Egyptomania| American cultural representations of Egypt during the Cold War

<p> Petra, an ancient city located in southern Jordan, is a UNESCO World Heritage site known for its architecturally grand buildings and tombs carved into sandstone bedrock. The establishment of Petra as the capital of the Nabataean kingdom heralded the beginning of the sedentarization of the rulers of the Nabataean people. Petra rose to prominence between the 2^nd century B.C. and 1^st century A.D. where up to 30,000 Nabataean people may have lived. Despite decades of archaeological excavations at Petra, little is known about how these inhabitants of such a large city could have supported themselves in a semi-arid environment. This study reconstructs the diet of the non-elite Nabataeans from the 1^st century A.D., whose remains were excavated from the Petra North Ridge Tombs. The residents of Petra, like many ancient cities, likely relied on the hinterland for food items and it is expected that the residents supplemented their diet by importing foods to support their large population and to provide variability to the peoples&rsquo; diet. Here, we use a multidisciplinary approach to reconstruct the diet of the non-elite Nabataeans. This approach includes an analysis of carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes of human and faunal remains, combined with paleobotanical, archaeological, zooarchaeological and papyrological data. Stable isotope analysis revealed that the non-elite Nabataeans had relatively homogenous &delta;¹³C and &delta;¹⁵N bone collagen and apatite values which indicates that non-elite Petraeans may have ate a similar diet that relied on water-intensive C₃ plants such as barley and wheat along with meat and secondary products from animals. Evidence of local agriculture production from papyrological, archaeological and paleobotanical sources indicate that C₃ plants were grown and zooarchaeological data indicates that herd animals were brought in &ldquo;on the hoof&rdquo; for consumption. While these data cannot directly identify reliance on imported foods within Petra, the consumption of plant types not suited for Petra&rsquo;s arid environment may suggest they supplemented some locally grown crops with those imported from elsewhere. Finally, through the use of a multidisciplinary approach the data produced allows a more informed interpretation for future isotope studies.</p>

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Lehigh University, 2009. / Adviser: Elizabeth Fifer.

<p> What explains the tendency of counterinsurgents to adopt and retain ineffective strategies? Under what conditions do counterinsurgents replace ineffective strategies and what factors shape the strategies eventually adopted? While most studies explaining poor counterinsurgent performance focus on the preferences and pathologies of military organizations, I shift attention to civilian policymakers, explaining strategic choice as the product of their political preferences and the wider political and grand strategic pressures they face. By distinguishing between policymaking principals and bureaucratic agents tasked with implementing strategy, two challenges to successful adaptation can be identified: the challenge of decision, in which policymakers must overcome pressures to retain existing strategies, and implementation, in which policymakers must ensure agents tasked with implementing strategy comply with strategic directives. A solution to each is individually necessary, and together they are jointly sufficient for adaptation.</p><p> Counterinsurgency strategy is selected by policymaking principals who arbitrate between the competing recommendations of their bureaucratic agents and advisors. Because policymaker preferences are shaped by their wide responsibilities, an important determinant of counterinsurgency strategy is to be found in the way strategy impacts policymakers' core interests, notably their wider foreign policy objectives and their political security, both of which shape the objectives and strategies of a counterinsurgency campaign. As long as the political and geostrategic pressures that led counterinsurgents to select current strategies persist, counterinsurgents retain ineffective strategy. When domestic political or geostrategic changes lead policymakers to perceive that existing strategies have become liabilities for these higher priority issues, their preferences shift in favor of alternate strategies. Policymakers also face the challenge of ensuring all agents implement policymakers' preferred strategy rather than pursue their own preferred ends using their preferred means. The most effective solution is to empower a single agent, whose preferences most closely align with those of policymakers, to direct the campaign. </p><p> I combine comparative analysis and process tracing, drawing on case studies from the 20^th century British Empire. Beginning in the British Mandate for Palestine, I draw on a most similar comparison of two phases of the Palestinian Rebellion (1936, 1937-39) and the Jewish Rebellion (1945-1947), each demonstrating a different outcome: 1936 represents a case of successful decision but failed implementation; 1938 represents a case of successful decision and successful implementation; and 1946-7 represents a case of failed decision. Each is then matched to a most-different extension from Malaya and Ireland. </p><p>

<p>My research concerns intertwined issues of religio-political legitimacy and panegyric poetry during the Safavid dynasty (r. 1501 ? 1722). I explore ways that ideology and dominance were enacted and reproduced through the Safavid panegyrics in qa??deh and masnav? form. This research specifically examines how court poets responded to Safavid ideology for legitimizing kingship. Panegyric poetry has been one of the chief forms of political propaganda in praise of rulers and other holders of political authority from pre-Islamic times until modern days. Panegyric poems, especially qa??deh and masnav?, were the production of a court system and they were dominantly produced when a king was in power. By considering the nature of panegyric, as written for receiving a reward, the poets? portrayal of kings is traditionally ?assumed? to be the closest to the kings? self-image. The Safavid Persian panegyric, especially the qa??deh form, has heretofore received little scholarly attention. Scholars have usually investigated the literary value of this poetic genre and dismissed the role it could play in the promotion of Muslim rulers. This dissertation explores the ways in which religio-political legitimacy was produced and transmitted through the qa??deh and masnav? forms during the Safavid period and emphasizes the significance of investigating the panegyric genre of poetry not only from a literary perspective, but through a historical lens. While other cultural materials of the time emphasized the role of Safavid kings in the propagation of Twelver Shi`ism and portrayed the kings in a subservient position to the Shi`i Imams, I demonstrate that the Safavid court poetry highlighted the idea of ?sacred? in Sufi discourses and in notions that invoke pre-Islamic forms of Persian kingship to legitimize the Safavid rulership. From the time of Shah `Abb?s I (r. 1588 ? d. 1629), these two forms of representation were established more profoundly in Safavid panegyrics and stood in contrast to traditional notions of Shi`ism that were predominant in other cultural materials that issued in the name of the Safavid rulers. This dissertation, on the one hand, serves historians of the Safavid period, who investigate the Safavid courts and ideology in kingship. It demonstrates how the poets worked differently from the other sources through which the legitimization of the Safavid kingship was established. On the other hand, my study serves scholars of religion, who study Safavid religious treatises in order to shed light on the development of Shi?ism, Sufism, and other religious traditions of the time. By demonstrating the differences between the representation of a Shi`i Safavid king in cultural materials of the time and panegyrics, my research invites these scholars to examine non-religious sources more extensively to investigate Safavid ideology because these sources give a sense of how the religio-political ideology of the kings was perceived among the public and how it developed through time.

<p> This research project examines the tactics used by Ibn Sa&rsquo;ud and the officials of the early Saudi State during the years 1922 to 1932&mdash;when it existed as the Kingdom of Najd and eventually the Hijaz&mdash;to project sovereignty through institutions like the passport, operation of consuls abroad, and claiming various populations as subjects. Ultimately, this project finds that these actions were significant contributors to the formation of Saudi Arabia and establishment of Saudi sovereignty. It adds another explanatory dimension, one not often explored, for understanding the history of the Saudi Kingdom. Moreover, the project shows that the assertiveness of Najdi officials to operate in the name of a sovereign nation forced the British to more clearly articulate their own claims, dispensing with their preferred state of ambiguity, and sometimes causing local officials to establish official British policy on the spot. This combination of British and Najdi action (and reaction) contributed significantly to the overall form and shape of national borders, mobility of individuals, and designation of nationality across the Persian Gulf and in the world writ large. Ibn Sa&rsquo;ud and his officials were not attempting to enter a game where the rules were already fully established. Rather, they were part of the fabric of individuals and forces that came to make sense of a newly forming international regime of nation-states, nationality, and greater controls on human mobility.</p><p>

<p> This dissertation explores non-elite women in the Amarna Workmen's Village and Deir el-Medina through their day-to-day experiences in making bread in the household. Bread was the most important food for ancient Egyptians, and in addition to fulfilling nutritional requirements, was a literal means of embodying culture and identity. Bread was also a way of defining a household unit, marking those who ate it together as an identifiable group. Such commensal links were often more significant than kin ties in creating household membership. Bread was therefore an essential part of ancient Egyptian life, and the work done by women in the household to process raw grain into this food was equally important. </p><p> This dissertation is guided by several research questions: How did ancient women experience the day-to-day work of bread making? What did bread and bread-making mean to the women doing it? How did association with bread structure their identity, and how did it impact the way they organized their work? In order to investigate these questions, an array of archaeological, written, and artistic evidence from ancient Egypt is analyzed, in conjunction with comparative data from ancient and modern societies.</p><p> This dissertation will seek to illustrate several points. The first is that women's work in non-elite households was important, skill-based, and is worthy of modern study in order to enhance understanding of the lives of ancient Egyptian women. Second, bread-making, which involved the six phases of spikelet cleaning, pounding, winnowing/sieving, grinding, mixing and proving, and loaf shaping and baking, required large amounts of labor, time, and space. Third, archaeological evidence and comparative study can be used to hypothetically model organization, group hierarchy, identity, and agency of women in the Amarra Workmen's Village and Deir el-Medina.</p><p>

<p> This dissertation examines twentieth-century Jewish-Muslim relations in Morocco&rsquo;s Atlas Mountains through oral traditions (anecdotes, jokes, songs, poetry duels) as remembered by Muslims and Jews in the twenty-first century. Jews had lived in these predominantly Berber-speaking regions for over one thousand years; yet these rural Jewish communities had almost completely disappeared by the early 1960s, due to mass emigration, largely to Israel. Despite the totality of the rupture, Jews and Muslims retain vivid memories of their former neighbors. Drawing on my fieldwork with Muslims still living in Moroccan villages and with Jews in Israel who had emigrated from those same villages over half a century earlier, I use the anecdotes and songs that animate these reminiscences as my primary sources. My analysis is further informed by extensive research on Moroccan history and culture. My study reveals that Berber oral traditions functioned in the past&mdash;and continue to function in present-day reminiscences&mdash;as forms of creative acknowledgment of both difference and affinity between Jews and Muslims. Analyzing examples from this corpus illuminates aspects and nuances of the intricacies of daily life rarely addressed in other sources, facilitating a deeper understanding of the paradoxes and possibilities of Jewish/Muslim co-existence in Morocco&rsquo;s Atlas Mountains, and perhaps beyond.</p><p> Central to my theoretical concerns, therefore, are interreligious cultural production and boundaries. Berber cultural traditions in particular offer a unique framework (for both participants and researchers) for addressing issues of boundaries and difference, while simultaneously elucidating the shared cultural worlds of Jews and Muslims in which oral traditions played a crucial role, and out of which came creativity, humor, and community. It was the engagement with difference, rather than its erasure, that fostered community and a rich intercultural life.</p><p> I begin with an investigation of the phenomenon of Arabic-speaking Jews among Berber-speaking Muslims, which also illuminates Jewish participation in Berber oral&mdash;and other cultural&mdash;traditions. Rather than a unidirectional acculturation of the minority into the majority culture, Berber cultural forms engaged by Muslims and Jews reflect a dynamic interchange. I posit the idea of Muslim-Jewish &ldquo;co-productions&rdquo; for many of the shared Berber oral traditions, particularly for the poetic duels. In my analysis of the recounted anecdotes and poems, I explore how Muslims and Jews not only speak <i> of</i> each other but also <i>through</i> each other&rsquo;s voices. Through adaptation of Bakhtin&rsquo;s theoretical concepts of dialogism and polyphony, I show how speaking in one another&rsquo;s voices allows Muslim and Jewish narrators to express multiple and often contradictory meanings simultaneously. Throughout my analysis, I investigate how boundaries did not always fall neatly or predictably into religious categories, nor did the complex socio-political stratification fit into a simplified majority-minority binary.</p><p> The nuanced views of Jewish-Muslim relationships that my project presents serve as a model for exploring such intercommunal relations beyond the temporal and geographic focus of my dissertation. My study serves as a corrective to simplified and polarized views of Jewish-Muslim relations prevalent in public spheres, media, and still, though to a lesser degree, in academia, and leads to an appreciation of the complexity and diversity of such relationships. </p><p>

<p> In late 1877, John Fryer Thomas Keane set out on a journey few Christian Europeans had attempted&mdash;completing the <i>h&dotbelow;ajj,</i> or pilgrimage, to Mecca. While some Europeans had undertaken this pilgrimage as Muslims, Keane donned the guise of an Indian Muslim instead of converting to Islam outright. From the <i>h&dotbelow;ajj</i> of Italian Ludovico di Varthema in the early sixteenth century to the nineteenth century travels of Englishmen Sir Richard F. Burton and John Lewis Burkhardt, a select few Westerners embarked upon <i>h&dotbelow;ajj</i> disguised as Muslims in order to reveal the nature of this restricted Islamic ritual practice. After completion of his <i>h&dotbelow;ajj</i>, Keane detailed his journey in a two-volume set. Given his youth and general lack of experience, Keane stands out as a unique, and understudied, traveler among England&rsquo;s nineteenth century disguised <i>h&dotbelow;ajjis.</i> He represented a new form of non-Muslim <i>h&dotbelow;ajji,</i> that of the tourist, who performed the pilgrimage, not out of any academic or imperial needs or wants, but for their own personal enlightenment, adventure, or gain. His <i>h&dotbelow;ajj</i> also demonstrates the growing global interconnectedness of the late nineteenth century. In this thesis, I outline how studying Keane affects our understanding of late nineteenth century Western exploration in Arabia.</p><p>

This dissertation is a historical analysis of politics of state building and health in Palestine and in Jordan. The study contributes to contextual studies of constructions of gender and health as a central aspect of modern nation-state building in the twentieth century. Processes of modern state building in the region of Bilad al Sham brought about significant transformations in definitions of health, development of health care systems, and medical practices. The study examines three aspects of these changes. First is a gender analysis of ways in which science and medicine contributed to colonialist processes of state building. Second is an exploration of particular effects of war, displacement and expulsion, and changing socioeconomic political conditions, on Palestinian women's health. Third, the study looks at the significance for Palestinian women healers, midwives, and others, of changes introduced in the health system by the British in Palestine and in Transjordan and by UNRWA in refugee camps in Jordan. A study of women and health requires a shift in dominant historiographical approaches. This dissertation develops an analytic framework that takes as its starting point questions raised by feminist epistemology. In the period addressed, the struggle for control of health systems is also a struggle for control of knowledge making. Aspects of this struggle disadvantage and invalidate knowledge bases of women healers. A central question of the study is: how do specific Palestinian refugee women construct meaning and authorize knowledge? This dissertation examines the particular relationship of Palestinian women to historical processes of war, citizenship in the modern nation-state, refugee status, relief efforts, and development processes. In addition to archival research, findings are based on oral histories with Palestinian women refugees in Jordan in order to understand how they interpret history and construct health. Findings show that Palestinian women represented in this study construct health as a socio-political phenomenon, rather than in purely biological terms, and that health is a metaphor for homecoming. Health concerns are central to Palestinian women's resistance: nationalist struggle is a historical reality informing their struggle for self definition, a struggle central to defining health. Oral histories represented in this study clarify the need to address Palestinian women's health in the context of gender, race, class politics dominating the region.