Browsing by Subject "Syria"

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Agent of touch and transformation : a pilgrimage token of Saint Symeon the Younger in the Menil collection
(2011-05) Steiner, Shannon P.; Peers, Glenn; Papalexandrou, Amy
When considering early Byzantine pilgrimage tokens, questions of touch and tactility arise almost instantly. Tokens lack cords or mountings, and so touch is implicit in such objects. Even gazing at them was a form of touching for the pilgrim. Hagiographies tell of pilgrims crowding to holy sites with the express intent to access sanctity through touch. Touch then, whether visual or manual, mediated the desire for connection between a pilgrim, a site, and a body. This requires an examination of a token’s touch as well as a pilgrim’s. In my thesis, I focus on a surviving token of the stylite saint Symeon the Younger, housed in the Menil Collection. This particular token bears iconography associated with physically and spiritually transformative events. Images of veneration, baptism, and healing appear together on the token’s obverse, while a human handprint on its reverse demands a multifaceted discussion of the implications of touching this object. I propose that in a pilgrim’s interaction with this token both object and viewer had agency. The token encapsulates a comprehensive pilgrimage experience. As a contact relic, the token makes present the saint’s body. Representation of baptism and the token’s backwards inscription enact sphragis – a figurative and literal stamping that pilgrims frequently described. I call attention to the experiential, memorial, and physical impressions made on the lives of early Byzantine pilgrims through the simultaneous touching of both viewer and object.
Antun Saadeh in the mahjar, 1938-1947
(2016-05) Leidy, Joseph Walker; Di-Capua, Yoav, 1970-; El-Ariss, Tarek
Antun Saadeh (1904-1949), the founder of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, has often been labelled a political and ideological imitator of European fascism. This association has led many to gloss over an important feature of his career: the mahjar, or Arab diaspora, particularly in Argentina and Brazil where he spent much of his life. This thesis contends that Saadeh's illiberalism emerged not as a mere echo of European fascism but from a diverse set of ideas and experiences. Central among these was his experiences and perceptions of the mahjar, which became a symbolic foil for Saadeh’s Syrian Social Nationalism. On the one hand, Saadeh conceived of the mahjar in terms that paralleled the historicist ideal of Phoenician trading colonies in Lebanese nationalism. However, Saadeh also had reservations about the dedication of migrant communities to the national cause. Reflecting this ambiguity, Arabic-language periodicals published in Argentina show how Saadeh was received in 1940s migrant society, where he found both supporters and detractors. There, Saadeh’s initially positive reception was followed by a turn against him in public debates. Nonetheless, Saadeh and his party had some success in establishing their movement in the mahjar, where younger supporters connected Saadeh to local discourses of national liberation. Viewing Saadeh from the perspective of his transnational influences and migrant audiences allows us to see him not as an exception in midcentury Levantine politics but within the wider context of nationalist politics in Lebanon, Syria, and the mahjar at the end of the Mandate era.
China’s energy policy in the Arab world
(2018-10-05) Nigeer Yasen, Zuli; Suri, Jeremi; Eisenman, Joshua, 1977-
China emerged as a major consumer of the Middle Eastern oil and gas due to the rapid economic growth that China experienced following its 1978 economic reforms. Chinese stable demand balanced global oil prices, which were suffering from the aftermath Iran-Iraq and Gulf wars. The influx of cash contributed to the establishment of Arab Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs). Energy exporting Arab nations subsequently utilized their massive SWFs to invest in the U.S. and Asian markets, which in turn deepened the economic interdependence between the U.S., China and the Arab world. The global economic interdependence between the U.S., China and the Arab world created both opportunities and limitation for China to expand its economic and political influence in the Middle East. This paper seeks to explain the evolution of China’s Middle East policy through the lances of oil and gas. Oil and gas are powerful prisms that help us to understand the interaction between the global economic trends and regional developments in shaping policy. Understanding this interaction is crucial to understanding Chinese policy in the Arab world as the China’s economic growth becomes increasingly dependent upon the continuity of energy imports from the Middle East.
Cooperation between Adversaries: The US and Russia’s Joint Effort against the Islamic State in Syria
(2018-05) Griffin, Abigail E.
The Syrian civil war has generated international media attention and interest since it broke out in 2011 as an Arab Spring uprising. The local conflict quickly became internationalized with two major coalitions at odds with each other—one supported by the United States and the other by Russia. The Russian coalition has included and backed the Assad regime in Syria, while the American coalition has supported several opposition groups and conducted air strikes against the Syrian government. However, the United States and Russia have managed to work together against a common enemy—the Islamic State. Cooperation is difficult to achieve, even between allies; oftentimes individuals defect in favor of their self-interests instead. Then how have the US and Russia managed to overcome their differences and incentives to defect and cooperate (avoiding war with each other) against the Islamic State? The answer rests in a thorough understanding of game theory and the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma in which the two coalitions find themselves trapped.
Counterterrorism and Humanitarian Policy in al-Hol Refugee Camp in Syria
(2023) Adair, Bianca; Ham, Taylor
This Policy Research Project evolved as a result of a Spring 2022 course on US Foreign Policy in the Middle East, which sought to explore national security challenges in the region, including the issue of the al-Hol Syrian refugee camp. As concerns with the al-Hol camp evolved, a group of 22 graduate students enrolled in the year-long Policy Research Project to work on solving the issue. First, through academic research that culminated in five literature reviews, students analyzed repatriation, radicalization, deradicalization, forced migration, and ISIL propaganda. By breaking down the issue into pieces that took humanitarianism and security into account, students approached the issue through multidisciplinary perspectives.
Democratic confederalism : a radical model for political emancipation in Northern Syria
(2019-05) Harned, Patrick; Barany, Zoltan D.; Redei, Lorinc
This thesis is a study of the democratic confederalist movement in Northern Syria, known as the Rojavan Revolution. Through an analysis of the political thought of Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned PKK leader, and the influence of his political writings on political developments in Turkey and Syria beginning in 1999, I connect the development of democratic confederalist institutions and transformations in Kurdish political activity to the epistemic break in Öcalan’s political writings, following the transformation of his political ideology from a traditional Marxist-Leninist to the confederalist approach, which is strongly influenced by the writings of the social ecology Murray Bookchin, as well as the popularization of the works of postmodern social theory among the Turkish left
Downstream voices : the Tigris/Euphrates dispute with emphasis on Syrian and Iraqi position
(2006-05) Lien, Elizabeth; Eaton, David J.
This thesis outlines hydrological, political, economic and social facts related to the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers dispute between the three major riparian states, Turkey, Syria and Iraq. Once the factual base was constructed, it describes how each of the states uses water based on direct quotes, inferences and interpretations from secondary literature, interviews and other primary sources. The author used these narratives to analyze the current level of coordination and prospects for further cooperation among the riparians. Using these narratives, the author has drafted an agreement that could be a starting point from which the riparian states could address regional water issues.
Emergency cinema in Syria : (re)envisioning documentary-as-witness
(2014-05) McLelland, Alex Key; Atwood, Blake Robert, 1983-
By contrasting the uses of image-as-evidence and documentary-as-witness, this report challenges some of the maxims of documentary film studies and exposes the ways in which different forms of audiovisual media construct distant conflict. More specifically, the report analyzes a purposive case selection of videos/films related to the Syrian uprising: the first set of visual data includes a montage of 13 YouTube videos claiming to show the aftereffects of the 21 August 2013 chemical weapons attack in Syria; the visual analysis in section two centers upon a selection of 15 short documentary films produced by the Syrian Abounaddara Collective. Theoretically, the study advances the value of witnessing in the re-envisioning of documentary film. My research demonstrates the relative weakness of both legalistic and journalistic approaches to depicting war that treat visual material primarily as recorded fact or evidence. In its place, the report advances a new form of documentary with a higher degree of interpretive acumen based on the "emergency cinema" model developed in Syria -- what I term "documentary-as-witness."
Enemy of My Enemy, Enemy of My Friend: the United States, the Syrian Kurds, and Proxy War in Syria
(2021-05) Reppeto, J.P.
An ongoing resurgence of proxy warfare in the world’s conflicts has created an opportunity to reexamine the frameworks used to study it, namely principal-agent theory. In Syria, the United States formed a principal-agent pairing with a local Kurdish militia, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), to defeat the transnational threat posed by the militants of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Their relationship is but one of several proxy dynamics taking place in Syrian Civil War, with the pressure exerted by different actors such as Turkey and Russia ultimately affecting the US-YPG partnership. This thesis seeks to update principal-agent applications to proxy war by inspecting the impact of third parties on the US-YPG principal-agent relationship.
Eschatology in the ISIS narrative
(2015-12) Petit, David Nathaniel; Moin, A. Azfar; Kuperman, Alan J
Apocalyptic millenarianism, rooted in traditional Islamic eschatology, is at the very core of the self-proclaimed Islamic State’s narrative and its claim to sovereignty and legitimacy. The millenarian narrative also represents a radical departure from the jihadist paradigm of al-Qa’ida and provides a major conceptual and theoretical challenge to al-Qa’ida’s leadership of the global jihadist movement. Other combatant groups in the Syrian civil war, such as Jabhat al-Nusra and Hezbollah, make some limited use of millenarian symbols. This essay will reference these cases briefly, for the purposes of comparison and context. The primary goals are to analyze the Islamic State’s challenge to al-Qa’ida, document ISIS’s millenarian narrative, and to contextualize these millenarian outbursts.
Evaluating the net-humanitarian impact of Russia’s intervention in Syria
(2021-05-07) Rehnquist, Thomas Cornell; Kuperman, Alan J.
This report uses quantitative and qualitative data to determine the humanitarian impact of Russia’s intervention in the Syrian Civil War (2011-Present). It argues that Russia’s military intervention in September 2015, despite Western backlash, had a net positive humanitarian impact. Prior to Russia’s involvement, thousands of Syrian civilians were dying per month, with neither side capable of victory, nor interested in political compromise. This violent stalemate appeared unending. Russia’s intervention helped break this stalemate, and gave the Assad regime the upper-hand in the conflict. The war still continues today in some portions of the country, but at a dramatically lower intensity. Western countries should look to Russia’s strategy in Syria as a model for future interventions. By intervening in a biased manner, Russia was able to shorten the conflict, and save an estimated 55,000 lives
Hela L’Wein : performing nationalisms, citizenship, and belonging in displaced Syrian communities
(2019-07-08) Pitchford, Gerald Barton; Canning, Charlotte, 1964-; Ziter, Edward; Bonin-Rodriguez, Paul; Alrutz, Megan Charlotte
Hela L’Wein examines cultural production through a textual analysis of selected theatrical output by displaced Syrians “temporarily” relocated to Zaatari camp, Azraq camp, and Amman, Jordan. In concert with analyzing several theatrical works, I also consider the process and daily lives of the producing artists. A textual analysis of both the fictional worlds created in these plays and the nonfiction worlds their creators inhabit reveals a narrative of radical democratic citizenship bound closely with identity formation in the wake of dislocation and national fragmentation. The narrative I elucidate hinges on the interrelated logics of nostalgia, desire, and hope. Taken together these three affective registers, negotiate, and combine throughout the lives and stories of the artists discussed. Nostalgia, hope, and desire become the affective filters through which these displaced Syrians grapple with recent events, sift through memories, and begin to reconstitute themselves as stateless citizens. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the spaces of displacement in which these productions took place as well as briefly summarizes each work in its entirety. Each subsequent chapter examines a selection of work through the affective registers nostalgia, desire and hope. Chapter two focuses on moments in three productions Shakespeare in Za’atari, Our Journey, and Love Boat where nostalgia is used strategically to reinforce specific modes of citizenship or to induce behavior change. Chapter three examines desire as a tactic which draws on improvisation and immediacy to control small actions within larger chaotic situations. The three theatrical moments discussed in this chapter, Shakespeare in Za’atari, the classroom of Iman Zabeida, and Romeo and Juliet Separated by War exhibit agency by transgressing regulated territory. Chapter four elevates moments of hope present in the act of creating theatre for the participants in Syrian Trojan Women, Romeo and Juliet Separated By War, and Love Boat. Experiences described in this chapter allowed the participants to project themselves into a future where the trauma of war disappears and they belong to a community. Throughout this dissertation I argue that the intersecting flow of nostalgia, desire, and hope open new pathways for the displaced participants to reconsider and remake citizenship.
History of Baathist regime resilience in Syria from 1970 to 2014
(2015-08) Klosterman, Elliot Patrick; Barany, Zoltan D.; Goodnow, Regina
The Arab Spring protest movements that swept through the Middle East in the beginning of 2011 managed to dislodge many durable regimes and longtime heads of state, but has not yet succeeded in overthrowing the autocratic Baathist regime in Syria despite the overwhelming political pressure and armed opposition to its rule. While the world was shocked by the wave of popular protest that shook ostensibly stable regimes in Egypt and Tunisia, the Baathist regime in Syria has managed to withstand the Arab Spring challenge to their rule through at least the end of 2014 in part by employing tactics learned during previous instances of political insurrection. The diverse, tribal, and sectarian composition of the modern Syrian state has aroused many periods of political instability in the decades leading up to the ongoing Arab Spring uprising therefore allowing the ruling regime ample opportunities to learn how to contend with existential threats to its rule. Unlike the relatively homogenous and historically political stable states of Tunisia and Egypt, the Baathist Regime in Syria has become well accustomed to balancing opposition to its rule in order to maintain a tenuous hold on power. This thesis will reveal how the Baathist regime in Syria has managed to defeat past existential political and armed threats to their rule in the decades leading up to the present Arab Spring Uprising. An analysis of the regime’s political and military strategy during prior instances of domestic upheaval will reveal that much of the political and security actions taken by the regime post-Arab Spring can be explained historically. Prior to the contemporary Arab Spring Uprising, the regime had become well accustomed to the challenges of ruling a diverse and politically unstable state and thus has mastered the techniques of driving opposition forces while co-opting or coercing domestic and international support Over the years politicians and analysts have referred to the Baathist regime in Syria as being on the ropes or poised to fall at any time, yet the regime has managed to survive. Since history has revealed both the remarkable resiliency and entrenched position of the Baathist regime in Syria, there is little reason to believe that the regime will crumble in the face of the Arab Spring Uprising. Although the pressure for regime change felt in Yemen, Egypt, and Tunisia may have been fundamentally similar to those felt in Syria, the Syrian Baathist regime makeup and experience in dealing with existential threats reveal why Bashar al-Assad and his regime have remained in power at least through the end of 2014.
Land Reform in the Middle East
(International Journal of Middle East Studies, 1977) Askari, Hossein; Cummings, John Thomas; Harik, Bassam
Letter to H.B. Stenzel from Thomas H. Withers on 1938-07-29
(1938-07-29) Withers, Thomas H.
Letter to Harold E. Vokes from H.B. Stenzel on 1941-02-11
(1941-02-11) Stenzel, Henryk B.
Letter to Martin F. Glaessner from H.B. Stenzel on 1947-02-17
(1947-02-17) Stenzel, Henryk B.
Letter to Moshe Avnimelech from H.B. Stenzel on 1947-01-10
(1947-01-10) Stenzel, Henryk B.
Neda Hamid Interview
(2019-05-08) Institute for Diversity & Civic Life
This interview is with Neda Hamid, a Palestinian Muslim and recent Human Development and Family Sciences graduate from the University of Texas at Austin. Neda speaks to Islam being a very important part of their life and the subsequent ramifications of being a highly visible hijab-wearing Muslim. Neda also navigates a shift in their leftist political identity and discusses how being surrounded by progressive-minded people in college was a stark contrast to their high school experience in Baytown, Texas, where they were born and raised. During college, Neda was highly involved with the Liberal Arts Refugee Alliance (LARA) as well as the Palestine Solidarity Committee. Neda would like to tie their life’s work to helping the local refugee community.
On the traumatic origins of political community in modern Syria
(2011-05) Casey, James Francis Byrne; Di-Capua, Yoav, 1970-
This project offers an alternative perspective on the appearance of new forms of political community, types of social solidarities, and intellectual spaces in the French Mandate in Syria. Most previous scholarship on this period pivots on the presumption of once-and-future nationalisms as the driving historical force. The argument here articulates this history by reinscribing it into a wartime and postwar landscape of physical destruction and mass social, intellectual, and economic trauma. Through a close examination of wide variety of French and Arabic primary sources, this project emphasizes the traumatic origins of political communities and solidarities in the space of historic Greater Syria especially the area of the French Mandate of Syria. Arising initially out of the mass physical and institutional destruction of the First World War, this situation was reified by the persistence of manifold forms of French physical, economic, and intellectual violence. While recognizing the eventual nationalist historical outcomes, this project challenges the accepted primacy of its role in defining the historical period it emerged out of. The driving historical force in this period was not an amorphous nationalism but a shattered society’s intense political, social, economic, and intellectual anxieties about their current and future place in a vastly changed world. This defined the political shape Syria would assume and better explains how Syria and the region as a whole arrived at a nationalist historical outcome.