This dissertation examines contemporary Iraqi North American women’s life narratives within the frame of postcolonial autobiography theory. Through narrating their experiences of oppression, war, and displacement these women reveal the fragmentation of identity that occurs under such unsettling situations. However, I argue that in the course of narrating their stories and in spite of the fragmentation they suffer, these women are able to establish selves that distinguish and recover from fragmentation and loss through a process I term defragmentation. They are able to defragment their identities by reconstructing unique selves through the act of life narration, through relational remembering, and finally by resisting patriarchal and Western influences on how they perceive themselves and their experiences. Thus they are able to defragment their sense of disjointedness and reaffirm their sense of Iraqiness, even in the diaspora. This study explores the major causes of fragmentation in the work, which are divided into trauma and displacement. Unlike the studies and statistics that political approaches and media coverage have provided, these works shed light on the disruptions caused by war, oppression, separation from loved ones, and exile in the daily lives of these narrators or the lives of their friends and relatives. Therefore, in addition to the new identity that these women create in order to cope with their new lives in the West, they also construct a hybrid identity that is capable of recollecting and narrating these traumatic experiences. Within the space of hybridity, Iraqi North American women have to deal with vast differences between Western and Middle Eastern cultures; the transformation entails not just a change of place but an acceptance or understanding of a new culture, a new religion, and a new identity. The struggle of settlement, or re-settlement, becomes that of establishing an identity that does reflect the stereotypical images of Middle Eastern women in Western perceptions and a struggle to maintain selves that can contain both the past life and the present in what can be considered a third space. Although the main topic of this dissertation is defragmentation in the life narrations of Iraqi North American women, this study also covers the cultural and political history of Arabs in general, and of Iraqis specifically. There are also references to the migrations of Arabs to North America and a brief background of the roots of Arab North American literature. These topics will be discussed in order to provide an understanding of the histories from which these women, or their families, have migrated and their positions within Western culture and scholarship. In addition, this approach provides an insight into the complexities of these women’s identities that reflect multi-layered affiliations, interests, and cultures. The works chosen for this study include written and oral life narratives by Iraqi North American women who write from Canada and the United States. These works are Zaineb Salbi’s Between Two Worlds: Escape From Tyranny: Growing Up in the Shadow of Saddam (2005), Dunya Mikhail’s A Diary of a Wave Outside the Sea (2009) and a National Film Board documentary titled Baghdad Twist (2007), by Jewish Iraqi Canadian Joe Balass. In the documentary, Joe Balass interviews his mother, Valentine Balass, as she recounts growing up in Iraq and later experiencing exile from her homeland. The final work I address is The Orange Trees of Baghdad: In Search of My Lost Family (2007) by Leilah Nadir, a Canadian born Iraqi writer. Through her memoir Nadir tries to reconnect with her father’s family in Iraq while uncovering their traumatic experiences of the Gulf War. The narrators in my research belong to different social classes, age groups, and practice different religions, but they all identify themselves as Iraqi women. These women, through their interpretations of living life between two (or more) cultures, offer important perspectives not only on their own ethnic society, but also on the role of ethnic women in North American society in general. There has been a massive increase in the migration of Iraqi women to North America in the last thirty years; their perspectives on political, social, and religious changes are an important part of understanding the experiences of this ethnic group. Through their life narratives, these women are able to display their unique selves by portraying their ability to contest the boundaries and limitations of borders and societies that try to eliminate one identity or the other.

This thesis aims to scrutinize the Visegrad Quadruple Initiative as a device of the Central European countries in the process of involving into the re-negotiations in Europe and in world politics. The thesis argues that the Visegrad group was built in order to respond the demands of changing Europe and Euro-Atlantic structures, and thus to overcome the double process of transition and integration. However that was not the only reason to launch the Visegrad regional cooperation. The group produced an affirmative discourse that its members are distinguished from the other countries in transition, so that they are constantly one step forward to &lsquo / return to Europe&rsquo / . In the aftermath of the eastern enlargements of NATO and the EU alike, the original mission of the group, integration with the West, was achieved. That created a profound discussion about the survival of the group. As it is argued in this thesis, the group, as a prosperous and substantial regional cooperation, should rather continue to work in order to have more words to say in the re-negotiations processes. Another argument of the thesis is that the Visegrad group, taking Benelux group as a model in its continuity, is beneficial to produce a common foreign policy tendency among its members as long as the interests of its members are overlapping, otherwise the group is just being a political platform in which its members can share their views in such areas as regional regulations.

This study is a historical analysis of Turkish-Iraqi relations from the Gulf War of 1990 up to the Iraqi elections of 2005 and the end of Transitional Administration Law (TAL) and prior to the permanent constitution. This study attempted to explain how Turkish-Iraqi relations entered into a new phase with the Gulf War of 1990. In this year, Iraq invaded Kuwait. Following this invasion, Iraq was attacked by coalition forces and at the end of this war, Iraq was nearly divided when a safe haven was created for the Kurds in northern Iraq. In this regard, this thesis paid attention to three factors that had significant impact on the foreign policy of Turkey towards Iraq: a de facto Kurdish state in northern part of this country and apprehension about the possibility of an independent Kurdish state, the existance of PKK in northern Iraq as a result of a power vacuum there and concerns about the future fate of Turkomans in Iraq and attempts to protect their rights. This study has demonstrated how Kurdish question has influenced Turkey&rsquo / s policy towards Iraq and restricted its options.

Thesis (Master of Military Studies)-Marine Corps Command and Staff College, 2008. / Title from title page of PDF document (viewed on: Jan 8, 2010). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Master of Military Studies)-Marine Corps Command and Staff College, 2008. / Title from title page of PDF document (viewed on: Jan 11, 2010). Includes bibliographical references.

This thesis aims to scrutinize the Visegrad Quadruple Initiative as a device of the Central European countries in the process of involving into the re-negotiations in Europe and in world politics. The thesis argues that the Visegrad group was built in order to respond the demands of changing Europe and Euro-Atlantic structures, and thus to overcome the double process of transition and integration. However that was not the only reason to launch the Visegrad regional cooperation. The group produced an affirmative discourse that its members are distinguished from the other countries in transition, so that they are constantly one step forward to &lsquo / return to Europe&rsquo / . In the aftermath of the eastern enlargements of NATO and the EU alike, the original mission of the group, integration with the West, was achieved. That created a profound discussion about the survival of the group. As it is argued in this thesis, the group, as a prosperous and substantial regional cooperation, should rather continue to work in order to have more words to say in the re-negotiations processes. Another argument of the thesis is that the Visegrad group, taking Benelux group as a model in its continuity, is beneficial to produce a common foreign policy tendency among its members as long as the interests of its members are overlapping, otherwise the group is just being a political platform in which its members can share their views in such areas as regional regulations.

The aim of this political scientist paper is to describe and analyze the quasi state Iraqi Kurdistan 1992-2006 using the theory of Kolstö about how and why quasi states develops and the theory of Pegg regarding how the international society deal with quasi states. A qualitative case method is used. In the study the two theories are combined. Iraqi Kurdistan is used as a case to study to confirm Kolstö’s and Pegg’s theories. It’s an interesting case as it’s included in one of the most sensitive geo political areas in the world. The Kuwait war 1990 and the Second Gulf war 1991 were the incentive to Iraqi Kurdistan as a quasi state and the US invasion of Iraq 2003 was the incentive to the end of it. In conclusion the case verify the theories and the theories promote the understanding of Iraqi Kurdistan’s period as a quasi state. The goal of the quasi state Iraqi Kurdistan was to become a federal state in a federal Iraq and it succeeded.

The aim of the thesis is to study the negation in Muslim Baghdad Arabic variety. Iraqi Arabic variety has several different varieties because of the different ethnicities and religions in Iraq therefore the scope of the thesis has been limited to investigate just one type of Baghdad Arabic variety which is Muslim Baghdad Arabic (MBA). I used text analysis as a method in order to investigate the negation (system) in Muslim Baghdad Arabic variety. The material used was a book by McCarthy (1965) ‘Spoken Arabic of Baghdad, Anthology of text’. I also used Abu-Haidar’s article ‘Negation in Iraqi Arabic’ which is the most relevant work to my thesis as a starting point and for comparison with my discussion. The thesis has presented three different types of results. (i) There were some similar results that have been presented in both my thesis and the previous studies. (ii) There were some different results about some matters between my thesis and the previous studies. (iii) There were some new results in this thesis that have not been presented in any other studies.

La sexualité et les infractions sexuelles restent parmi les questions les plus sensibles dans les sociétés en général et dans la société musulmane en particulier, notamment parce qu'ils touchent à la l'intimité profonde de la personne. Chez les peuples du Moyen-Orient, dont l'Irak, la question de l'honneur sexuel (‘ird) est une question de vie ou de mort liée étroitement à la tradition dominante.Au sein de la société irakienne, l'inégalité entre hommes et femmes est une évidence reflétée par plusieurs aspects de la vie courante, notamment dans la gestion de la sexualité, la tolérance que la société y accorde, et la polygamie, qui, toutes, semblent avantager l'homme aux dépens de la femme. Le traitement discriminatoire des libertés sexuelles masculine et féminine est renforcé et affirmé dans le droit irakien lui-même. L'importance de la discrimination sexuelle a des répercussions néfastes sur le statut et l'émancipation des femmes irakiennes, ainsi que sur l'évolution globale de la société. / This Ph.D. dissertation examines how Iraqi criminal law with regard to sex and sex-related crimes severely discriminates women in Iraq. It looks at this issue in light of ancestral traditions of prejudice and violence against women that are deeply rooted in Iraqi society. Honor is an extremely important notion in the mentalities of Iraqi people. Women are supposed to maintain chastity and sexual purity in order to be considered "honorable". Anything that compromises their chastity, including crimes of which they are victims such as rape, destroys their honor and along with it, that of their entire family. Many women in this situation find themselves killed, injured, or forced to marry their attacker in order to allow their families to recover their honor. This study shows how Iraqi legislation, case law and legal doctrine all contribute to encourage and perpetuate this problem, and suggests some possible solutions.

Gemlike objects are a nearly ubiquitous phenomenon in the medium of glass, although culturally specific studies remain scarce. This dissertation considers the production of such works in the early medieval period, primarily in association with Abbasid rule. The first half attends to several accessory issues, including glass-related terminology, glass-coloring treatises, the lives of glassworkers, gemstone connoisseurship, and the legal status of such products. These demonstrate a range of coexisting attitudes, including the desirability of such works for their own sake rather than as surreptitious substitutes for “true” gemstones. The second half focuses on an exemplary object, an opaque turquoise glass bowl from the Treasury of San Marco in Venice, which I propose was produced in Baghdad for the caliph al-Mutawakkil just after the year 850. I then consider this work’s changing reception from late medieval Venice to modern scholarship, including ways in which “correct” interpretations of its material and/or origin have been repeatedly supplanted by false leads. The fundamental argument is that gemlike vessels like the San Marco turquoise were not deceptive stand-ins but rather intended to exercise complex discursive practices, both political and connoisseurial in nature, a function that ultimately remains in effect today.