An Update from John Nielsen (2005 US TAARII Fellow)

With the generous support of a TAARII Fellowship, I spent the autumn of 2005 copying and collating early Neo-Babylonian legal and administrative tablets in British collections. The vast majority of the tablets were housed in the British Museum, but I also spent time looking at tablets in the Ashmolean’s collection in Oxford and traveled to Edinburgh and Truro, Cornwall, to study additional tablets. The tablets dated from the 8th and 7th centuries B.C. and provided invaluable information about the social and economic history of Babylonia at a time when the Neo-Assyrian Empire was the dominant power in the Near East.

My primary interest was in tracing the activities of the urban elites in Babylonian society who controlled temple and civic offices as well as land. Many members of this class had begun using ancestral or occupational names as family names at this time and a corresponding interest of mine was the emergence of these family names. This research was critical to the completion of my dissertation, “Sons and Descendants: A Social History of Kin Groups and Family Names in the Early Neo-Babylonian Period, 747–626 B.C.,” which I then modified for publication in the Brill series Culture and History of the Ancient Near East.

My work reading and copying tablets was also essential for two of my articles (“Adbi’ilu: An Arab at Babylon [BM 78912]” in Antiguo Oriente 7 [2009]: 199–205, and “Three Early-Neo-Babylonian Tablets belonging to Bel-etir of the Misiraya Kin Group” in JCS 62 [2010]: 97–106) and will be featured in an article I’m currently working on that will feature the seven-tablet archive of a man named Nadinu and his son Labashi at Dilbat.

Our Institutional Members: Hofstra University

Iraq and the MECA Program at Hofstra University

In 2002, Hofstra created the Middle Eastern and Central Asian Studies (MECA) program (http://www.hofstra.edu/Academics/Colleges/HCLAS/MECA/) to complement other area studies program on campus. This program currently offers undergraduate students a minor that includes a Middle Eastern Language, an introductory course to the region, and a variety of courses in anthropology, art history, economics, history, political science, and religion on the Middle East. The MECA program also sponsors invited speakers to campus. The founder and director is Daniel Martin Varisco (Anthropology). Participating faculty include Massoud Fazeli (Economics), Anna Feuerbach (Anthropology), David Kaufman (Religion), Mustapha Masrour (Comparative Languages and Literatures), Fatemeh Moghadam (Economics), Stephanie E. Nanes (Political Science), Aleksandr Naymark (Art History), Hussein Rashid (Religion), Mario Ruiz (History), and Irene Siegel (Comparative Languages and Literatures).

MECA has sponsored several speakers about Iraq to campus. In 2009, with joint sponsorship from TAARII, a panel on “Iraq: How the Past Shapes the Future” was held. The participants included Orit Bashkin (Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, University of Chicago and author of The Other Iraq: Pluralism and Culture in Hashemite Iraq), Magnus Bernhardsson (Professor of History at Williams College and author of Reclaiming a Plundered Past: Archaeology and Nation Building in Modern Iraq), Eric Davis (Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University and author of Memories of State: Politics, History and Collective Identity in Modern Iraq), Bassam Yousif (Professor of Economics at Indiana State University and author of Development and Political Violence in Iraq), and Nida al-Ahmad, Department of Political Science, the New School. For more information on this panel, please see “The Making of Modern Iraq,” in TAARII’s Fall Newsletter, Issue 04-02, available as a PDF on TAARII’s website (www.taarii.org/newsletters).

Hofstra University was founded in 1935 and is located in Hempstead, Long Island, 25 miles east of NYC. It is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational institution with Schools of Business, Communication, Education, Engineering and Applied Science, Health Sciences and Human Services, Law, Liberal Arts and a Medical School. Hofstra has 517 full-time (75% tenured) and 618 part-time faculty. The total fall 2012 enrollment was 11,090 (6,899 Undergraduate, 3,078 Graduate, 1,008 Law, 105 Medicine). About 3,800 students live on campus in 37 residence halls. The Hofstra libraries contain over 1 million volumes and provide 24/7 online access to more than 55,000 full-text journals and 70,000 electronic books.

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Daniel Martin Varisco, MECA Director (Photo courtesy of Hofstra University)

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Bassam Yousif, right, and Eric Davis, left, at Hofstra’s Iraq Study Day, 2009 (Photo courtesy of Hofstra University)

An Update from Arbella Bet-Shlimon (2009 US TAARII Fellow)

As you know, I was a 2009 TAARII fellow with my project “Kirkuk, 1918–1968: Oil and the Politics of Identity in an Iraqi City.” I had started working on this project in 2007. The TAARII grant assisted me with a year’s worth of research in various libraries and archives in the United Kingdom from 2009 to 2010. I have since completed the Ph.D. dissertation for which I undertook this research, and I graduated from Harvard in 2012. In the meantime, I have published two articles based on this research. The first, “Group Identities, Oil, and the Local Political Domain in Kirkuk: A Historical Perspective” came out in the Journal of Urban History 38, no. 5 in 2012. The second, “The Politics and Ideology of Urban Development in Iraq’s Oil City: Kirkuk, 1946–58,” was just published in Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 33, no. 1, in Spring 2013.

Throughout this process of research and writing, I have developed and presented a more robust understanding of Kirkuk’s history than that which I proposed in my initial application for TAARII funding (as reported in the Spring 2009 TAARII Newsletter). Specifically, my research in the UK helped me locate the linkages between the Kirkuki oil industry and local identity politics — which, at the time, I said I would look into — in the relationship between oil, political institutions, and urban development. I have also come to understand that it is best to frame Kirkuk’s identity politics as a process of ethnicization of community interests that took place over the course of the twentieth century. I am now in the process of converting the dissertation into a book for publication, which I hope will bring my work to a wider audience.

TAARII-sponsored Roundtable Discussion at MESA: Researching Iraq Today

TAARII is pleased to be sponsoring the following roundtable discussion at the Middle East Studies Association 47th Annual Meeting in New Orleans from October 10–13, 2013.

The roundtable, [R3406] Researching Iraq Today: Archives, Oral Histories, and Ethnographies, will take place on Saturday, October 12, at 11:00 a.m.

Summary

Iraq has weathered one of the longest periods of ongoing and active combat in its history over the last decade. Simultaneously, the country has witnessed a resurgence of historical, ethnographic, and politically engaged research by international scholars. Ten years after the American-led coalition invasion, the panelists on this interdisciplinary roundtable propose that it is time to discuss the methodologies, difficulties, and possibilities of conducting scholarly research on Iraq today.

This roundtable examines the potential for and limits of historical and ethnographic fieldwork on — and in — Iraq. Drawing from a range of historical and contemporary contexts that span environmental movements, political movements, media representations, and urban transformations, panelists will explore three fundamental questions. First, what kinds of historical, especially archival, research and ethnographic engagement can be sustained in Iraq today? Second, how do the successes and challenges of such qualitative research influence both the quality of original scholarship on Iraq and the integrity of knowledge about Iraq itself? Third, what role do archives outside of Iraq — such as colonial archives and oil-company papers — play in these processes?

To address these questions, the roundtable considers the conditions for ethnographic fieldwork under the Ba’th period and in the subsequent decade that followed the American-led invasion, as well as discussing the status of the Iraqi archives and underexplored human and archival sources outside of Iraq. Questioning potential connections between various fieldwork methodologies and the ongoing occupation of Iraq, we will explore how these politically problematic relationships and uncomfortable alignments come to be embraced, negotiated, or refused by the researcher. Collectively, we examine the historical and ethnographic tactics and approaches used to research Iraq in the midst of conflict and we consider how these innovative forms have, in turn, spurred disciplinary transformations in the conventions of qualitative research.

Participants

• Mona Damluji (University of California, Berkeley), chair
• In 2003, along with the U.S. invasion, environmentalists, governments, and exiles alike landed in Iraq… by Bridget Guarasci
• As part of this roundtable, I will discuss the methodological approaches to, possibilities for, and limitations… by Arbella Bet-Shlimon
• My presentation will focus on the state of the Iraqi National Library and Archives (INLA) following the… by Alda Benjamen
• My presentation will consider the ways that knowledge produced about Iraq has been mediated in large… by Haytham Bahoora
• Individual Iraqi voices remain largely absent from the literature on Iraq, due to the impossibility of… by Zainab Saleh

For more information, visit MESA’s website and the roundtable’s page

TAARII-sponsored MESA Panel: Minorities, Identities and the Modern Iraqi State

TAARII is pleased to be sponsoring the following panel at the Middle East Studies Association 47th Annual Meeting in New Orleans from October 10–13, 2013.

The panel, [P3266] Minorities, Identities and the Modern Iraqi State, will take place on Saturday, October 12, at 5:00 p.m.

Summary

Minorities have featured prominently in the debates surrounding the establishment of the modern Iraqi state. During the period between 1920–2003, colonial and local officials played an important and influential role in shaping the place of minorities within the social, political, and cultural institutions of the state. Various pieces of legislation and decrees were passed during the colonial and post-colonial periods that led to massive communalist struggles, tensions, and hostilities that defined the interactions between the state and minority communities well into the post-colonial period. Leaders of various minority populations were also involved in carving a place for their own communities within the social and political spaces of the modern Iraqi state. Minority identities were influenced greatly by both state and community based activities. Historians and social scientists have devoted a great deal of attention to the study of Iraq’s minority populations, however contextualizing the social and political histories of the various minority communities within the history of the modern Iraqi state is still lacking.

This panel will contextualize Iraq’s various minority communities within the social and political history of the modern state. This will help scholars to better understand the historical developments that led to the creation of Iraq’s multiple identities. In order to accomplish these goals this panel will highlight three minority communities: Assyrians, Kurds, and Shi’ites. Assyrians will be analyzed during the mandate and post mandate periods both as a refugee community and as citizens of a republic. Writings of communist Kurds will illuminate the relationship of this community with the Iraqi state. Finally, religious institutions of Shi’ites (a political minority) will be discussed in relation to the Ba’thist rule. The following questions will be addressed: How did the colonial and post-colonial Iraqi state influence the identity of minority populations? How did various minorities view themselves in the context of the newly created state? What role did the transnational nature of Iraq’s minority communities’ play in the way they perceived themselves within the social and political apparatuses of the state? What role did war and violence play in creating minority identities in Iraq?

Panelists & Papers

• Joseph Sassoon (Georgetown University), discussant
• Ba’thist “Generosity” and The Assyrian Literary Movement by Alda Benjamen
• Assyrian Identity Formation and the Ba’qubah Refugee Camp by Fadi Dawood
• The Iraqi Shi‘a and the Question of Sectarianism under Saddam by Samuel Helfont
• “Ten Identities in a Land without an Identity”: Kurdish and Iraqi Identities in the Works of an Émigré Kurdish-Iraqi Poet by Hill Peled-Shapira

For more information, visit MESA’s website and the panel’s page

Images of Iraq: Shingilbana

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A gondola to the Korek Mountain Resort in Ruwanduz in the Shingilbana area of northern Iraq. The gondola was constructed in 2011 (Photo credit: Beth Kangas, 2013)

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A view of the mountains surrounding the Shingilbana area in northern Iraq (Photo credit: Beth Kangas, 2013)

An Update from Mark Altaweel (2005 US TAARII Fellow)

2005:  Development of Ancient Settlements in Northern Iraq

I had received funds from TAARII to conduct an archaeological documentation project with Iraqi scholars in 2005. This project was highly successful in that it not only produced some valuable results that resulted in two academic articles and helped publish my book (entitled:  The Imperial Landscape of Ashur: Settlement and Land Use in the Assyrian Heartland), it also resulted in several other funded projects I went on doing in cooperation with Professor McGuire Gibson and Iraqi scholars from different regions of Iraq. These resulted in other publications and I continue to receive requests to assist Iraqi scholars with publication and Western scholars have greatly benefited from this as well.

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Image of inscribed baked brick pavement from an official building at Khirbet al-Bughala (Photo credit: Mark Altaweel)

What was great about TAARII’s support is that it assisted Iraqi scholars to share their data and allowed us to have close cooperation between Western researchers and Iraqis during a very difficult time after the 2003 war. The TAARII grant also assisted effort in training some Iraqi colleagues on the use of GPS and satellite imagery, as I was able to demonstrate these approaches while working in Jordan in 2005 and 2006. I think in terms of impact, both scholarly and practically in helping Iraqi archaeology, the relatively small TAARII grant has delivered well above one would expect and has continued to benefit my research in leading to even larger grants and assistance to more Iraqi colleagues. Just recently I had mentored an Iraqi colleague to publish in a Western journal their archaeological results. This experience was based on this initial funding I had received from TAARII.

The following publications have benefited from this fellowship:

Altaweel, M. 2006. “Excavations in Iraq:  The Ray Jazirah Project, First Report.” Iraq 68: 155–81.

Altaweel, M. 2007. “Excavations in Iraq: The Jazirah Salvage Project, Second Report.” Iraq  69: 117–44.

Altaweel, M. 2008. The Imperial Landscape of Ashur: Settlement and Land Use in the Assyrian Heartland. Heidelberg: OrientVerlag.

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Image of a relatively well-preserved Ubaid building from Khirbet al-Akhwein 1 (Photo credit: Mark Altaweel)

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Ubaid pottery from Khirbet al-Akhwein 1 (Photo credit: Mark Altaweel)

Middle East Studies Center’s Lecture Series Podcast

TAARII’s Institutional Member, Portland State University, announces the availability of the following Iraqi studies-related episodes of the Middle East Studies Center’s Lecture Series Podcast, which features audio recordings from the series; additional information and links to downloads are available on the Center’s website (http://www.pdx.edu/middle-east-studies/podcasts)

• The Iraqi Refugee Experience (Thursday, February 9, 2012), a talk by Baher Bhutti that focused on displacement and the psychological and socioeconomic conditions that influence the transition of Iraqi refugees in Portland, OR
• The Withdrawal of U.S. Military Forces from Iraq (Thursday, February 23, 2012), a talk by Steve Niva, member of the faculty, the Evergreen State College
• Modern Art in Iraq: From the Pioneers of the 1930s to the Looting of 2003(Monday, February 27, 2012), a talk by Salam Atta Sabri, Iraqi artist and the founder and Director of the Iraqi Pioneers Committee in Baghdad; co-sponsored with TAARII. For a review of this talk, please see TAARII’s Spring 2012 Newsletter, Issue 07-01 (available as a PDF at www.taarii.org/newsletters)

Our Institutional Members: Portland State University

The Middle East Studies Center at Portland State University promotes understanding of the people, cultures, languages and religions of the Middle East. The Center started in 1959 as the first federally supported undergraduate program for Arabic language and Middle East area studies in the nation and is now designated as a National Resource Center for Middle East Studies under the U.S. Department of Education’s Title VI program.

The Center’s distinguished faculty includes Assistant Professor of Arabic Language and Literature, Yasmeen Hanoosh, whose work is unified by the theme of Iraqi modernity. Hanoosh’s current book project engages Iraqi literary history and underscores the significance of the literary history and political and intellectual interplay between cosmopolitan centers such as Baghdad and Basra and the marginalized production of non-official culture in the provincial peripheries.

As Hanoosh fosters her own analysis of Iraqi literature and culture, she also promotes awareness of Iraq and its literary output internationally through translation. In addition to publishing stories periodically in prestigious and widely read literary journals, she has made a personal commitment to translate and disseminate significant works of contemporary Iraqi fiction; of these are Luay Hamza Abbas’ collection of short stories, Closing His Eyes, and Murtedha Gzar’s Al-Sayyid Asghar Akbar.

While cultivating her passion for literature through scholarship and translation, Hanoosh also bears in mind the harsh realities of post-invasion Iraq through ethnographic work with U.S.-based Iraqi refugee and immigrant communities, by organizing relevant public and scholarly events, and by fostering constructive liaisons between her students and the local Iraqi refugee community.

More information about the Middle East Studies Center is available at http://www.pdx.edu/middle-east-studies/.

U.S.-Iraq Higher Education Conference

On June 25, 2013, the Iraqi Cultural Center in Washington hosted an all-day conference in which about a hundred representatives of American universities and colleges met with Iraqi officials discussed the current state and future plans for educating Iraqi students in America. The Iraqi government has earmarked ten billion dollars for the training of its students in foreign countries, including the U.S., and many American institutions have already been taking part for several years. Three Iraqi entities are involved in administration of the program: the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, The Higher Committee for Education Development in Iraq (HCED), and the Kurdistan Regional Government Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research. Representatives of each of these entities addressed the group. The U.S. State Department is co-operating with the Iraqis to make the program a success and has appointed Lorna Middlebrough to the post of Education Specialist for Iraq, an unprecedented position.

The Iraqi government and the Kurdish Regional Government are furnishing multi-year fellowships that include all tuition, housing, family support, and other aspects that will ensure the success of the students in studying abroad. The funding is for masters’ degrees as well as for doctorates, and the length of support is geared to five years, but it was also indicated that for specific students in certain fields, there could be an extension of the time.

It became clear that the Iraqi Ministry of Higher Education is mainly focused on science, technology, engineering, and medicine (STEM), which have traditionally been the strongest areas in Iraqi higher education. But there is a stated interest in other disciplines.

The Higher Committee for Education Development is also interested in STEM, but is also committed to sending students for training in other fields, including social sciences and humanities.

The Kurdish Regional Government, according to its representative, was open to any field of study, and stressed the support in the humanities, although, again, most of the fellowships have been and will probably remain in STEM.

After presentations by the Iraqis and State Department participants, the meeting then heard from American university administrators and faculty with successful and growing programs for Iraqi students at their institutions. Members of the audience added instances of good practice in dealing with Iraqi students at their campuses. Both the Americans and the Iraqis stressed the need for conditional admissions so that the students could come for up to a year of English language training (ESL).

English has been taught in Iraqi schools from grade school up, but the deterioration of the educational system, beginning with the Iran-Iraq War and exacerbated by the Sanctions of the 1990s, has resulted in a generation with a much lower grasp of the language. Certain fields, such as medicine and the sciences, have lectures and texts in English, so there is for them less need for ESL courses before entering American academic programs. But the great majority of Iraqi students are not able to pass TOEFL at a high enough level to be admitted without ESL. Up to now, the great majority of U.S. institutions taking Iraqi students are state schools, and the programs tend to be in STEM.

TAARII’s institutional members should think very seriously about getting involved in the Iraqi fellowship program. These students will be Iraq’s future faculty, university administrators and government officials in Iraq. Anyone who did research in Iraq during the past fifty years knows how essential it was to have a fellow alumnus, a former student, or a colleague from an exchange program to vouch for the person doing the research and the value of the work itself. Much of the finest research has been done with Iraqi colleagues. With the funding from the Iraqi side, the real investment for American institutions and faculty is in time and attention.

But not all universities are willing to give a conditional admission, and partially for this reason, only a few of TAARII’s institutional members are participating in the training of Iraqis, and that is usually for sciences. Rutgers has more than sixty Iraqis enrolled at this time, and Georgetown has begun to accept them. The University of Chicago medical school, after a lot of groundwork, has agreed to bring Iraqi doctors for short refresher programs in cardiology. But what about the humanities and social sciences? Many Iraqis are going for training in these fields to Europe, especially Britain. But Chicago, the University of Pennsylvania, and the other universities with strong programs in Mesopotamian studies ought to be taking a leading role in the education of Iraqi archaeologists, art historians, and cuneiform scholars. But first, conditional admission and a realistic attitude to the GRE must be worked out, and it should be done quickly.