Hi!
Though I focus primarily on twentieth century US history, I am really looking forward to taking this seminar in nineteenth century America. I first created this blog for Caleb’s cultural history research seminar last spring. I ended up writing a paper on Arab-Americans’ political involvement and identities in the 1920s and 1930s. I hope that my dissertation will study Arab immigration to the United States by looking at their political ideology and activism through a cultural lens. I want to examine their multiple perspectives on nationalism – their loyalties to their home state as Syrians or Lebanese after the breakdown of the Ottoman Empire, their affinity for the greater Arab community, and their nascent American identities. These cultural and political ideals greatly impacted the Arab-American community’s activism relating to Zionism and colonial intervention in the Middle East, so it will be interesting to analyze the connections between these peoples’ homelands and their new homes to see how ideas interacted and evolved.
Since the earliest Arab immigrants came to the United States after civil wars in Lebanon during the late 1800s, understanding nineteenth century U.S. history is integral to studying the Arab-American community’s roots. These immigrants encountered new cultural and religious groups, observed and engaged in very different political worlds, and were greatly affected by the economic changes at the fin de siècle.
Last semester, I was a TA for the first part of the undergraduate survey course here at Rice. I was always interested in this period but had not really focused on it recently until assisting with grading and leading discussions in that class. Getting to listen to the lectures and do the readings reminded me of how I had once loved nineteenth century US history so much that I changed my major to history during undergrad. Thus, I am looking forward to focusing on certain topics in greater detail in a graduate environment. Moreover, since I mostly got into the field of history for my love of teaching, I want to take this class so I can teach the first half of the survey as a professor one day.