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1. Was Irving Babbitt an Educational Counterrevolutionist?

Author:
Eric Adler
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Humanitas
Institution:
The Center for the Study of Statesmanship, Catholic University
Abstract:
Admirers of the work of Irving Babbitt (1865-1933), the chief figure associated with an informal school of literary and social criticism called New Humanism, have long recognized that many of Babbitt’s critics have failed to take seriously—or even to understand—his ideas. According to the political philosopher Claes Ryn, for example, even during Babbitt’s lifetime “reckless distortions of his ideas gained wide currency.” The caustic debates surrounding New Humanism that took place in the early decades of the twentieth century, it seems, encouraged critics to contribute tendentious and careless appraisals of Babbitt’s work. Such partisan and misleading critiques continue to influence assessments of Babbitt today. The one hundredth anniversary of Rousseau and Romanticism, arguably the author’s quintessential monograph, provides an excellent opportunity to revisit assumptions about Babbitt’s ideas. This article will make the case that some scholars of American higher education have proved especially egregious distorters of Babbitt’s thought.
Topic:
Education, Intelligence, Literature, and Higher Education
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

2. Jack F. Matlock and American Diplomacy with Russia

Author:
Olga Krasnyak
Publication Date:
11-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
American Diplomacy
Institution:
American Diplomacy
Abstract:
Editor’s note: Dr. Krasnyak’s research was supported by the Matlock Archives Short-term Fellows in Residence Grant. The grant was provided by the Center of Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies (CSEEES) of Duke University. US-Russia relations are currently at a low point without promise for improvement in the short term. Russia and the US once again seem more likely to be talking about each other than with each other. Research into the career of Jack F. Matlock, a long-term diplomat and an Ambassador to the Soviet Union, offers insights into ways to conduct diplomacy to advance American interests with Russia. Ambassador Matlock’s contributions to diplomacy are important for understanding the history of US diplomacy with Russia; the Matlock archive collection at Duke University is a rich source for researching and teaching diplomacy.
Topic:
Cold War, Diplomacy, History, and Literature
Political Geography:
Russia, Soviet Union, and United States of America

3. The Intersection of Poetry and U.S.-Mexican Border Affairs in Natalie Scenters-Zapico’s “Lima :: Limón”

Author:
Gabriel Panuco-Mercado
Publication Date:
01-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Georgetown Journal of International Affairs
Abstract:
Natalie Scenters-Zapico is a poet from the United States-Mexico border towns of El Paso, Texas, and Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico. Her work, like her origin, is about borders. In her debut collection, The Verging Cities, Scenters-Zapico explores immigration, marriage, and femicide in the realm of border culture and identity [1]. She expands these themes in her second collection, Lima :: Limón, where she creates a scathing depiction of the brutal machismo that conditions a Mexican woman’s experience. Lima :: Limon is especially personal to Scenters-Zapico. Her lyrical passages draw from the music of her childhood. In an age where distorted narratives about immigration lead to family separation and threaten asylum seekers, Lima :: Limon’s intimacy is especially critical. Unlike the efficacy of border policy or trade negotiations, Scenters-Zapico’s personal narrative is undeniable—as are the harrowing experiences of millions of Mexican women.
Topic:
Immigration, Women, Borders, and Literature
Political Geography:
Central America, North America, Mexico, and United States of America

4. Reading the Arabesque with Kamal Boullata

Author:
Vicki Valosik and Kamal Boullata
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS)
Abstract:
World renowned artist Kamal Boullata reflects on his work, his years in Washington, and the early days of CCAS.
Topic:
Arts, Culture, Literature, and Higher Education
Political Geography:
Palestine, United States of America, Washington, and D.C.

5. Assemblages of Land Loss and Immigration in Film and Literature about the U.S.-Mexico Borderlands

Author:
David E. Toohey
Publication Date:
12-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Review of Human Rights
Institution:
Society of Social Science Academics (SSSA)
Abstract:
Literature and film that are relevant to a concept of land and immigration that promotes ecologically sustainable and anti-racist visions are analyzed here to create an assemblage, based on Deleuze and Guattari’s theories. This is done to accomplish three tasks. The first is to disrupt misconceptions of a dichotomy between ecological activism and immigrant rights activism. The second task is to address the connections between ecologies and immigration and diaspora communities while taking into account issues of control over land that have often been important to people who immigrate from Central America and Mexico to the United States. As a third task, the idea of assemblage is modified to integrate Marx’s theory of primitive accumulation and Laclau and Mouffe’s idea of discourses of positive and negative activation in discourse to explore Deleuze and Guattari’s theory through a more specific application to situations of political economy that have been so intertwined with immigration, land, and ecology in Central America, Mexico, and the U.S. Southwest. Accordingly, the aim is to illuminate ecological points of view that are from immigrant and diaspora communities, rather than hostile to or imposed upon them.
Topic:
Immigration, Film, Borders, and Literature
Political Geography:
Mexico and United States of America

6. ARAB STUDIES JOURNAL VOL. XXV, NO. 1

Author:
Ghenwa Hayek, Geoffrey P. Levin, Jamil Mouawad, Hannes Bauman, Dylan Baun, Samar Kanafani, Joan Chaker, Reem Bailony, Paul Kingston, Linda Sayed, Maya Mikdashi, Jeffrey G. Karam, and Hichama Safieddine
Publication Date:
05-2017
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Arab Studies Journal
Institution:
Arab Studies Institute
Abstract:
Since the November 2016 elections, the dying gasps of US exceptionalism has meant the intensification of attacks on the lives and movement of people from the Arab world. The travel ban constitutes a US policy to sanction the very people that previous administrations as well as the current one have bombed. As borders close, the number of refugees fleeing the horrors of war in Syria, Yemen, and Iraq increases. In this tautology, the new US administration has resoundingly adopted policies of blaming the victims of decades of US war and hegemony. Within this constellation, the production of knowledge as well as higher education more broadly are more crucial than ever. In an era when the status of the fact has eroded at rapid speed, scholars and educators are on the frontlines of guarding the need for empirically grounded and theoretically sound research and scholarship. It is in this spirit that we offer our most recent issue of Arab Studies Journal. Ghenwa Hayek sheds new light on the notion of the “ordinary” and provides an innovative view on contemporary Beirut by tracing a young generation of novelists. Geoffrey P. Levin traces the trajectory of the Organization of Arab Students in the United States as it shifted from mainstream Arab nationalism supportive of US-Arab ties to anti-imperial radicalism. We are also honored to include a special section on the state in Lebanon. The past few years have featured renewed elite and popular mobilizations around particular state institutions and services: waste management, municipal elections, taxes, and more. The existence, nature, and role of al-dawla (the state) has been a persistent feature of public discourses about contemporary politics in Lebanon. In this special section, we feature a number of historical, contemporary, and theoretical considerations of the Lebanes state. Jamil Mouawad and Hannes Bauman, this special section’s co-editors, introduce the articles by considering the need for and stakes of taking more seriously this ephemeral and nebulous network of institutions and individuals. The section features three articles, each making a unique and productive intervention into the broader scholarship on Lebanon as well as that of the state. Complementing the special section is a critical assortment of book reviews of recent works on Lebanese history, contemporary politics, and their implications for the state in Lebanon.
Topic:
Education, History, Infrastructure, State, and Literature
Political Geography:
Middle East, North Africa, and United States of America

7. Syrian Scholar Finds Safe Haven at CCAS: A Conversation with Visiting Lecturer Mohammad AlAhmad

Author:
Will Todman, Mohammad AlAhmad, and Dana Dairani
Publication Date:
10-2016
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS)
Abstract:
On April 22, 2015, CCAS Visiting Lecturer Dr. Mohammad AlAmad and his family left their home and lives in Syria behind. “Human smugglers drove us to the Turkish border,” says AlAhmad, “and then my wife and I carried our two young children, walking through barbed wire and muddy water into Turkey. We were full of trepidation, fear, and the pain of being displaced.” Though AlAhmad left Syria because he had been accepted to participate in the Institute of International Education’s Scholar Rescue Fund, which provides support for threatened scholars and places them with visiting appointments at partner academic institutions, he did not yet know his family’s ultimate destination. Once in Turkey, AlAhmad learned that his appointment would be at Georgetown, starting in August.
Topic:
Authoritarianism, Refugees, Islamic State, Arab Spring, Syrian War, Literature, Revolution, and Higher Education
Political Geography:
Turkey, Middle East, Syria, North America, United States of America, and Raqqa