Agenda,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 487, (Sep. 1986), pp. 57-78.
Week Six: Other European Immigrants: The German Diaspora from Russia
Timothy Kloberdanz, “The Volga Germans in Old Russia and in Western North America: Their Changing World View,” Anthropological Quarterly. Vol. 48, No. 4 (Oct. 1975), pp. 209-222. First reflection paper due on Thursday.
Week Seven and Eight: Mexicans and Mexican Americans in the US
Gustavo Cano and Alexandra Delano, “The Mexican Government and Organised Mexican Immigrants in the United States: A Historical Analysis of Political Transnationalism (1848-2005), Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Vol. 33, No. 5 (July 2005), pp. 695-725.
Week Nine: Fall Break
Week Ten: African Americans
Jacqueline S. Mattis, “Religion and African American Political Life,” Political Psychology, Vol. 22, No. 2 (June 2001), pp. 263-278.
Week Eleven: Asian Americans
Helen Zia, “Surrogate Slaves to American Dreamers,” (Chapter 2) in Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People (New York: FSG, 2000), pp. 21-52.
Week Twelve: Arab Americans
Elias T. Nigam, “Arab Americans: Migration, Socioeconomic and Demographic Characteristics,” International Migration Review, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Autumn 1986), 629-649. Second reflection paper due on Thursday.
Week Thirteen, Fourteen and Fifteen: Student Oral Presentations
Week Sixteen: Final Remarks and Research Paper Due.
American Studies 260
3 Credits
American University of Central Asia
Fall Semester 2008
J. Otto Pohl, Ph.D.
Meeting Time: Monday room 225 and Thursday 312 at 8:00
Course Description: This course will examine the ethnic diversity of the United States within the historical context of colonization and immigration. The course will start with an examination of the core Anglo-Saxon or WASP ethnicity in the US. It will then deal with Native Americans, immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe including the Russian Empire and their descendants, Mexican Americans, African Americans, Asian Americans and finally Arab Americans.
Requirements: This course will consist of lectures, class discussion, short writing assignments, an oral report and a research paper. Students will have to write two short reflection papers between 600 and 800 words. The first one should be on differences between the initial British settlers and later European immigrants. The second one should be on the differences between European immigrants and later immigrants from either Latin America, Asia or the Middle East. Finally, students will be required to write a 1500 to 2000 word research paper on the history of one specific ethnic group in the US. Prior to submitting the paper, students will be required to give a short oral presentation on their chosen subject followed by a question and answer session. Late papers will lose one letter grade for each day they are late. Students must come to class on time. Being more than fifteen minutes late will count as an absence. Students will lose one letter grade after four unexcused absences and fail the course after seven. Written proof of an emergency from a doctor or other appropriate authority is required for an absence to be excused. No mobile phones are to be visible during class. They are to be out of sight and turned off. I will eject any student from class that has a visible cell phone or whose cell phone rings during class. This will count as an unexcused absence. Finally, I have a significant hearing loss and may have to ask people to repeat their questions or statements from time to time. You can minimize this by speaking loudly and clearly. This syllabus is tentative and subject to change.
Readings: All the readings are contained in the course packet.
Plagiarism Policy: Policy on Plagiarism and Citations: I have a zero tolerance policy regarding plagiarism. If I catch any student plagiarizing once I will fail them from the course and recommend to the chairman of the ICP department that they be expelled from the program. Plagiarism includes any verbatim copying of from a source without using quotation marks or setting the text up as an indented single spaced block quotation. If I find that more than four words in a row in your paper show up in the same order in a Google search and you do not have the words in quotation marks or set up as a block quotation I will fail you. Putting a footnote, endnote or other citation after the copied words without the quotation marks or block quotation form is still plagiarism, you are claiming to have paraphrased verbatim text, and you will still receive an F for the course and be recommended for expulsion from ICP. Taking text from a source without citing it and rearranging the words so that it does not show up in a verbatim Google search is also plagiarism. I will also do Google searches to see if you have taken text and merely rearranged the words. You must either paraphrase the sentence by putting it completely in your own words and citing it with the proper footnote, endnote or in text citation or quote the actual text verbatim complete with the proper citation. Completely paraphrasing sentences in your own words, but neglecting to cite the source of the information is also plagiarism. All information that would not be known to the average person on the street with no university education must be cited. When in doubt always cite a legitimate source. Wikipedia is not a legitimate source. Books published by university presses and academic journal articles found on JSTOR are legitimate sources. Other sources may or may not be legitimate. If you have questions about whether a particular source is legitimate you can ask me. Using Wikipedia or other illegitimate sources will result in a reduction of one letter grade for each citation in a paper.
Grading:
Class participation – 30%
Two reflection papers – 30% (15% each)
Oral report on research paper – 10%
Written version of research paper – 30%
Grading Scale:
100-96 = A
95-91 = A-
90-86 = B+
85-81 = B
80-76 = B-
75-71 = C+
70-66 = C
65-61 = C-
60-56 = D+
55-51 = D
50-46 = D-
45 and lower = F
Class Schedule:
Week One: Introduction to Course and Review of Syllabus
Week Two and Three: Is there an American Ethnicity?
Eric Kaufmann, “Ethnic or Civic Nation? Theorizing the American Case”, pp. 1-45.
Week Four: Native Americans
William H. Lyon, “The Navajos in the Anglo-American Historical Imagination, 1807-1870,” Ethnohistory, Vol. 43, No. 3 (Summer 1996), 483-509.
Week Five: Eastern and Southern European Immigrants and their Descendants
John A. Kromkowski, “Eastern and Southern European Immigrants: Expectations, Reality, and a New Agenda,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 487, (Sep. 1986), pp. 57-78.
Week Six: Other European Immigrants: The German Diaspora from Russia
Timothy Kloberdanz, “The Volga Germans in Old Russia and in Western North America: Their Changing World View,” Anthropological Quarterly. Vol. 48, No. 4 (Oct. 1975), pp. 209-222. First reflection paper due on Thursday.
Week Seven and Eight: Mexicans and Mexican Americans in the US
Gustavo Cano and Alexandra Delano, “The Mexican Government and Organised Mexican Immigrants in the United States: A Historical Analysis of Political Transnationalism (1848-2005), Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Vol. 33, No. 5 (July 2005), pp. 695-725.
Week Nine: Fall Break
Week Ten: African Americans
Jacqueline S. Mattis, “Religion and African American Political Life,” Political Psychology, Vol. 22, No. 2 (June 2001), pp. 263-278.
Week Eleven: Asian Americans
Helen Zia, “Surrogate Slaves to American Dreamers,” (Chapter 2) in Asian American Dreams: The Emergence of an American People (New York: FSG, 2000), pp. 21-52.
Week Twelve: Arab Americans
Elias T. Nigam, “Arab Americans: Migration, Socioeconomic and Demographic Characteristics,” International Migration Review, Vol. 20, No. 3 (Autumn 1986), 629-649. Second reflection paper due on Thursday.
Week Thirteen, Fourteen and Fifteen: Student Oral Presentations
Week Sixteen: Final Remarks and Research Paper Due.
Friday, August 22, 2008
Syllabus for Politics of the Middle East
Politics of the Middle East
ICP 224
International and Comparative Politics
American University of Central Asia
Fall Semester 2008
J. Otto Pohl, Ph.D.
And
Cholpon Chotaeva, Doctor of History
Meeting Time: Tuesday room 308 and Thursday CH 2 at 2:10
Course Description: This course will cover modern political developments in the Arab states, Israel/Palestine, Turkey and Iran since the First World War. In particular the course will focus on the Arab-Israeli conflict with an emphasis on the central role played by Palestinian resistance to Zionist ethnic cleansing and colonization. By way of historical precedent the course will cover the successful Algerian Revolution against the French. It will also cover the rise of various forms of nationalism in Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. The course will then contrast the political developments in these Arab states with those in Turkey in Iran. Finally, the class will conclude with a discussion of the current war in Iraq.
Requirements: The course will consist of assigned readings, lectures, discussion, two short writing assignments, an oral report and a research paper. There will be two short reflection papers of 600 to 800 words. The first one should be on the development of nationalism in an Arab state. The second one should be on how the development of nationalism in either Turkey or Iran differed from the Arab states. Students will also have to complete a 1500 to 2000 word research paper on some aspect of either the Arab-Israeli conflict or the war in Iraq. The paper is due the last week of class. In the three weeks prior to this deadline each student will be required to give a short oral presentation on the subject of their paper followed by a short question and answer session. Late papers will lose one letter grade for each day they are late. Students must come to class on time. Being more than fifteen minutes late will count as an absence. Students will lose one letter grade after four unexcused absences and fail the course after seven. Written proof of an emergency from a doctor or other appropriate authority is required for an absence to be excused. No mobile phones are to be visible during class. They are to be out of sight and turned off. I will eject any student from class that has a visible cell phone or whose cell phone rings during class. This will count as an unexcused absence. Finally, I (Dr. Pohl) have a significant hearing loss and may have to ask people to repeat their questions or statements from time to time. You can minimize this by speaking loudly and clearly. This syllabus is tentative and subject to change.
Readings: All the required readings are contained in the course packet.
Plagiarism Policy: Policy on Plagiarism and Citations: I have a zero tolerance policy regarding plagiarism. If I catch any student plagiarizing once I will fail them from the course and recommend to the chairman of the ICP department that they be expelled from the program. Plagiarism includes any verbatim copying of from a source without using quotation marks or setting the text up as an indented single spaced block quotation. If I find that more than four words in a row in your paper show up in the same order in a Google search and you do not have the words in quotation marks or set up as a block quotation I will fail you. Putting a footnote, end note or other citation after the copied words without the quotation marks or block quotation form is still plagiarism, you are claiming to have paraphrased verbatim text, and you will still receive an F for the course and be recommended for expulsion from ICP. Taking text from a source without citing it and rearranging the words so that it does not show up in a verbatim Google search is also plagiarism. I will also do Google searches to see if you have taken text and merely rearranged the words. You must either paraphrase the sentence by putting it completely in your own words and citing it with the proper footnote, end note or in text citation or quote the actual text verbatim complete with the proper citation. Completely paraphrasing sentences in your own words, but neglecting to cite the source of the information is also plagiarism. All information that would not be known to the average person on the street with no university education must be cited. When in doubt always cite a legitimate source. Wikipedia is not a legitimate source. Books published by university presses and academic journal articles found on JSTOR are legitimate sources. Other sources may or may not be legitimate. If you have questions about whether a particular source is legitimate you can ask me. Using Wikipedia or other illegitimate sources will result in a reduction of one letter grade for each citation in a paper.
Grading:
Class participation – 20%
Two reflection papers – 40% (20% each)
Oral report on research paper – 10%
Written version of research paper- 30%
Grading Scale:
100-96 = A
95-91 = A-
90-86 = B+
85-81 = B
80-76 = B-
75-71 = C+
70-66 = C
65-61 = C-
60-56 = D+
55-51 = D
50-46 = D-
45 and lower = F
Class Schedule:
Week One: Introduction to Course and Review of Syllabus
Week Two: The Mandate Period
Hourani, Albert “The Climax of European Power (1914-1939)” in A History of the Arab Peoples (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1991), pp. 315-332 and Andersen, Roy R., Seibert, Robert F., and Wagner, Jon G., “The Rise of the State System: 1914-1950” in Politics and Change in the Middle East: Sources of Conflict and Accommodation (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1982), pp. 74-93.
Week Three: The 1948 War and the Lasting Legacy of the Palestinian Refugees
Esber, Rosemarie M. “Rewriting the History of 1948: The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Question Revisited,” Holy Land Studies, vol. 4, no. 1 (2005), pp. 55-72, Alshaibi, Sama, “Memory Work in the Palestinian Diaspora,” Frontiers, Vol. 27, No. 2 (2006), pp. 30-53 and Khalidi, Rashid, “Observations on the Right of Return,” Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Winter 1992), pp. 29-40.
Week Four: The Algerian Revolution
Fanon, Frantz, “The Pitfalls of National Consciousness” in The Wretched of the Earth (New York: Grove Press, 1965), pp. 148-205 and Gallagher, Nancy, “Lessons from the Algerian War of Independence,” Middle East Report, No. 225 (Winter 2002), pp. 44-49.
Week Five: Egypt under Nasser
Cleveland, William, “The Middle East in the Age of Nasser: The Egyptian Base” (Chapter 15) in A History of the Modern Middle East, (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994), pp. 284-303.
Week Six: Political Islam
Milton-Edwards, Beverly, “Past, Present and Future Politics: Political Islam” (Chapter 5) in Contemporary Politics in the Middle East (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2006), pp. 134-158.
Week Seven: Nationalism in the Arab East
Devlin, John, “The Baath Party: Rise and Metamorphosis,” The American Historical Review, Vol. 96, No. 5 (December 1991), pp. 1396-1407 and Salibi, Kamal, “The Lebanese Identity,” Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 6, No. 1 (1971), pp. 76-86. The first reflection paper is due on Thursday.
Week Eight: The 1967 War and the Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip
“Steering a Path under Occupation” (chapter nine) in Baruch Kimmerling and Joel S. Migdal, The Palestinian People: A History, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), pp. 274-311 and Andoni, Lamis, “Searching for Answers: Gaza’s Suicide Bombers,” Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 26, No. 4 (Summer 1997), pp. 33-45.
Week Nine: Fall Break
Weeks Ten and Eleven: Turkey and Iran
Cleveland, William, “Democracy and Authoritarianism: Turkey and Iran” (chapter fourteen) in A History of the Modern Middle East, Second Edition, (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2000), pp. 267-292 and Keddie, Nikki, “The Revolution” (chapter 9) in Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003). The second reflection paper is due on Thursday of week eleven.
Week Twelve: The War in Iraq
International Crisis Group, “Where is Iraq Heading? Lessons from Basra,” Middle East Report No. 67 (25 June 2007), pp. 1-19.
Weeks Thirteen, Fourteen and Fifteen: Student Oral Presentations
Week Sixteen: Concluding Remarks and Final Paper Due
ICP 224
International and Comparative Politics
American University of Central Asia
Fall Semester 2008
J. Otto Pohl, Ph.D.
And
Cholpon Chotaeva, Doctor of History
Meeting Time: Tuesday room 308 and Thursday CH 2 at 2:10
Course Description: This course will cover modern political developments in the Arab states, Israel/Palestine, Turkey and Iran since the First World War. In particular the course will focus on the Arab-Israeli conflict with an emphasis on the central role played by Palestinian resistance to Zionist ethnic cleansing and colonization. By way of historical precedent the course will cover the successful Algerian Revolution against the French. It will also cover the rise of various forms of nationalism in Egypt, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. The course will then contrast the political developments in these Arab states with those in Turkey in Iran. Finally, the class will conclude with a discussion of the current war in Iraq.
Requirements: The course will consist of assigned readings, lectures, discussion, two short writing assignments, an oral report and a research paper. There will be two short reflection papers of 600 to 800 words. The first one should be on the development of nationalism in an Arab state. The second one should be on how the development of nationalism in either Turkey or Iran differed from the Arab states. Students will also have to complete a 1500 to 2000 word research paper on some aspect of either the Arab-Israeli conflict or the war in Iraq. The paper is due the last week of class. In the three weeks prior to this deadline each student will be required to give a short oral presentation on the subject of their paper followed by a short question and answer session. Late papers will lose one letter grade for each day they are late. Students must come to class on time. Being more than fifteen minutes late will count as an absence. Students will lose one letter grade after four unexcused absences and fail the course after seven. Written proof of an emergency from a doctor or other appropriate authority is required for an absence to be excused. No mobile phones are to be visible during class. They are to be out of sight and turned off. I will eject any student from class that has a visible cell phone or whose cell phone rings during class. This will count as an unexcused absence. Finally, I (Dr. Pohl) have a significant hearing loss and may have to ask people to repeat their questions or statements from time to time. You can minimize this by speaking loudly and clearly. This syllabus is tentative and subject to change.
Readings: All the required readings are contained in the course packet.
Plagiarism Policy: Policy on Plagiarism and Citations: I have a zero tolerance policy regarding plagiarism. If I catch any student plagiarizing once I will fail them from the course and recommend to the chairman of the ICP department that they be expelled from the program. Plagiarism includes any verbatim copying of from a source without using quotation marks or setting the text up as an indented single spaced block quotation. If I find that more than four words in a row in your paper show up in the same order in a Google search and you do not have the words in quotation marks or set up as a block quotation I will fail you. Putting a footnote, end note or other citation after the copied words without the quotation marks or block quotation form is still plagiarism, you are claiming to have paraphrased verbatim text, and you will still receive an F for the course and be recommended for expulsion from ICP. Taking text from a source without citing it and rearranging the words so that it does not show up in a verbatim Google search is also plagiarism. I will also do Google searches to see if you have taken text and merely rearranged the words. You must either paraphrase the sentence by putting it completely in your own words and citing it with the proper footnote, end note or in text citation or quote the actual text verbatim complete with the proper citation. Completely paraphrasing sentences in your own words, but neglecting to cite the source of the information is also plagiarism. All information that would not be known to the average person on the street with no university education must be cited. When in doubt always cite a legitimate source. Wikipedia is not a legitimate source. Books published by university presses and academic journal articles found on JSTOR are legitimate sources. Other sources may or may not be legitimate. If you have questions about whether a particular source is legitimate you can ask me. Using Wikipedia or other illegitimate sources will result in a reduction of one letter grade for each citation in a paper.
Grading:
Class participation – 20%
Two reflection papers – 40% (20% each)
Oral report on research paper – 10%
Written version of research paper- 30%
Grading Scale:
100-96 = A
95-91 = A-
90-86 = B+
85-81 = B
80-76 = B-
75-71 = C+
70-66 = C
65-61 = C-
60-56 = D+
55-51 = D
50-46 = D-
45 and lower = F
Class Schedule:
Week One: Introduction to Course and Review of Syllabus
Week Two: The Mandate Period
Hourani, Albert “The Climax of European Power (1914-1939)” in A History of the Arab Peoples (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1991), pp. 315-332 and Andersen, Roy R., Seibert, Robert F., and Wagner, Jon G., “The Rise of the State System: 1914-1950” in Politics and Change in the Middle East: Sources of Conflict and Accommodation (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1982), pp. 74-93.
Week Three: The 1948 War and the Lasting Legacy of the Palestinian Refugees
Esber, Rosemarie M. “Rewriting the History of 1948: The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Question Revisited,” Holy Land Studies, vol. 4, no. 1 (2005), pp. 55-72, Alshaibi, Sama, “Memory Work in the Palestinian Diaspora,” Frontiers, Vol. 27, No. 2 (2006), pp. 30-53 and Khalidi, Rashid, “Observations on the Right of Return,” Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 21, No. 2 (Winter 1992), pp. 29-40.
Week Four: The Algerian Revolution
Fanon, Frantz, “The Pitfalls of National Consciousness” in The Wretched of the Earth (New York: Grove Press, 1965), pp. 148-205 and Gallagher, Nancy, “Lessons from the Algerian War of Independence,” Middle East Report, No. 225 (Winter 2002), pp. 44-49.
Week Five: Egypt under Nasser
Cleveland, William, “The Middle East in the Age of Nasser: The Egyptian Base” (Chapter 15) in A History of the Modern Middle East, (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1994), pp. 284-303.
Week Six: Political Islam
Milton-Edwards, Beverly, “Past, Present and Future Politics: Political Islam” (Chapter 5) in Contemporary Politics in the Middle East (Malden, MA: Polity Press, 2006), pp. 134-158.
Week Seven: Nationalism in the Arab East
Devlin, John, “The Baath Party: Rise and Metamorphosis,” The American Historical Review, Vol. 96, No. 5 (December 1991), pp. 1396-1407 and Salibi, Kamal, “The Lebanese Identity,” Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 6, No. 1 (1971), pp. 76-86. The first reflection paper is due on Thursday.
Week Eight: The 1967 War and the Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip
“Steering a Path under Occupation” (chapter nine) in Baruch Kimmerling and Joel S. Migdal, The Palestinian People: A History, (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), pp. 274-311 and Andoni, Lamis, “Searching for Answers: Gaza’s Suicide Bombers,” Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 26, No. 4 (Summer 1997), pp. 33-45.
Week Nine: Fall Break
Weeks Ten and Eleven: Turkey and Iran
Cleveland, William, “Democracy and Authoritarianism: Turkey and Iran” (chapter fourteen) in A History of the Modern Middle East, Second Edition, (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2000), pp. 267-292 and Keddie, Nikki, “The Revolution” (chapter 9) in Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003). The second reflection paper is due on Thursday of week eleven.
Week Twelve: The War in Iraq
International Crisis Group, “Where is Iraq Heading? Lessons from Basra,” Middle East Report No. 67 (25 June 2007), pp. 1-19.
Weeks Thirteen, Fourteen and Fifteen: Student Oral Presentations
Week Sixteen: Concluding Remarks and Final Paper Due
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Issyk Kul
I just got back from my first trip to Lake Issyk Kul. Actually, given its large size and relatively high level of salinity I would classify it as an inland sea rather than a lake. It certainly reminded me of the Pacific Ocean. My girlfriend had a lot of fun floating out to sea in her new inner tube. I was happy not to be working.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Mahmoud Darwish RIP
I am not much of a poetry fan. But, one poet that I did enjoy in translation was Mahmoud Darwish. Unfortunately, I am unable to read him in the original Arabic. Darwish wrote about the essential issues facing the Palestinian people and did it in an emotionally powerful way. Two days ago he died at age 67.
hat tip: Jews sans frontieres
hat tip: Jews sans frontieres
Thursday, August 07, 2008
More on the Migration of Russian-Koreans from Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan
The migration of Russian-Koreans from Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan started soon after their deportation in fall 1937. According to one Soviet document, the number of Russian-Korean households in Kazakhstan fell from 20,530 in late 1937 to 18,495 by 1 April 1939. This same document states that one of the two major reasons for this decline was the migration of significant numbers of Russian-Koreans to join relatives in Uzbekistan. The other reason for this decrease was the movement of Russian-Koreans from rural areas to towns and cities where they worked in enterprises and institutions and were not included in the 1 April 1939 count of Russian-Koreans resettled from the Soviet Far East to Kazakhstan (Li and Kim, doc. 66, p. 152). Unfortunately, from the limited data that I have, there is no way of knowing the relative weight of each of these causes in reducing the number of Russian-Koreans counted in Kazakhstan.
The movement of Russian-Koreans from Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan did not always occur at the instigation of those living in Kazakhstan. In some cases relatives living in Uzbekistan took active measures to bring their relatives from Kazakhstan to join them. One such Russian-Korean living in Uzbekistan was Nadezhda Kim. She worked on a silk sovkhoz (state farm) in the Khoja-Abad district of Uzbekistan, but her husband, brother's wife and three other relatives lived in the city of Karaganda, Kazakhstan. She wrote a letter on 10 February 1938 to the NKVD chief of her district asking for permission to travel to Karaganda and bring these relatives back to Khoja-Abad, Uzbekistan to live with her (document reproduced in V.D. Kim, p. 127). I do not know if she was allowed to travel to Karaganda or not. But, her letter certainly points to efforts by Russian-Koreans in Uzbekistan to bring their relatives from Kazakhstan to live with them.
Sources:
V.D. Kim, ed., Pravda-polveka spustia (Tashkent: "Ozbekiston", 1999).
Li U He and Kim En Un, eds., Belaia kniga: O deportatsii koreiskogo naseleniia Rossii v 30-40x godakh (Moscow: "Interprask", 1992).
The movement of Russian-Koreans from Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan did not always occur at the instigation of those living in Kazakhstan. In some cases relatives living in Uzbekistan took active measures to bring their relatives from Kazakhstan to join them. One such Russian-Korean living in Uzbekistan was Nadezhda Kim. She worked on a silk sovkhoz (state farm) in the Khoja-Abad district of Uzbekistan, but her husband, brother's wife and three other relatives lived in the city of Karaganda, Kazakhstan. She wrote a letter on 10 February 1938 to the NKVD chief of her district asking for permission to travel to Karaganda and bring these relatives back to Khoja-Abad, Uzbekistan to live with her (document reproduced in V.D. Kim, p. 127). I do not know if she was allowed to travel to Karaganda or not. But, her letter certainly points to efforts by Russian-Koreans in Uzbekistan to bring their relatives from Kazakhstan to live with them.
Sources:
V.D. Kim, ed., Pravda-polveka spustia (Tashkent: "Ozbekiston", 1999).
Li U He and Kim En Un, eds., Belaia kniga: O deportatsii koreiskogo naseleniia Rossii v 30-40x godakh (Moscow: "Interprask", 1992).
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
A Ride to Khiva by Captain Federick Burnaby
Recently I finished reading Captain Frederick Burnaby, A Ride to Khiva (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997). First published in 1876 this book details a rather extraordinary journey through Russia and Kazakhstan to what is now Uzbekistan. Travel to Central Asia even today consumes a lot of time and effort. When I came to Kyrgyzstan a little over a year ago it took me almost two days by plane to get here from Los Angeles. In the 19th Century things were considerably more difficult. In the middle of winter 1875, Frederick Burnaby, a captain in the British army, travelled from St. Peterburg to Khiva. He persevered despite a ban on European travellers to the city imposed by the Russian government. His main goal was to ascertain Russian military intentions in Central Asia with regards to British India. He like many other British officers feared that the Russian Empire's recent expansion in the region was ultimately aimed at the British Empire's possessions in South Asia. At this time the rail line from St. Petersburg only reached as far as Sizeran, a town west of Samara. The rest of the trip had to be made using horses. The result of Burnaby's overland trip to Khiva is a highly entertaining travelogue.
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Any Advice?
Currently I am working on my syllabus for my Politics of the Middle East class. I am looking for good, easy to read articles or book chapters of around twenty pages each on the Arab states during the Mandate period, the Algerian Revolution against the French, Egypt under Nasser, and the current war in Iraq. Does anybody have any suggestions? The library here is limited, but I do have access to JSTOR and EBSCOHOST.
Monday, August 04, 2008
Solzhenitsyn RIP
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn recently died. Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago was the first book I ever read that I can remember Stalin's national deportations being mentioned. It was not the first book to deal with Soviet ethnic cleansing. But, it was the first exposure to these facts that many people in the US and other countries including myself received.
Saturday, August 02, 2008
New Website for Savitsky Museum in Nukus
The Karakalpakstan State Museum of Art or Savitsky Museum in Nukus has a new website. Despite being located in a remote region of Uzbekistan, this museum has a strong international reputation based upon its collection of Russian avant garde art. I have not been to the museum itself, but the website makes it look pretty impressive.
Friday, August 01, 2008
Best Burger in Bishkek
The options for American style burgers in Bishkek are rather limited. But, Bii Burger which sells a messy two patty burger for 55 som is by far the best one I have found. Overall the bread and vegetables are better than most American fast food burgers. But, the patties themselves are very thin. Still, they are better than McDonald's.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Last Night BBC Called Me
Last night at about 10 pm I got an unexpected phone call. It turned out it was an employee of the BBC and she wanted to know if the figure of about a third of the total population was correct for the overall deaths suffered by the Crimean Tatars due to deportation and exile in Uzbekistan during the 1940s. I told her that it was.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Migration of Russian-Koreans from Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan, 1937-1959
Recently I have been reading a lot about Stalin's 1937 deportation of the Russian-Koreans from the Soviet Far East to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. One thing that I noticed is that the initial pattern of settlement in Central Asia was the reverse of what it became later and still is today. That is originally there were many more Russian-Koreans in Kazakhstan than in Uzbekistan. Whereas today there are considerably more Russian-Koreans in Uzbekistan than in Kazakhstan.
The original deportation of the Russian-Koreans to Central Asia favored Kazakhstan over Uzbekistan as a destination by a significant margin. Between 9 September and 25 October 1937, the NKVD forcibly removed 171,781 Russian-Koreans from the Soviet Far East (Li and Kim, doc. 40, pp. 103-104 and doc. 52, pp. 114-115). The Stalin regime initially resettled 95,256 of these deportees in Kazakhstan and 76,525 in Uzbekistan (Li and Kim, doc. 52, pp. 114-115). An NKVD count of Russian-Koreans in Kazakhstan taken in 1943, however, could only verify the continued presence of 45,905 of the deportees in the republic (Bugai, doc. 14, pp. 31-32). Obviously this number is incomplete, but the reduction of the Russian-Korean population in Kazakhstan since 1937 was quite real. The Soviet census in 1959 recorded 139,000 Russian-Koreans in Uzbekistan and only 74,000 in Kazakhstan (Ian Matley in Allworth, p. 110). These numbers indicate a significant migration of Russian-Koreans from Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan as well as the possibility of higher mortality rates and lower fertility rates in Kazakhstan than in Uzbekistan among the nationality.
It appears that the authorities in Uzbekistan were much better than those in Kazakhstan in providing grain promised as compensation for grain left behind in the Soviet Far East to deported Russian-Koreans (Li and Kim, doc. 82-a, p. 169). Thus Russian-Koreans living in Kazakhstan often moved to join relatives that had been sent to Uzbekistan where material conditions were in many cases better. This factor seems to account for the fact that net internal migration by Russian-Koreans in Central Asia flowed from Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan.
Sources
N.F. Bugai, ed., Iosif Stalin - Lavrentiiu Berii: "Ikh nado deportirovat'" : Dokumenty, fakty, komentarii (Moscow: "Druzhba narodov", 1992).
Li U He and Kim En Un, eds., Belaia kniga: O deportatsii koreiskogo naseleniia Rossii v 30-40x godakh (Moscow: "Interprask", 1992).
Ian Murray Matley, "The Population and the Land" in Edward Allworth, ed., Central Asia: 130 Years of Russian Dominance, A Historical Overview, 3rd Edition (Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 1994).
The original deportation of the Russian-Koreans to Central Asia favored Kazakhstan over Uzbekistan as a destination by a significant margin. Between 9 September and 25 October 1937, the NKVD forcibly removed 171,781 Russian-Koreans from the Soviet Far East (Li and Kim, doc. 40, pp. 103-104 and doc. 52, pp. 114-115). The Stalin regime initially resettled 95,256 of these deportees in Kazakhstan and 76,525 in Uzbekistan (Li and Kim, doc. 52, pp. 114-115). An NKVD count of Russian-Koreans in Kazakhstan taken in 1943, however, could only verify the continued presence of 45,905 of the deportees in the republic (Bugai, doc. 14, pp. 31-32). Obviously this number is incomplete, but the reduction of the Russian-Korean population in Kazakhstan since 1937 was quite real. The Soviet census in 1959 recorded 139,000 Russian-Koreans in Uzbekistan and only 74,000 in Kazakhstan (Ian Matley in Allworth, p. 110). These numbers indicate a significant migration of Russian-Koreans from Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan as well as the possibility of higher mortality rates and lower fertility rates in Kazakhstan than in Uzbekistan among the nationality.
It appears that the authorities in Uzbekistan were much better than those in Kazakhstan in providing grain promised as compensation for grain left behind in the Soviet Far East to deported Russian-Koreans (Li and Kim, doc. 82-a, p. 169). Thus Russian-Koreans living in Kazakhstan often moved to join relatives that had been sent to Uzbekistan where material conditions were in many cases better. This factor seems to account for the fact that net internal migration by Russian-Koreans in Central Asia flowed from Kazakhstan to Uzbekistan.
Sources
N.F. Bugai, ed., Iosif Stalin - Lavrentiiu Berii: "Ikh nado deportirovat'" : Dokumenty, fakty, komentarii (Moscow: "Druzhba narodov", 1992).
Li U He and Kim En Un, eds., Belaia kniga: O deportatsii koreiskogo naseleniia Rossii v 30-40x godakh (Moscow: "Interprask", 1992).
Ian Murray Matley, "The Population and the Land" in Edward Allworth, ed., Central Asia: 130 Years of Russian Dominance, A Historical Overview, 3rd Edition (Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 1994).
Friday, July 25, 2008
Syllabus for Ethnicity, Race and Nationalism
Ethnicity, Race and Nationalism
ICP
3 Credits
International and Comparative Politics
American University of Central Asia
Fall Semester 2008
J. Otto Pohl, Ph.D.
And
Munara Omuralieva
Course Description: This course will cover the relationship between the overlapping and interrelated concepts of ethnicity, nationalism and race. It will focus on the dynamics involved in transforming ethnic categories into national or racial ones. Throughout the course we will examine the cultural basis of ethnicity, the political claims upon territory by nationalists, and the essential and primordial definitions of racial groups created and enforced by the state. Among the topics that will be covered in this examination are the creation and survival of national diasporas, ethnic cleansing and genocide, and the construction of modern nation-states.
Requirements: The course will consist of assigned readings, lectures, student led discussions, an annotated bibliography, a literature review and two oral presentations. Each week between three and five students, one for each article, will be assigned to lead class discussion on the topic on Wednesday. Every student will be responsible for conducting class discussion once during the semester. Additionally, every student will have to compile an annotated bibliography dealing with ethnicity, nationalism and race in a specific country. This bibliography should contain no less than fifteen journal articles found on JSTOR or EBSCOHOST. Students will be required to give a short oral report on this bibliography during weeks five, six and seven. A written version is due on week seven. Students are then to turn this annotated bibliography into a formal literature review. They will be required to do an oral report on this work during weeks twelve, thirteen, fourteen and fifteen. A written version of the literature review is due at the start of week sixteen. The literature review should be between 3000 and 4000 words long. Late papers will lose one letter grade for each day they are late. Students must come to class on time. Being more than fifteen minutes late will count as an absence. Students will lose one letter grade after four unexcused absences and fail the course after seven. Written proof of an emergency from a doctor or other appropriate authority is required for an absence to be excused. No mobile phones are to be visible during class. They are to be out of sight and turned off. I will eject any student from class that has a visible cell phone or whose cell phone rings during class. This will count as an unexcused absence. Finally, I have a significant hearing loss and may have to ask people to repeat their questions or statements from time to time. You can minimize this by speaking loudly and clearly. This syllabus is tentative and subject to change.
Readings: All of the required readings can be found on JSTOR. Finding these articles using the bibliographic information provided below is part of the assigned work for this class.
Policy on Plagiarism and Citations: I have a zero tolerance policy regarding plagiarism. If I catch any student plagiarizing once I will fail them from the course and recommend to the chairman of the ICP department that they be expelled from the program. Plagiarism includes any verbatim copying of from a source without using quotation marks or setting the text up as an indented single spaced block quotation. If I find that more than four words in a row in your paper show up in the same order in a Google search and you do not have the words in quotation marks or set up as a block quotation I will fail you. Putting a footnote, end note or other citation after the copied words without the quotation marks or block quotation form is still plagiarism, you are claiming to have paraphrased verbatim text, and you will still receive an F for the course and be recommended for expulsion from ICP. Taking text from a source without citing it and rearranging the words so that it does not show up in a verbatim Google search is also plagiarism. I will also do Google searches to see if you have taken text and merely rearranged the words. You must either paraphrase the sentence by putting it completely in your own words and citing it with the proper footnote, end note or in text citation or quote the actual text verbatim complete with the proper citation. Completely paraphrasing sentences in your own words, but neglecting to cite the source of the information is also plagiarism. All information that would not be known to the average person on the street with no university education must be cited. When in doubt always cite a legitimate source. Wikipedia is not a legitimate source. Books published by university presses and academic journal articles found on JSTOR are legitimate sources. Other sources may or may not be legitimate. If you have questions about whether a particular source is legitimate you can ask me. Using Wikipedia or other illegitimate sources will result in a reduction of one letter grade for each citation in a paper.
Grading:
Leading and conducting assigned seminar: 20%
Oral report on annotated bibliography: 10%
Written version of annotated bibliography: 25%
Oral report on literature review: 15%
Written version of literature review: 30%
Class Schedule:
Week One: Introduction to Course and Review of Syllabus
Week Two: Ethnicity and Nationalism
Calhoun, Craig, “Nationalism and Ethnicity,” Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 19 (1993), pp. 211-239.
Connor, Walker, “Nation-Building or Nation-Destroying?,” World Politics, Vol. 24, No. 3 (April 1972), pp. 319-355.
Eriksen, Thomas Hylland, “Ethnicity Versus Nationalism,” Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 28, No. 2 (August 1991), pp. 263-278.
Smith, Anthony D., “Culture, Community and Territory: The Politics of Ethnicity and Nationalism,” International Affairs, Vol. 72, No. 3 (July 1996), pp. 445-458.
Week Three: Diasporas
Armstrong, John, “Mobilized and Proletarian Diasporas,” The American Political Science Review, Vol. 70, No. 2 (June 1976), pp. 393-408.
Clifford, James, “Diasporas,” Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 9, No. 3, (August 1994), pp. 302-338.
Cohen, Robin, “Diasporas and the Nation-State: From Victims to Challengers,” International Affairs, Vol. 72, No. 3 (July 1996), pp. 507-520.
Van Den Berghe, Pierre, L. “The African Diaspora in Mexico, Brazil and the United States,” Social Forces, Vol. 54, No. 3 (March 1976), pp. 530-545.
Week Four: Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide
Bryant, Chad, “Either German or Czech: Fixing Nationality in Bohemia and Moravia, 1939-1946,” Slavic Review, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Winter 2002), pp. 683-706.
Falah, Ghazi, “The 1948 Israeli-Palestinian War and Its Aftermath: The Transformation and De-Signification of Palestine’s Cultural Landscape,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 86, No. 2 (June 1996), pp. 256-285.
Hayden, Robert M., “Schindler’s Fate: Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing, and Population Transfers,” Slavic Review, Vol. 55, No. 4 (Winter 1996), pp. 727-748.
Mirkovic, Damir, “Ethnic Conflict and Genocide: Reflections on Ethnic Cleansing in the Former Yugoslavia,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 548 (November 1996), pp. 191-199.
Wood, William, “Geographic Aspects of Genocide: A Comparison of Bosnia and Rwanda,” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Vol. 26, No. 1 (2001), pp. 57-75.
Weeks Five, Six and Seven: Student presentations of Annotated Bibliography – Written versions of the bibliography due on Wednesday of week seven.
Week Eight: Ethnic Cleansing in the USSR
Martin, Terry, “The Origins of Soviet Ethnic Cleansing,” The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 70, No. 4 (December 1998), pp. 813-861.
Morris, James, “The Polish Terror: Spy Mania and Ethnic Cleansing in the Great Terror,” Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 56, No. 5 (July 2004), pp. 751-766.
Williams, Brian Glyn, “The Hidden Ethnic Cleansing of Muslims in the Soviet Union: The Exile and Repatriation of the Crimean Tatars,” Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 37, No. 3 (July 2002), pp. 323-347.
Week Nine: Ethnicity and Race in the USSR
Hirsch, Francine, “Race without the Practice of Racial Politics,” Slavic Review, Vol. 61, No. 1 (Spring 2001), pp. 30-43.
Lemon, Alaina, “Without a ‘Concept?’ Race as Discurvsive Practice,” Slavic Review, Vol. 61, No. 1 (Spring 2001), pp. 54-61.
Weiner, Amir, “Nothing but Certainty,” Slavic Review, Vol. 61, No. 1 (Spring 2001), pp. 44-53.
Weitz, Eric D., “Racial Politics without the Concept of Race: Reevaluating Soviet Ethnic and National Purges,” Slavic Review, Vol. 61, No. 1 (Spring 2001), pp. 1-29.
Weitz, Eric D., “On Certainties and Ambivalencies: Reply to my Critics,” Slavic Review, Vol. 61, No. 1 (Spring 2001), pp. 62-65.
Week Ten: Soviet and Post-Soviet Nation Building
Blitstein, Peter, “Cultural Diversity and the Interwar Conjuncture: Soviet Nationality Policy in Its Comparative Context,” Slavic Review, Vol. 65, No. 2 (Summer 2006), pp. 273-293.
Handrahan, L.M., “Gendering Ethnicity in Kyrgyzstan: Forgotten Elements in Promoting Peace and Democracy,” Gender and Development, Vol. 9, No. 3 (November 2001), pp. 70-78.
Slezkine, Yuri, “The USSR as a Communal Apartment, or How a Socialist State Promoted Ethnic Particularism,” Slavic Review, Vol. 53, No. 2 (Summer 1994), pp. 414-452.
Suny, Ronald Grigor, “Constructing Primordialism: Old Histories for New Nations,” The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 73, No. 4 (December 2001), pp. 862-896.
Week Eleven: Ethnicity and Race in Israel/Palestine
Rouhana, Nadim and Ghanem, Asad, “The Crises of Minorities in Ethnic States: The Case of Palestinian Citizens in Israel,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 30, No. 3 (August 1998), pp. 321-346.
Shohat, Ella, “Sephardim in Israel: Zionism from the Standpoint of its Jewish Victims,” Social Text, No. 19/20 (Autumn 1988), pp. 1-35.
Yiftachel, Oren, “ ‘Ethnocracy’ and its Discontents: Minorities, Protests, and the Israeli Polity,” Critical Inquiry, Vol. 26, No. 4 (Summer 2000), pp. 725-756.
Weeks Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen and Fifteen: Student Presentations of Literature Review
Week Sixteen: Written Version of Literature Review due on Monday and Concluding Remarks
ICP
3 Credits
International and Comparative Politics
American University of Central Asia
Fall Semester 2008
J. Otto Pohl, Ph.D.
And
Munara Omuralieva
Course Description: This course will cover the relationship between the overlapping and interrelated concepts of ethnicity, nationalism and race. It will focus on the dynamics involved in transforming ethnic categories into national or racial ones. Throughout the course we will examine the cultural basis of ethnicity, the political claims upon territory by nationalists, and the essential and primordial definitions of racial groups created and enforced by the state. Among the topics that will be covered in this examination are the creation and survival of national diasporas, ethnic cleansing and genocide, and the construction of modern nation-states.
Requirements: The course will consist of assigned readings, lectures, student led discussions, an annotated bibliography, a literature review and two oral presentations. Each week between three and five students, one for each article, will be assigned to lead class discussion on the topic on Wednesday. Every student will be responsible for conducting class discussion once during the semester. Additionally, every student will have to compile an annotated bibliography dealing with ethnicity, nationalism and race in a specific country. This bibliography should contain no less than fifteen journal articles found on JSTOR or EBSCOHOST. Students will be required to give a short oral report on this bibliography during weeks five, six and seven. A written version is due on week seven. Students are then to turn this annotated bibliography into a formal literature review. They will be required to do an oral report on this work during weeks twelve, thirteen, fourteen and fifteen. A written version of the literature review is due at the start of week sixteen. The literature review should be between 3000 and 4000 words long. Late papers will lose one letter grade for each day they are late. Students must come to class on time. Being more than fifteen minutes late will count as an absence. Students will lose one letter grade after four unexcused absences and fail the course after seven. Written proof of an emergency from a doctor or other appropriate authority is required for an absence to be excused. No mobile phones are to be visible during class. They are to be out of sight and turned off. I will eject any student from class that has a visible cell phone or whose cell phone rings during class. This will count as an unexcused absence. Finally, I have a significant hearing loss and may have to ask people to repeat their questions or statements from time to time. You can minimize this by speaking loudly and clearly. This syllabus is tentative and subject to change.
Readings: All of the required readings can be found on JSTOR. Finding these articles using the bibliographic information provided below is part of the assigned work for this class.
Policy on Plagiarism and Citations: I have a zero tolerance policy regarding plagiarism. If I catch any student plagiarizing once I will fail them from the course and recommend to the chairman of the ICP department that they be expelled from the program. Plagiarism includes any verbatim copying of from a source without using quotation marks or setting the text up as an indented single spaced block quotation. If I find that more than four words in a row in your paper show up in the same order in a Google search and you do not have the words in quotation marks or set up as a block quotation I will fail you. Putting a footnote, end note or other citation after the copied words without the quotation marks or block quotation form is still plagiarism, you are claiming to have paraphrased verbatim text, and you will still receive an F for the course and be recommended for expulsion from ICP. Taking text from a source without citing it and rearranging the words so that it does not show up in a verbatim Google search is also plagiarism. I will also do Google searches to see if you have taken text and merely rearranged the words. You must either paraphrase the sentence by putting it completely in your own words and citing it with the proper footnote, end note or in text citation or quote the actual text verbatim complete with the proper citation. Completely paraphrasing sentences in your own words, but neglecting to cite the source of the information is also plagiarism. All information that would not be known to the average person on the street with no university education must be cited. When in doubt always cite a legitimate source. Wikipedia is not a legitimate source. Books published by university presses and academic journal articles found on JSTOR are legitimate sources. Other sources may or may not be legitimate. If you have questions about whether a particular source is legitimate you can ask me. Using Wikipedia or other illegitimate sources will result in a reduction of one letter grade for each citation in a paper.
Grading:
Leading and conducting assigned seminar: 20%
Oral report on annotated bibliography: 10%
Written version of annotated bibliography: 25%
Oral report on literature review: 15%
Written version of literature review: 30%
Class Schedule:
Week One: Introduction to Course and Review of Syllabus
Week Two: Ethnicity and Nationalism
Calhoun, Craig, “Nationalism and Ethnicity,” Annual Review of Sociology, Vol. 19 (1993), pp. 211-239.
Connor, Walker, “Nation-Building or Nation-Destroying?,” World Politics, Vol. 24, No. 3 (April 1972), pp. 319-355.
Eriksen, Thomas Hylland, “Ethnicity Versus Nationalism,” Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 28, No. 2 (August 1991), pp. 263-278.
Smith, Anthony D., “Culture, Community and Territory: The Politics of Ethnicity and Nationalism,” International Affairs, Vol. 72, No. 3 (July 1996), pp. 445-458.
Week Three: Diasporas
Armstrong, John, “Mobilized and Proletarian Diasporas,” The American Political Science Review, Vol. 70, No. 2 (June 1976), pp. 393-408.
Clifford, James, “Diasporas,” Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 9, No. 3, (August 1994), pp. 302-338.
Cohen, Robin, “Diasporas and the Nation-State: From Victims to Challengers,” International Affairs, Vol. 72, No. 3 (July 1996), pp. 507-520.
Van Den Berghe, Pierre, L. “The African Diaspora in Mexico, Brazil and the United States,” Social Forces, Vol. 54, No. 3 (March 1976), pp. 530-545.
Week Four: Ethnic Cleansing and Genocide
Bryant, Chad, “Either German or Czech: Fixing Nationality in Bohemia and Moravia, 1939-1946,” Slavic Review, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Winter 2002), pp. 683-706.
Falah, Ghazi, “The 1948 Israeli-Palestinian War and Its Aftermath: The Transformation and De-Signification of Palestine’s Cultural Landscape,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 86, No. 2 (June 1996), pp. 256-285.
Hayden, Robert M., “Schindler’s Fate: Genocide, Ethnic Cleansing, and Population Transfers,” Slavic Review, Vol. 55, No. 4 (Winter 1996), pp. 727-748.
Mirkovic, Damir, “Ethnic Conflict and Genocide: Reflections on Ethnic Cleansing in the Former Yugoslavia,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 548 (November 1996), pp. 191-199.
Wood, William, “Geographic Aspects of Genocide: A Comparison of Bosnia and Rwanda,” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Vol. 26, No. 1 (2001), pp. 57-75.
Weeks Five, Six and Seven: Student presentations of Annotated Bibliography – Written versions of the bibliography due on Wednesday of week seven.
Week Eight: Ethnic Cleansing in the USSR
Martin, Terry, “The Origins of Soviet Ethnic Cleansing,” The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 70, No. 4 (December 1998), pp. 813-861.
Morris, James, “The Polish Terror: Spy Mania and Ethnic Cleansing in the Great Terror,” Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 56, No. 5 (July 2004), pp. 751-766.
Williams, Brian Glyn, “The Hidden Ethnic Cleansing of Muslims in the Soviet Union: The Exile and Repatriation of the Crimean Tatars,” Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 37, No. 3 (July 2002), pp. 323-347.
Week Nine: Ethnicity and Race in the USSR
Hirsch, Francine, “Race without the Practice of Racial Politics,” Slavic Review, Vol. 61, No. 1 (Spring 2001), pp. 30-43.
Lemon, Alaina, “Without a ‘Concept?’ Race as Discurvsive Practice,” Slavic Review, Vol. 61, No. 1 (Spring 2001), pp. 54-61.
Weiner, Amir, “Nothing but Certainty,” Slavic Review, Vol. 61, No. 1 (Spring 2001), pp. 44-53.
Weitz, Eric D., “Racial Politics without the Concept of Race: Reevaluating Soviet Ethnic and National Purges,” Slavic Review, Vol. 61, No. 1 (Spring 2001), pp. 1-29.
Weitz, Eric D., “On Certainties and Ambivalencies: Reply to my Critics,” Slavic Review, Vol. 61, No. 1 (Spring 2001), pp. 62-65.
Week Ten: Soviet and Post-Soviet Nation Building
Blitstein, Peter, “Cultural Diversity and the Interwar Conjuncture: Soviet Nationality Policy in Its Comparative Context,” Slavic Review, Vol. 65, No. 2 (Summer 2006), pp. 273-293.
Handrahan, L.M., “Gendering Ethnicity in Kyrgyzstan: Forgotten Elements in Promoting Peace and Democracy,” Gender and Development, Vol. 9, No. 3 (November 2001), pp. 70-78.
Slezkine, Yuri, “The USSR as a Communal Apartment, or How a Socialist State Promoted Ethnic Particularism,” Slavic Review, Vol. 53, No. 2 (Summer 1994), pp. 414-452.
Suny, Ronald Grigor, “Constructing Primordialism: Old Histories for New Nations,” The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 73, No. 4 (December 2001), pp. 862-896.
Week Eleven: Ethnicity and Race in Israel/Palestine
Rouhana, Nadim and Ghanem, Asad, “The Crises of Minorities in Ethnic States: The Case of Palestinian Citizens in Israel,” International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol. 30, No. 3 (August 1998), pp. 321-346.
Shohat, Ella, “Sephardim in Israel: Zionism from the Standpoint of its Jewish Victims,” Social Text, No. 19/20 (Autumn 1988), pp. 1-35.
Yiftachel, Oren, “ ‘Ethnocracy’ and its Discontents: Minorities, Protests, and the Israeli Polity,” Critical Inquiry, Vol. 26, No. 4 (Summer 2000), pp. 725-756.
Weeks Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen and Fifteen: Student Presentations of Literature Review
Week Sixteen: Written Version of Literature Review due on Monday and Concluding Remarks
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Under Jakob's Ladder
Recently I have been doing some historical consulting on a script for a movie. The film company is actually based in NY, however, not Hollywood. The movie is called Under Jakob's Ladder and tells the story of an ethnic German from Ukraine imprisoned by the Soviet regime under Stalin. Based upon the script and the short trailer of the movie it looks really good. The Moon Brothers deserve a lot of credit for taking on this subject matter.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Displacement, Diasporas, and Descendants
Lately I have been reading and thinking a lot about diasporas. In particular I have noticed that many diasporas are the result of multiple displacements and thus have multiple homelands. The connection to the "original" homeland thus becomes attenuated considerably. The Afro-Caribbean diaspora in the UK is an example of one such multiply displaced group as are the Sephardic Jews expelled from Iberia.
The ancestors of the Russian-Germans now in Germany originally left Hesse, Baden, Wurttemburg and other states in Central Europe to the Russian Empire during the 18th and 19th centuries. In between their initial settlement in the Russian Empire and the migration of their descendants to Germany in the 1990s these families often experienced as many as five or six displacements. For these people homeland has variously referred to not only Germany, but also to areas in the Russian Empire and USSR. These homelands have ranged in size from individual villages to the entire Russian Empire. For most of the Tsarist era the primary geographical identification of most Russian-Germans remained on the local level of the village. But, other larger geographical affiliations also developed and co-existed with this identification. On the largest scale, most Russian-Germans considered themselves loyal subjects of the Russian Empire and later loyal citizens of the USSR.
Exactly how various Russian-Germans have over the course of generations viewed themselves variously as villagers of Norka, Volga Germans, Soviet Germans, and Russian-Germans would be an interesting subject to research. The existence of multiple geographic identifications due to both the displacement and modernization of internal diaspora groups in the USSR would make a fascinating comparative study. How for instance do the Russian-Germans differ from the Russian-Koreans in their emotional connections to specific territories?
The ancestors of the Russian-Germans now in Germany originally left Hesse, Baden, Wurttemburg and other states in Central Europe to the Russian Empire during the 18th and 19th centuries. In between their initial settlement in the Russian Empire and the migration of their descendants to Germany in the 1990s these families often experienced as many as five or six displacements. For these people homeland has variously referred to not only Germany, but also to areas in the Russian Empire and USSR. These homelands have ranged in size from individual villages to the entire Russian Empire. For most of the Tsarist era the primary geographical identification of most Russian-Germans remained on the local level of the village. But, other larger geographical affiliations also developed and co-existed with this identification. On the largest scale, most Russian-Germans considered themselves loyal subjects of the Russian Empire and later loyal citizens of the USSR.
Exactly how various Russian-Germans have over the course of generations viewed themselves variously as villagers of Norka, Volga Germans, Soviet Germans, and Russian-Germans would be an interesting subject to research. The existence of multiple geographic identifications due to both the displacement and modernization of internal diaspora groups in the USSR would make a fascinating comparative study. How for instance do the Russian-Germans differ from the Russian-Koreans in their emotional connections to specific territories?
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