The Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party was established in Syria during the mid-twentieth century, originally championing Arab unity and freedom from foreign influence. The party eventually managed to rise to power in Syria and Iraq, thereby concluding the widespread political instability that had previously plagued both countries. In each of these contexts, autocratic leaders emerged at the forefront of the ruling regimes and manipulated the party to bolster their rule for over three decades. This paper examines the Ba’ath party’s history and ideology to understand the party’s source of strength. It also discusses the party’s role in achieving power as well as the different functions it undertook in Syria and Iraq once autocratic rule was established. Finally, it studies the fall of both regimes and the status of the Ba’ath party today.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, the Chechens fought against the Russians for independence. The focus in the literature available has been on the wars and the atrocities caused by the wars. The literature then hypothesizes that the insurgency of today is just a continuation of the past. They do not focus on a major event in Chechen history: the Soviet liquidation of the Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in 1944. It is this author’s assertion that the liquidation of the Chechen-Ingush ASSR forever changed the mindset of the people because it fractured a society that was once unified. This project will compare the Chechen insurgency from the beginnings until the deportation and after the deportation. This will allow me to show how the deportation changed the Chechen mindset and disprove the assertion that these two Chechen wars were just a continuation of the past.

The oral traditions in the Islamic world presented only the moral benefits of Jihad. Yet, the fact is that, though the moral benefits continued to exist before and after the First Crusade, though the interest seemed to have been present and the necessary intellectual theories continued on, Muslims did not advance the practical Jihad. Nonetheless, the disastrous Second Crusade struck a powerful chord among Muslims. It forced Muslims to battle for their very survival, and to do so they would have to adapt, but equally they could only survive by drawing on their imperial inheritance built up over centuries. A number of concerns identified with the “golden age” of the Islamic empire influenced the Jihad movements for Muslims associated the imperial traditions with Islam itself. Given the examples of the First and Second Crusades, this study proposes that the idea of “Islamic Empire” constituted Muslims’ practical response to the crusades.

This thesis examines how Jews of the Ottoman Empire responded to newfound opportunities that emerged across the domains of the late Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century due to the Ottoman bureaucratic reforms (Tanzimat). It challenges the discourses that argue that Jews engaged probing issues such as nationalism in a monolithic fashion. Rather, Sephardi and Arab Jews, based on socioeconomic status and geographic location in the Empire approached questions of affiliation with the Empire or attachment to new forms of nationalism based on divergent structures that informed their lives and personal political choices. This project explores the main avenues that Jews in the Ottoman world used to approach questions that animated the public discourse not just of Jews, but of peoples across the globe who struggled to find new avenues for belonging in shifting geopolitical terrains. For Jewish communities in the Ottoman world, four dominant avenues and attitudes emerged: traditionalists who desired to maintain the status quo; those who sought an Ottoman or Turkish Republican future; Sephardi Zionists who believed they were integral to Ottoman communal history; provincial nationalists who agitated for distinct regional identities. The thesis also briefly examines the Armenian millet’s socio-political situation during the nineteenth and twentieth century in order to show the ways in which the Jewish millet was both in tandem with broader nationalist discourses but were also less cohesively politically organized than other millets in the Empire.

A study of ten Louisiana newspapers during May 15-31,1948 revealed a period in which articles varied in their coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict and wider international relations. Discourse about Arabs and Israelis which became evident in newspapers in later years had emerged but was not fully developed. This coverage revealed a silence about the Holocaust and a subtext about the United Nations.

This exploratory research study examines changes in food and foodways (food habits) among Arab migrant families in a small community in Tampa, Florida. It also explores how those families’ children may play a role in the process of change. Within this community, I conducted my research study at a private school, where I recruited families with children between the ages of eight and seventeen. In applying the ecological model of food and nutrition and the developmental niche theoretical framework, this research draws on qualitative methods, including structured interviews with parents; focus group discussion with parents; a food survey; and children’s focus groups that included engaging activities such as vignettes (role playing), free-listing and sorting, and one-day food menus. I used MAXQDA 18 software for qualitative data analysis, and the results show that the main factors aiding in post-migration food and foodways changes are time constraints (lifestyle), ingredients, and availability and accessibility of permissible food (halal). Parent did not mention their children as a main factor; however, they perceive influence of their children. Feeding practices such as rewarding, restriction, forcing, and family meals were emerging themes, and children express their agency around those practices. Children developed their own agency regarding food because of their social and physical environments. Older children perceived their influence on their families’ food and foodways by introducing food items to their own families.

This thesis analyzes an anonymous portrait painting of the Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II (r. 1808-1839), called by its descriptive title Seated Portrait of Mahmud II, within the context of the extensive portrait campaign commissioned by the sultan. Surviving examples from this series of diplomatic portraits share a unique set of intercultural iconographic vocabularies as a reflection of their time as well as implicit reinforcement of the sultan's political goals. By focusing on Seated Portrait of Mahmud II, I argue that a closer inspection of the campaign within a context that pays attention to Ottoman, European, and Persian visual practices reveals a more accurate and comprehensive understanding of its cross-cultural histories and visual as well as ideological references. Structured to reflect the tripartite composition of the artwork itself, this thesis addresses the style and iconographies of the background, middleground, and foreground, respectively. Following a focused examination of the sultan's portrait, I compare Seated Portrait of Mahmud II to two contemporary paintings: Napoléon Bonaparte as First Consul (1808) from France and Portrait of Qajar Ali Shah Seated on a Chair Throne (1807) from Qajar Iran. While bringing attention to the art-historical implications of a hitherto understudied, yet significant portrait of Mahmud II, my work reexamines the early-modern history of Ottoman art within the larger framework of cross-cultural encounters.

During the 2008 spike in oil prices, oil companies and government officials were brought under close scrutiny as many Americans began to question why prices were able to rise so quickly. Americans had become accustomed to living in an economy where cheap oil was the norm, and demanded answers when that situation changed. What most of them did not know is that they were repeating history and mimicking the response to the 1973 oil embargo. Just as in 2008, the United States faced a crisis in 1973 with which it was unprepared to effectively cope. This thesis analyzes the reasons for and consequences of this lack of preparation in 1973 drawing on the writings of major policy makers and leaders of the time, most notably Henry Kissinger, Anwar el-Sadat, and Richard Nixon, Senate hearings testimony, recently declassified government documents detailing plans for U.S. invasion, and contemporary newspapers which recorded public perception. I argue that decades of living with cheaply priced oil, an over reliance on multinational corporations and a lack of understanding of Middle Eastern resentment toward these oil companies, combined with a fundamental misunderstanding of how oil and politics could be linked brought the United States to the ultimate near-decision of invading the Middle East. The 1973 oil embargo brought the United States face-to-face with the consequences of reliance on foreign oil and with the hardships that resulted from it. The United States had relied on oil companies to manage their interests in the Middle East for decades but in 1973 the situation changed forever. I close by considering the ongoing deep ties between the United States and the Middle East that are present still. The same problems that existed in 1973 exist today, and until those are corrected the United States and its economy will be deeply tied to the Middle East and to events in the region.

The 1948 Arab-Israeli War effectively destroyed Palestinian society. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled their homes and sought refuge in foreign lands, where they attempted to reestablish their lives and culture. This thesis examines the role of memory in shaping a Palestinian diaspora identity and uses Mahmoud Darwish’s book The Buttefly’s Burden to identify important aspects of the collective Palestinian experience. As the Palestinian national poet, Mahmoud Darwish provides authentic representations of the Palestinian struggle to reconcile the loss of their homeland. Examining Darwish’s work, this thesis explores four significant sources of Palestinian memory and identity: exile, absence, occupation, and the land. Through these sources, Darwish is able to recreate Palestinian society in his lyric and poetic genius.

This study offers a look at the ways in which discourse shaped by the contemporary Israel-Palestine conflict serves as a framework for modern historiography on Palestine. It focuses specifically on the variety of historical narratives proffered as to the “truth” of the Crusade period in Palestine, roughly the eleventh through the thirteenth centuries, and their mobilization in political agendas through the Zionist-Crusader analogy. This comparison, a historical analogy likening Zionists to Frankish Crusaders or the State of Israel to the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, appears frequently in contemporary dialogue on the Israel-Palestine conflict; it comes from a diverse range of sources and for a variety of political ends, showing that the politicization of history of the contested land is a widespread phenomenon that is limited neither to academic nor political circles. Furthermore, this study argues that common national, religious, or ethnic identities do not guarantee common political conclusions or agreement on the “facts” of the Crusader past. On a broader level, this study investigates the theoretical underpinnings of national histories and their employment as political devices in nationalist movements, as well as explores the role of individual agency in creating and deploying nationalist historical narratives within the framework of the Zionist-Crusader analogy. In the specific context of the Israel-Palestine conflict and the modern State of Israel, this theoretical component focuses primarily on applications of Crusade history to supporting or challenging contemporary political-religious claims to the land of Israel-Palestine.