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History 455
Fall 2014
Modern Iraq
Place:
Day and Time:
UNIV 217
Tuesday/Thursday, 3 pm - 4:15 pm
Instructor:
Office:
Office Hours:
Email:
Professor Holden
UNIV 127
Tuesday/Thursday, 1:30 pm - 2:30 pm
sholden@purdue.edu
This course covers the modern history of Iraq from Ottoman times to the present day. The specific
periods dealt with are the following: Ottoman Mesopotamia (1903-1920), the British Mandate
(1920-1932), the Hashemite Monarchy (1932-1941), the Ending of the Old Regime (1941-1958),
the Revolutionary Era (1958-1968), the Consolidation of Baathist Power (1968-1979), the IranIraq War (1979-1990), the Persian Gulf War and Sanctions (1990-2001), and the Iraq War (20032011). For each period, you will be assigned readings from textbooks and Iraqi memoirs. You
will also view a series of ethnographic films to provide you with images of this country. The
readings draw attention to two key themes in Iraqi history: the search for national identity and the
concomitant fragmentation of Iraqi society along ethnic and religious lines.
Course Materials:
A. There are two major textbooks used for information in this course. These are:
1. Phebe Marr, The Modern History of Iraq, 3rd edition (Westview Press, 2012).
2. Stacy E. Holden, A Documentary History of Modern Iraq (University Press of Florida, 2012).
B. You will also be expected to read and to analyze the following memoirs:
1. Ariel Sabar, My Father’s Paradise: A Son’s Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq
(Algonquin Books, 2008).
2. Elizabeth Warnock Fernea, Guests of the Sheik (1965, reprint; Anchor Books, 1989).
3. Hiner Saleem, My Father’s Rifle: A Childhood in Kurdistan (Picador, 2004).
4. Tamara Chalabi, Late for Tea at the Deer Palace: The Lost Dreams of My Iraqi Family (Harper
Collins, 2011).
5. Donovan Campbell, Joker One: A Marine Platoon’s Story of Courage, Leadership, and
Brotherhood (Random House, 2009).
There are also a number of articles and book chapters, and these are on Blackboard.
Course Evaluation
You must write four (4) responses to the assigned readings. These responses must be between
one and two pages. They are to be handed in before the class discusses the assigned reading on
which you wrote. You may choose the set of course materials to which you will respond (but it
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should not be the books). The purpose of the responses is to help you gather your thoughts. Each
response is worth 5% of your grade. Thus, the responses are worth 20% of the final grade.
You must write three (3) analytical book reviews. Of the five assigned memoirs, you must choose
three (3) and write analytical book reviews. These reviews are to be between three and four pages
(not more, not less). You must write them in 12-point type-face, double-spaced, with one inch
margins. Book reviews are due in class one week after our discussion of the book in question. I
will not accept book reviews emailed as an attachment. You will be penalized five points for each
day a book review is late. You will receive guidelines for writing the review during the first week
of class. Each book review is worth 20% of your final grade (60% total).
Attendance and Participation are critical components of your final grade. Students should come
to class having reflected on a given topic so as to discuss it in class, even if you choose not to write
a response on it. Again: readings must be reflected upon before class! Your participation is 20%
of a final grade. Your grade may suffer after more than two unexcused absences.
Disclaimers
Plagiarism will not be tolerated at Purdue University: Plagiarism is a crime, and students can be
expelled for turning in a paper that they did not write. Copying a person’s work verbatim is not
the only form of plagiarism. In some cases, plagiarism involves paraphrasing the idea of another
without a footnote or the repetition of another author’s phrase. Students are advised to consult
Purdue
University’s
Guide
to
Academic
Integrity
for
guidelines
at:
http://www.purdue.edu/ODOS/osrr/integrity.htm. Plagiarized work will receive a 0, and the
professor reserves the right to forward the student's case to the administration.
In the event of a major campus emergency, the requirements, deadlines and grading policies set
down on this syllabus are subject to changes that may be required by a revised semester calendar.
Any changes will be posted, once the course resumes, on the course website. It may also be
obtained by contacting the instructor via email.
August 26 (Tu)
Class Introduction
August 28 (Th)
The Sunni-Shii Split in Iraq
Class Preparations
Marr, The Modern History of Iraq, Ch. 1
Holden, A Documentary History of Modern Iraq, "Introduction," 1-16
Yara Badday, "Reframing Sunni and Shii Discussions," in We Are Iraqis: Aesthetics and Politics
in a Time of War, Nadje Al-Ali and Deborah Al-Najjar, ed. (Syracuse University Press, 2013),
83-92.
September 2 (Tu)
Ottoman Mesopotamia
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Class Preparations
Charles Tripp, A History of Iraq, 3rd edition (Cambridge University Press, 2007), Ch. 1 (8-29)
Holden, A Documentary History of Modern Iraq, Ch. 1 (17-18, 18-21, 25-29, 30-33, 33-38)
September 4 (Th)
WWI and the Mandate System
Class Preparations
William L. Cleveland, A History of the Modern Middle East, 3rd edition (Westview Press, 2004),
Ch. 9 (149-170)
Holden, A Documentary History of Modern Iraq, Ch. 1 (39-42, 42-45,45-47, 47-50)
September 9 (Tu)
The British Mandate
Class Preparations
Marr, The Modern History of Iraq, Ch. 2
Holden, A Documentary History of Modern Iraq, Ch. 2 (53-54, 66-68, 69-74, 74-78, 81-86)
September 11 (Th)
No Class!
September 16 (Tu)
The Hashemite Monarchy
Class Preparations
Marr, The Modern History of Iraq, Ch. 3
Holden, A Documentary History of Modern Iraq, Ch. 3 (89-90, 99-102, 102-107, 121-123)
September 18 (Th)
Ending the Old Regime
Class Preparations
Marr, The Modern History of Iraq, Ch. 4
Holden, A Documentary History of Modern Iraq, Ch. 4 (125-126, 133-137, 143-147)
Holden, A Documentary History of Modern Iraq, Ch. 5 on “Corruption & Inequality” (166-172)
September 23 (Tu)
The Farhud
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Class Preparations
Violette Shamash, “Farhud,” in Memories of Eden: A Journey through Jewish Baghdad (Forum,
2008), 195-211.
Nissim Rejwan, “Rashid ‘Ali’s Coup and Its Aftermath,” in The Last Jews in Baghdad:
Remembering a Lost Homeland (University of Texas Press, 2004), 126-138.
“The Report of the Iraqi Commission of Inquiry on the Farhud (1941),” in The Jew in the
Modern World: A Documentary History, 3rd edition, ed. Paul Mendes-Flohr and Jehuda Reinharz
(Oxford University Press, 2011), 491-493.
September 25 (Th)
The Lot of Baghdadi Jews I
--Start Film, “Forget Baghdad”
September 30 (Tu)
The Lot of Baghdadi Jews II
--End Film, “Forget Baghdad”
October 2 (Th)
No Class!
October 7 (Tu)
The Lot of Kurdish Jews
Class Preparations
Sabar, My Father’s Paradise
October 9 (Th)
The Revolutionary Era
Class Preparations
Marr, The Modern History of Iraq, Ch. 5 and Ch. 6
Jean and Franc Shor, "Iraq--Where Oil and Water Mix," National Geographic Magazine
(October 1958), pp?
Douglas Little, “Orientalism, American Style: The Middle East in the Mind of America,” in
American Orientalism: The US and the Middle East since 1945 (University of North Carolina
Press, 2002), 9-42.
October 14 (Tu)
No Class!
October 16 (Th)
A Shii Village in Hashemite Iraq
Class Preparations
Fernea, Guests of the Sheik
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October 21 (Tu)
Baathism
Class Preparations
Marr, The Modern History of Iraq, Ch. 7
Holden, A Documentary History of Modern Iraq, Ch. 6 (193-194, 198-206, 209-212, 223-227)
October 23 (Th)
Iraqi Kurds in Baathist Iraq
Class Preparations
David McDowall, “The Kurds under the Baath, 1968-1975,” in A Modern History of the Kurds
(1996, reprint; I.B. Tauris, 2007), 323-342.
Saleem, My Father’s Rifle
October 28 (Tu)
The Iran-Iraq War
Class Preparations
Marr, The Modern History of Iraq, Ch. 8
Holden, A Documentary History of Modern Iraq, Ch. 7 (in entirety)
October 30 (Th)
The Persian Gulf War and Sanctions
Class Preparations
Marr, The Modern History of Iraq, Ch. 9
Holden, A Documentary History of Modern Iraq, Ch. 8 (265-267, 267-270, 273-278, 278-281,
288-298)
November 4 (Tu)
The Invasion and Occupation of Iraq (2003-2004)
Class Preparations
Marr, The Modern History of Iraq, Ch. 10
November 6 (Th)
The Invasion and Occupation of Iraq (2003-2004)
Class Preparations
Holden, A Documentary History of Modern Iraq, Ch. 9 (300-302, 303-306, 306-312, 330-334)
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Holden, A Documentary History of Modern Iraq, Ch. 10 (336-337, 337-339, 339-343, 343-347,
347-352, 353-357, 367-370)
November 11 (Tu)
Representations of the Iraq War, Jessica Lynch
--Film, "Saving Jessica Lynch"
Class Preparations
Peter Y. Sussman, "Rescuing Private Lynch--and Rescuing Journalism," The Quill 91, no. 8
(November 2003): 21.
November 13 (Th)
No Class!
November 18 (Tu)
The Story of a (Elite) Shii Family in Modern Iraq
Class Preparations
Chalabi, Late for Tea at the Deer Palace
November 20 (Th)
Insurgency and the Surge
Class Preparations
Marr, The Modern History of Iraq, Ch. 11
November 25 (Tu)
No Class!
November 27 (Th)
No Class!
December 2 (Tu)
An US Marine’s Perspective of the Iraq War
Class Preparations
Campbell, Joker One
December 4 (Th)
Guest Speaker, Captain Charles Anklam USMC
December 9 (Tu)
The Legacy of the Iraq War
--"Frontline: Losing Iraq"
December 11 (Th)
Loose Ends and Course Evaluation