"AMERICA’S WARDS: ORPHAN SURVIVORS OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE AND THE ORIGINS OF AMERICAN HUMANITARIAN EXCEPTIONALISM (1920-1925)"
Keith David Watenpaugh: Associate Professor, Religious Studies University of California, Davis
Eleanor Roosevelt College (ERC)
Room 115, UC San Diego
Thursday, January 14, 2010
To register, email [email protected]
Drawn from his forthcoming work, "Bread from Stones: The Middle
East and the Making of Modern Humanitarianism," this talk traces the
emergence of a self-defined exceptional American role in assisting
the peoples of the post-WWI Middle East by focusing on the work of
Near East Relief on behalf of Armenian Genocide survivor orphans. This
role was built upon the assertion of the non-colonialist and altruistic
nature of the American involvement in the Middle East and a belief in
the unique ability of Americans to transfer Progressive Era reform to
that region. Not only did American Humanitarian Exceptionalism shape
the specific modes and characteristics of relief projects at the
time, but also influenced broader attitudes and ideas about Middle
Eastern peoples and Islam in the United States, and in the Middle
East the multiple perceptions of America, Americans and its programs
for assistance and development. Likewise, the persisting reach of this
exceptionalism affected the future direction of American relief in the
region and continues to influence decisions about aid and intervention.
Keith David Watenpaugh is Associate Professor of Modern Islam,
Human Rights and Peace at the University of California, Davis. He
is author of Being Modern in the Middle East (Princeton, 2006), and
most recently was a Jennings Randolph Senior Fellow in International
Peace at the U.S. Institute for Peace. His work has appeared or will
appear in the American Historical Review, the International Journal
of Middle East Studies, and Social History, and has been translated
into Arabic, Persian, German and French. He currently serves on the
editorial board of the International Journal of Middle East Studies.