HON 430/CRN 46411 (Tutorial) S2013
Dr. Bruce Dierenfield & Tom Rovito
“American Political & Military Involvement in Iran from World War II to the Present”
15 sessions, Mondays, 2 pm
TUTORIAL EXPECTATIONS
This first Honors tutorial will be conducted in the style and following the traditions established
by Oxford & Cambridge Universities. There will be 1 session for each of the 15 weeks in the
S2013 semester, as laid out in the schedule below. Assigned readings & documentaries/movies
must be read and/or seen prior to each meeting, which will be held in the professor’s office
(CT 607). There will be five (5) short papers (2-3 pages each—no longer), which will be
critiqued and returned for further revision and resubmission. Throughout, the student will be
expected to digest, synthesize, and compare material in an intelligent, coherent, and succinct
fashion.
Reading & Viewing Materials
Most assigned materials are on reserve in the Canisius library, and some chapters will be
photocopied & distributed. Other books can be obtained through Connect NY, though a couple
of weeks’ advance notice should be provided to the library staffs involved.
Websites
“U.S.-Iran Relations since World War II.” Council on Foreign Relations.
http://www.cfr.org/iran/timeline-us-iran-relations-since-world-war-ii/p17701
“Timeline US-Iran Ties.” BBC. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3362443.stm
TUTORIAL SCHEDULE
Week
1
2
3
4-5
6-7
8
9
10-11
12
13
14
15
Topic
Iranian
history
overview
Mossadegh
coup
Iranian
hostages
Reading/Website/DVD
Nikki Keddie, Modern Iran: Roots and Results of
Revolution*, chs. 1-5
Stephen Kinzer, All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup
and the Roots of Middle East Terror*, all
David Farber, Taken Hostage: The Iran Hostage Crisis and
America’s First Encounter with Radical Islam*, all
The Iran Hostage Crisis: 444 Days to Freedom
(What Really Happened in Iran)*#
Argo#
Delta Force
Eric Haney, Inside Delta Force: The Story of America’s
Elite Counterterrorist Unit, all
CIA in the
Robert Baer, See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground
Middle East
Soldier in the CIA’s War on Terrorism, all
Petro Politics Syriana*#
Iran-Iraq war David Crist, The Twilight War: The Secret History of
America’s Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran, ch. 5
Iran-contra
The Iran-Contra Scandal*#
scandal
Ann Wroe, Lives, Lies & the Iran-Contra Affair*, all
Statecraft
Condoleezza Rice, No Higher Honor: A Memoir of
under the
My Years in Washington*, chs. 1-3, 6-8, 11, 21-22, 30,
Bushes
33-34
Iran Today
Barbara Slavin, Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U.S.,
and the Twisted Path to Confrontation, all
Obama &
Trita Parsi, A Single Roll of the Dice: Obama’s Diplomacy with
Iran
Iran*, all
Iran’s nuclear Seyed Hossein Mousavian, The Iranian Nuclear Crisis:
policy
A Memoir*, excerpt
Murphy, Dan. “Are the Assassinations of Iranian Scientists an
Act of Terrorism?” Christian Science Monitor. January 12, 2012.
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Backchannels/2012/0112/Arethe-assassinations-of-Iranian-scientists-an-act-of-terrorism
“A Global ‘No” to a Nuclear-Armed Iran.” Pew Research Center.
May 18, 2012. http://www.pewglobal.org/2012/05/18/a-globalno-to-a-nuclear-armed-iran/
“How to Defuse Iran’s Nuclear Threat: Bolster Diplomacy,
Israeli Security, and the Iranian Citizenry.” Rand Corporation.
Spring, 2012.
http://www.rand.org/publications/randreview/issues/2012/spring/i
ran.html
*Canisius College library (on reserve)
#DVD
Paper
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