[Bilimsel Haber] "America's wards: Orphan survivors of the Armenian genocide and the origins of American humanitarian exceptionalism (1920-1925)"

[Gonul Pultar]

The Institute for International, Comparative, and Area Studies (IICAS)
University of California, San Diego
(http://iicas.ucsd.edu/events/speakerseries/middleeast.php)

- Presents a talk by -

Keith David Watenpaugh
Associate Professor, Religious Studies
University of California, Davis

"America's Wards: Orphan Survivors of the Armenian Genocide and the 
Origins of American Humanitarian Exceptionalism (1920-1925)"

Thursday, January 14, 2010
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM

Eleanor Roosevelt College (ERC)
Room 115, UC San Diego



To register for this event, email <iicasintern at ucsd.edu>



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-World War I 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.