Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Cultural Perceptions Of Janissaries In The Ottoman Empire And Beyond, Meghana Garcia

Scripps Senior Theses

The Janissaries of the Ottoman Empire were a group of Christian slave soldiers. They had political and social control in the imperial court and were also formidable soldiers who were successful in battle due to their highly organized structure. They were subjects of many travel journals, memoirs, accounts, and works of art that originated both inside and outside the Ottoman Empire. This thesis argues that in accounts originating from both inside and outside the Ottoman Empire, Janissaries are described as ruthless and powerful. Further examinations reveal that these accounts, despite their frequent negative connotations, are rooted in admiration and envy …

Visualizing Participatory Politics: The Communal Power Of Street Art In Revolutionary Egypt, Warring Syria, And Divided Lebanon, Erin Baranko

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis examines the role of street art in the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa in 2011 in order to investigate the extent to which the political struggle was also a visual struggle. Through analysis of murals and graffiti, it seeks to address how revolutionary politics are created, consumed, and witnessed in images. In Egypt, protesters created street art that coopted public space in order to circumvent the state’s authority and subvert the state’s legitimacy. Due to its accessible nature, street art also democratized the protest process, facilitating a truly popular revolutionary movement. In Syria, citizens used …

A Rainbow Of Iranian Masculinities: Raqqas, A Type Of Iranian Male Image, Anthony Shay

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

In this essay, I will explore the male dancer in the Iranian world, and how he came to occupy this abject position (dance, according to Zainab Stellar, being regarded by many conservative elements in Iranian society today as "the worst possible behavior of an undisciplined body in public, and symbol of all vice" (2011, 235)). Lotfollah “Lotfi” Mansouri, the renowned opera director and producer, recounted at a dinner that I attended (January 27, 2002 Peyvand Organization, San Jose), how one day as a student at UCLA, he entered Schonberg Music Hall and heard opera for the first time. He was …

Tracing Islamic Extremist Ideologies: The Historical Journey Of Jihad From The Late Antique Period To The 21st Century, Nikhil Kanade

CMC Senior Theses

Popular interpretations and academic scholarship tends to emphasize the relationship between jihad, military action, and communal violence. These reinforce a sense that violence is inherent to Islam. Investigations into the contexts where jihad has been deployed highlight how its use is often a call for unity believed to be necessary for political goals. Therefore, in order to deconstruct this belief, this thesis tackles instead the relationship between textual interpretations and historical actions, and how these varied across specific moments in time. The case studies examined range from the initial evolution of a theory of jihad in the late antique world, …

Between Two Fires: The Origins Of Settler Colonialism In The United States And French Algeria, Ashley Sanders

Library Staff Publications and Research

This dissertation is a comparative study of the establishment of settler colonies in the American Midwest (1778-1795) and French colonial Algeria (1830-1848). It examines how interactions between the Indigenous populations, colonists, colonial administrators, the military, and the métropole shaped their development and advances the theory of settler colonialism. This study centers on the first fifteen to twenty years of conquest/occupation in the American Midwest, focusing specifically on southern Illinois and Indiana, and the province of Constantine, Algeria. Despite differences in geography, relative size of the military presence and Indigenous demographics, the process of establishing settler colonies in both locations followed …

Politicized Historiography And The Zionist-Crusader Analogy, Emma Kellman

Scripps Senior Theses

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 …

Reviving The Reluctant Art Of Iranian Dance In Iran And In The American Diaspora, Anthony Shay

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

In this chapter, I look at the various ways in which different individuals--Iranians, Iranian immigrants in the West, Americans, and other non-Iranians--participated in several revival Iranian dance movements, beginning in the 1930s and continuing into the twenty-first century. The new interest in dance that began in this period coincided with a period of incipient modernity and its need to find ways in which to construct a modern national identity. As increasing numbers of Iranians made their way to the West, first as students and ultimately as immigrants and refugees, they discovered that dance as a representational field dovetailed with their …

The Development Of Personal Status Law In Jordan & Iraq, Kelsey Cherland

CMC Senior Theses

This thesis explores the historical development of personal status law, which governs a person’s marriage, divorce, and custody rights. It is significant because it is part of a framework that has defined women’s rights for centuries. I will argue that personal status law is a patriarchal framework that has been reinforced over time, leading up to the creation of nation-states in the Middle East. As such, this is the “institution” of personal status that will be traced using historical institutionalism theory. In this thesis I will argue that personal status has undergone a critical juncture, or crucial moment of potential …

Islamic Nationalism: Tracing Paradoxes In The Evolution Of The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Henry Johnson

CMC Senior Theses

This paper presents a narrative history of Iranian revolutionary ideology and its evolving impact on foreign policy. It looks at this history primary through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an institution established after the revolution and designed to defend the Islamic political order in Iran as well as oppressed Muslims abroad. The Revolutionary Guard, or Guard for short, became a focal point in the efforts of Iranian revolutionaries to export their ideology and has evolved overtime into a politicized and unconventional military force, often associated in the media with supporting foreign terrorists and militants. This paper argues that the Guard …

Pieces Of A Mosaic: Revised Identities Of The Almoravid Dynasty And Almohad Caliphate And Al-Bayan Al-Mugrib, Rolando J. Gutierrez

CMC Senior Theses

This study seeks to clarify the identities of the Almoravid and Almohad Berber movements in the larger Crusade narrative. The two North African Islamic groups are often carelessly placed within the group identified as “Islam” in discussions about the series of military campaigns that took place not only in the traditional Holy Land but also throughout regions of the Mediterranean such as Spain; this generalized identifier of “Islam” is placed against a much more complex group of generally Christian parties, all of them seen as separate, unique groups under the umbrella identifier of Christianity. This foray into a late 13 …

Dance And Human Rights In The Middle East, North Africa, And Central Asia, Anthony Shay

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

In this essay, Islam itself is first examined in order to determine how individual Muslims justify to themselves and to others the banning of dancing in various contexts. Following a brief discussion of Islam as it relates to dance, some of the myriad dance genres and contexts found in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia are discussed. Finally, I consider the many ways in which many Muslims perceive dance, and then describe and analyze the local reactions to dancing in its complexity. This approach elucidates multiple meanings that create a pattern of behavior within specific cultural contexts.

Dance In Iran, Anthony Shay

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

Two basic types of dance are performed in this Iranian cultural sphere, and in the Middle East generally. The first is regional folk dancing, most often (but not exclusively) performed in groups. The second is solo improvised dance (sometimes referred to as majilesi 'social' or 'party'). This second form often evokes a strongly negative reaction, reflected, now as in the past, in attempts to ban public performances of solo improvised dance and to marginalize professional performers. People in this area of the world sometimes seem to have what I call a "choreophobic" mentality; yet the same people who might condemn …

Dancing Boys, Anthony Shay

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

The informal, and occasionally formal, institution of the dancing boy--the term used by most Western writers in their descriptions of the Islamic world--has been attested for centuries by European observers throughout the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia, as well as the Indian subcontinent and throughout the Islamic areas of Southeast Asia such as Indonesia and the southern Philippines. These individuals have been called by a variety of names: bachchec [batcha], literally "child" in Persian and some Turkish languages, luti (itinerant performer), raqqas (dancer) in many regions, kocek (little) and tavsan (rabbit) in Ottoman Turkey, khawal in …

Beloved, Anthony Shay

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

The "beloved" forms a central literary concept, highly developed during the medieval Islamic period and still popular in our own times, in the urbanized societies of the Middle East and Central Asia. Encountered throughout the literatures of Persian, Ottoman, and Chaghatay (Uzbek) Turkish, Urdu, and Arabic, among others, this concept manifests itself through highly charged, homoeroticized images and metaphors. The beloved is characterized through such highly eroticized and theatrical tropes of wanton allurement as disheveled locks, torn garments, intoxication symbolized by a wine cup in hand, and appearing at the bedside of the feverish lover. (See, for example, the poems …

Danse Du Ventre, Anthony Shay

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

Danse du ventre (also called belly dance or danse orientale) most probably derived its name from one or both of two sources: (1) a corruption of the Arabic raqs al-baladi, meaning "dance from the countryside," and (2) a reference to the highly developed movement articulations of the torso and abdomen, which are the most characteristic movement practices of this widespread dance genre. Arabs outside Egypt often call it raqs al-sharq ("Oriental dance") or raqs al-misri ("Egyptian dance"), underscoring the widespread notion that this dance tradition originated in ancient Egypt. No historical documentation exists for the origins of …

Arabian Peninsula, Anthony Shay

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

The regional dances of the vast but sparsely populated peninsula that includes Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states and emirates, and Yemen are--due to political, religious, economic, and other reasons of access--among the least studied. Historically, the gulf region is one of the most ancient marketplaces, with traders from India, Mesopotamia, Africa, and the Arabian hinterland meeting here for centuries. Influences from all these groups may be discerned in the dancing.

Afghanistan, Anthony Shay

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

A very conservative Islamic country, Afghanistan lies on the eastern edge of the Middle East, to the west of Pakistan and India. Afghanistan is at the confluence of Iranian, Central Asian, and Indian cultural currents, and most groups within Afghanistan have ethnic ties across the borders. Indian elements are the least felt, but the rhythmic footwork of some solo dancing is highly reminiscent of classical Indian traditions. A variety of ethnic and linguistic groups, each with its own choreographic tradition, reflects Afghanistan's enormous cultural diversity. Its dance traditions, however, are scarcely documented. As in most Islamic countries, dancers are paid …

Lebanon, Anthony Shay

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

In many respects, Lebanon is unique among the Arab states of the Middle East, and this uniqueness is reflected in its dance traditions, particularly in the number of professional performances given. Lebanon is a country more urban than rural, although most residents of Beirut, its capital, have some village relations or associations. Because the nation is small, no village is more than a few miles from Beirut or from such urban centers as Sidon or Tripoli. Lebanon's population is highly educated, and nomads (bedouins) account for only a miniscule percentage. The country's many religious groups and sects--mainly Christian and Islamic--seem …

Kurdish Dance, Anthony Shay

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

The Kurds are a nomadic people whose homeland (Kurdistan) and population (of some 10 million) are now divided among mountainous rural regions of Syria, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Armenia; small numbers live in Israel and the Republic of Georgia, (and a separatist movement is headquartered in Paris, France). They speak an Iranian (a Persian) language, and some believe them to be the descendants of the ancient Medes. Without a state of their own, the Kurds place great importance on such cultural forms and identity markers as dancing.

Iran, Anthony Shay

Pomona Faculty Publications and Research

As the locale for one of the oldest continuing cultural, linguistic, and ethnic entities, Iran provides archaeological evidence for dance portrayed on Mesopotamean pottery dated to 5000 BCE (Zoka', 1978). Evidence for continuing choreographic activity is documented in the historical writings of foreigners, from biblical times to ancient Greece to the Persian and Ottoman empires. Iconographic artworks showing dance also exist, such as silver objects from the Sasanian period (224-650 CE) and Persian miniatures from the twelfth century. Iran is, and most likely has always been, a place of immense ethnic and linguistic diversity, a continental crossroad open to influences …

Nippur Bibliography, Linda B. Bregstein, Tammi J. Schneider

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

The Nippur Bibliography which follows is divided into two parts. The first part, "Text Publications and Interpretations," includes all primary publications of Nippur tablets and all studies that make significant use of tablets from Nippur. The secondary studies are included in order to highlight the contribution of the Nippur tablets to the reconstruction and interpretation of ancient Near Eastern literature, history, mythology, economy, law, and lexicography. The second part of the bibliography, "Excavation Reports and Secondary Archaeological Publications," includes all publications relating to the Nippur excavations, as well as studies of major archaeological finds. At the end of the section …

The Inscriptions Of Assurnasirpal Ii And His Son, Tammi J. Schneider

CGU Faculty Publications and Research

The existence of written records at a site is viewed with great joy because texts impart information that cannot be gleaned from other material remains. When no such texts are found, the archaeologists and other associated scholars must work that much harder to understand what happened at the site. One way this is done is by analyzing the remains of the site in light of other contemporary information, as has been done for Hasanlu in this issue. Contemporary sites of Assyria have produced historical texts recounting the activities of the Assryian kings that not only shed light on the period …

A Study Of The Partition Of Palestine, Nicola Youssef Sharaiha

CGU Theses & Dissertations

The United Nations Special Committee on Palestine is now a past history, along with the seventeen previous Committees and commissions which had reported on the Palestine problem.

But this Committee had several unusual features. It was a United Nations Committee and the Big Powers had no part in it. It was instructed to complete its work in one hundred and twenty days. The Committee visited four continents, heard many advocates and collected nearly two hundred pounds of typed or printed evidence. Lastly it was the first international Committee to study the problem of Jewry inside and outside Palestine.

I was …