DOCSLIB.ORG

In This Issue

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
In This Issue CMCommonwealth School Magazine Spring 2012 In this issue: Defining Race: A student’s research into how science was manipulated to support slavery A Daring Move One Moment, Many Lives Imprisoned by Poverty WALTER CRUMP Why I Made It “ResuRRECTIon” By Anna Gruman ’14 ur life-drawing models aren’t traditional, polished fashion models; they are everyday people, beautiful to us because we can appreciate and understand their flaws in the Ocontext of their individual elegance. What I wished to portray in this painting was not only the model’s beauty but also her humanity and reality. I chose my palette accordingly, using colors like reds and yellows to give my figure warmth. On a large canvas, seven feet tall and four feet wide, I first set out painting with a brush, but hit a roadblock when I got to her face, which I couldn’t seem to render satisfactorily. She looked increasingly inanimate, less like the person I saw before me. Stepping back and observing my painting, I judged my brushstrokes too neat, too smooth. I decided to work on the face using a small trowel palette knife, thinking that maybe the more physical way of handling paint would help me get the features right. And I achieved exactly what I’d been trying to do with my brush, which was to make the texture rougher and the colors more vibrant. With the palette knife, I was able to give the image a three-dimensional solidity and movement I hadn’t been getting before. My result is a larger-than-life fiery figure on a cool green and black backdrop. I built my composition on an axis that runs through the model’s body but begins in the upper right. There, in the mirror behind her, I painted her reflection in the same warm colors, slightly less in focus and with an uneven touch. The effect lit my painting, like the doubling of a candle’s light when put next to a mirror. It brought the picture to life and put the figure into context. Paint and the palette knife allow me to become fully immersed in what I create in a process that is wholly physical. Sometimes I can work so intently on a passage that I don’t see the entire effect until I pull myself out of and away from my painting. But all this is pure joy to me. When I paint, I feel that I’m working without effort. Creation is a compulsion, and the result is happiness. “Resurrection” and other works of student art will be on display at Commonwealth from May 1 through June 8. CM 1 FROM THE EDITOR Launching a new magazine certainly was a thrill; thank you for all the comments. The challenge now is to make Issue 2 Spring 2012 each issue as inventive and fresh as its predecessor. This time around we decided on a cover story that gets at Headmaster Commonwealth a bit more obliquely, by exploring a topic William D. Wharton through the eyes of a student. Editor Last year, as a junior, Gabe Alvarez wrote a humdinger Tristan Davies ’83 [email protected] of a research paper in his U.S. History class. He considered (617) 716-0239 how elements of science (or at least what was defined as Associate Editor scientific at the time) became buttresses for the institution of Rebecca Folkman slavery in antebellum America. Gabe’s enthusiastic teacher, Design Melissa Glenn Haber ’87, sent me a copy of the paper last Jeanne Abboud spring. Soon afterwards, The Concord Review accepted it Contributing Writers for publication, the first time a Commonwealth student’s Melanie Abrams ’13 work has appeared there. Gabriel Alvarez ’12 George Boulukos ’86 This fall I tried, fruitlessly, to pull a short passage to Emily Bullitt ’03 publish in this magazine: the logical flow proved indivisible. Rebecca Folkman I used to be a scientist, and remain interested in things Ivan Krielkamp ’86 Steve Liss ’73 scientific, and I was drawn in, as I hope you will be, by this intersection of science and society. Gabe’s paper also offers www.commschool.org/cm www.facebook.com/commschoolalums a perfect example of how students at Commonwealth are encouraged to explore their (sometimes unusual) interests CM is published twice a year by Commonwealth School, 151 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA through original research. 02116, and distributed without charge to alumni/ae, Despite space constraints, we have managed to give current and former parents, and other members of the Commonwealth community. Opinions expressed you extended excerpts; but I urge you to go to www. in CM are those of the authors and subjects, and do commschool.org/cm where you can download the entire not necessarily represent the views of the school or article as it appeared in the Review. its faculty and students. As always, I invite your opinions on what you see and We welcome your comments and news at read in CM. [email protected]. Letters may be edited for style, length, clarity, and grammar. Tristan Davies ’83 Director of Communications, Editor [email protected] Printed on recycled paper. Please recycle. 2 CM CMCommonwealth School Magazine Spring 2012 Contents Why I Made It 1 “Resurrection,” by Anna Gruman ’14 7 Your Letters 4 News 5 A quartet of retirements Debating alone Intel science honors 9 A Daring Move: Loren Crary ’03 8 Time in Africa whets an appetite for social entrepreneurship 10 Historical Perspective: Audrey Budding 9 When summer reading includes the Russian Revolution Defining Race 10 A Commonwealth student examines how antebellum science was used to justify slavery. Student Fiction: “The Life That You May Live” 18 “She threw her wig into the ocean. I’ve always wondered why she did it—who she was, and what made her decide.” 20 History of a Friendship 20 Parallel lives from punk to professorships Overheard 24 Words and art from the halls and classrooms of Commonwealth The Alumni/ae Association 25 News and events for alumni/ae Class Notes 26 Cover: “Contraband of War,” an engraving depicting a slave who crossed the battle lines during the Civil Alumni/ae Perspective: Steve Liss ’73 36 War in search of freedom (c.1862, from the Picture “We take pictures to remind people that there are faces Collection, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox, behind issues of poverty and injustice.” and Tilden Foundations). See the story on page 10 for a student’s research into how phrenology and evolution became tools of anti-abolitionists. CM 3 Your Letters ’13 ISS LEX CURT A It was a pleasure to receive the new I just read the excellent article about Ms. Siporin is even more beautiful than Commonwealth School magazine this English at Commonwealth, and I loved she was when I was there! The English week. I especially enjoyed reading Melissa it. It pleased my children and me greatly program article was very enjoyable, and Glenn Haber’s piece on the intellectual that Anne’s part in establishing the it really took me back. underpinnings of the Commonwealth English at Commonwealth enterprise English curriculum. I have fond memories was acknowledged in the article. Carrie Marotta ’94 of Beginning with Poems—the anthology Lincoln, MA edited by Reuben Brower, Anne Ferry, David Ferry P’78 P’85 and David Kalstone that is also featured Brookline, MA I just wanted to write and say how on the magazine’s cover—but I had never much I enjoyed your article on George before understood the close connection and Laverne. When I was flipping between the Commonwealth English I was glad to see that Beginning With through the magazine the other night, curriculum and Brower’s famous emphasis Poems is still used almost 40 years later [daughter] Emily saw me and told me on “reading in slow motion” in his Hum 6 but I also hope that some diversity of to stop and read that story. I did, and curriculum at Harvard. As a student, I voices has been worked in; recently I marveled at the portrayal of a deep and was not even aware that there was any have enjoyed teaching Eavan Boland, abiding friendship. Rusty’s photo was unified vision of curriculum, but I do think Patricia Smith, Marie Howe, and the perfect complement. You did a great I learned an enormous amount about how Stephen Dunn. job with it, and it made me wish to read carefully during those years. for more. Becky Moore ’75 Curtis Perry ’83 Exeter, NH Taylor McNeil P’12 Urbana, IL Arlington, MA 4 CM CommoNWEAlth ’83 S E I TAN DAV TAN IS News R T Outgoing Come September, a number of very familiar faces will dith Walker has been many things in her ten years at have retired from Commonwealth’s classrooms, offices, Commonwealth: math teacher, AP test coordinator, class and hallways. Escheduler, and soprano in the chorus, for starters. She also taught the City of Boston class for a number of years with the insight of a native Bostonian who has a keen interest in the city’s social and cultural history. ’87 S I look forward to having more time to travel, to work with the Museum of African American History on organizing their M KATE TO collection, and to complete a family history project. But I will miss my time in the classroom. ebecca Folkman has taught French, fiction writing, and film with élan since 1983 while also producing and R editing nearly all of Commonwealth’s publications for fter 35 years in Commonwealth’s front office, many of those years.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • 2016 Annual Report.Pub
    Annual Report For 2016 “Supporting worldwide research in all branches of Anthropology” Table of Contents Chair’s Introduction ..................................................................................... 3 President’s Report ....................................................................................... 4 Program Highlights SAPIENS & Institutional Development Grants ..................................... 6 Wenner-Gren Symposia Overview ...................................................... 10 Current Anthropology Supplementary Issues .................................... 11 Historical Archives Program ................................................................ 12 International Symposia Reports .......................................................... 14 Meetings of the Anthropology Section of the New York Academy of Sciences ....................................................................................... 18 Hunt Postdoctoral Fellows ................................................................... 19 Fejos Postdoctoral Fellows .................................................................. 23 Wadsworth Fellows .............................................................................. 26 2016 Grantees Dissertation Fieldwork Grants ............................................................. 32 Post-Ph.D. Research Grants ................................................................ 41 Hunt Postdoctoral Fellowships ........................................................... 46 Fejos Postdoctal Fellowships
    [Show full text]
  • Medical School Basic Science Clinical Other Total Albany Medical
    Table 2: U.S. Medical School Faculty by Medical School and Department Type, 2020 The table below displays the number of full-time faculty at all U.S. medical schools as of December 31, 2020 by medical school and department type. Medical School Basic Science Clinical Other Total Albany Medical College 74 879 48 1,001 Albert Einstein College of Medicine 316 1,895 21 2,232 Baylor College of Medicine 389 3,643 35 4,067 Boston University School of Medicine 159 1,120 0 1,279 Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University 92 349 0 441 CUNY School of Medicine 51 8 0 59 California Northstate University College of Medicine 5 13 0 18 California University of Science and Medicine-School of Medicine 26 299 0 325 Carle Illinois College of Medicine 133 252 0 385 Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine 416 2,409 0 2,825 Central Michigan University College of Medicine 21 59 0 80 Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine at Florida Atlantic University 30 64 0 94 Chicago Medical School at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine & Science 69 25 0 94 Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons 282 1,972 0 2,254 Cooper Medical School of Rowan University 78 608 0 686 Creighton University School of Medicine 52 263 13 328 Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell 88 2,560 9 2,657 Drexel University College of Medicine 98 384 0 482 Duke University School of Medicine 297 998 1 1,296 East Tennessee State University James H.
    [Show full text]
  • 2017 Annual Report.Pub
    Annual Report For 2017 “Supporting worldwide research in all branches of Anthropology” Table of Contents Chair’s Introduction ..................................................................................... 3 President’s Report ....................................................................................... 4 Program Highlights SAPIENS & Institutional Development Grants ..................................... 6 Wenner-Gren Symposia Overview ...................................................... 10 Current Anthropology Supplementary Issues .................................... 11 Historical Archives Program ................................................................ 12 International Symposia Reports .......................................................... 14 Meetings of the Anthropology Section of the New York Academy of Sciences ....................................................................................... 18 Hunt Postdoctoral Fellows ................................................................... 19 Fejos Postdoctoral Fellows............................................................... ... 23 Wadsworth Fellows .............................................................................. 26 2018 Grantees Dissertation Fieldwork Grants ............................................................. 32 Post-Ph.D. Research Grants ................................................................ 41 Hunt Postdoctoral Fellowships ........................................................... 46 Fejos Postdoctal Fellowships
    [Show full text]
  • MD Class of 2021 Commencement Program
    Commencement2021 Sunday, the Second of May Two Thousand Twenty-One Mount Airy Casino Resort Mt. Pocono, Pennsylvania Geisinger Commonwealth School of Medicine celebrates the conferring of Doctor of Medicine degrees For the live-stream event recording and other commencement information, visit geisinger.edu/commencement. Commencement 2021 1 A message from the president and dean Today we confer Doctor of Medicine degrees upon our our past, but we are not afraid to evolve and embrace ninth class. Every year at commencement, I like to reflect innovation, change and our future. To me, this courage, on the ways in which each class is unique. The Class resilience and creative thinking have come to be of 2021 presents an interesting duality. It is the first of synonymous with a Geisinger Commonwealth School some things and also the last of many. Like the Roman of Medicine diploma — and I have received enough god Janus, this class is one that looks back on our past, feedback from fellow physicians, residency program but also forward to the future we envision for Geisinger directors and community members to know others Commonwealth School of Medicine. believe this, too. Every student who crosses the stage Janus was the god of doors and gates, of transitions today, through considerable personal effort, has earned and of beginnings and ends. It is an apt metaphor, the right to claim the privileges inherent in because in so many ways yours has been a transitional that diploma. class. You are the last class to be photographed on Best wishes, Class of 2021. I know that the experiences, the day of your White Coat Ceremony wearing jackets growth and knowledge bound up in your piece of emblazoned “TCMC.” You are also, however, the first parchment will serve you well and make us proud in the class offered the opportunity of admittance to the Abigail years to come.
    [Show full text]
  • Rearticulations of Enmity and Belonging in Postwar Sri Lanka
    BUDDHIST NATIONALISM AND CHRISTIAN EVANGELISM: REARTICULATIONS OF ENMITY AND BELONGING IN POSTWAR SRI LANKA by Neena Mahadev A dissertation submitted to Johns Hopkins University in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Baltimore, Maryland October, 2013 © 2013 Neena Mahadev All Rights Reserved Abstract: Based on two years of fieldwork in Sri Lanka, this dissertation systematically examines the mutual skepticism that Buddhist nationalists and Christian evangelists express towards one another in the context of disputes over religious conversion. Focusing on the period from the mid-1990s until present, this ethnography elucidates the shifting politics of nationalist perception in Sri Lanka, and illustrates how Sinhala Buddhist populists have increasingly come to view conversion to Christianity as generating anti-national and anti-Buddhist subjects within the Sri Lankan citizenry. The author shows how the shift in the politics of identitarian perception has been contingent upon several critical events over the last decade: First, the death of a Buddhist monk, which Sinhala Buddhist populists have widely attributed to a broader Christian conspiracy to destroy Buddhism. Second, following the 2004 tsunami, massive influxes of humanitarian aid—most of which was secular, but some of which was connected to opportunistic efforts to evangelize—unsettled the lines between the interested religious charity and the disinterested secular giving. Third, the closure of 25 years of a brutal war between the Sri Lankan government forces and the ethnic minority insurgent group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), has opened up a slew of humanitarian criticism from the international community, which Sinhala Buddhist populist activists surmise to be a product of Western, Christian, neo-colonial influences.
    [Show full text]
  • Sommitellut Muusat: Rituaali Ja Leikki Luovan Kirjoittamisen Prosesseissa
    Sommitellut muusat Esitetään Jyväskylän yliopiston humanistis-yhteiskuntatieteellisen tiedekunnan suostumuksella julkisesti tarkastettavaksi yliopiston vanhassa juhlasalissa S212 marraskuun 28. päivänä 2020 kello 12. Academic dissertation to be publicly discussed, by permission of the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of Jyväskylä, in building Seminarium, Old Festival Hall S212, on November 28, 2020 at 12 o’clock. Emila Karjula Sommitellut muusat Rituaali ja leikki luovan kirjoittamisen prosesseissa ja kirjoittajaryhmän toimissa ntamo Helsinki 2020 © Emilia Karjula 2020 isbn 978-952-215-808-6 ISBN 978-951-39-8506-6 (PDF) ulkoasu & taitto Göran de Kopior kannen kuva Eero Merimaa valmistaja BoD – Books on Demand, Norderstedt, Saksa ntamo Helsinki 2020 Sisällys Abstract 9 Tiivistelmä 11 Kiitokset 13 Luku 1 SILTA 15 Saatteeksi 15 Muusat tutkimuksen hahmoina 18 Tutkimuksen rakenne 19 Ryhmittyminen 21 Luovan kirjoittamisen ryhmät ja työpajat 22 Subjunktiivinen tila 27 Kirjoittamisen materiaalisuus 30 Luovan kirjoittamisen habitaatti 34 Affektiivinen sommitelma 35 Käsitteet ja kysymykset 40 Rituaali, leikki ja kirjoittaminen 44 Ritualisaatio ja kirjoittaminen 53 Olemme tässä 56 Luku 2 LUOVAN KIRJOITTAMISEN ETNOGRAFIAT 57 Eettisiä lähtökohtia 58 Arkistoituvat tutkimushetket 62 Kirjoittajatapaamiset 65 Haastattelut 70 Luovan kirjoittamisen tutkimus 73 Luova kirjoittaminen ja etnografia 75 Surrealistinen etnografia 78 Aineiston analyysi 82 Muusat ja menetelmät 85 Luku 3 KIRJOITTAMISEN TEOT JA TOIMITUKSET 89 Rituaali ja
    [Show full text]
  • UNIVERSITY of PENNSYLVANIA Two Hundred Thirty-Fifth Commencement for the Conferring of Degrees
    UNIVERSITY of PENNSYLVANIA Two Hundred Thirty-Fifth Commencement for the Conferring of Degrees FRANKLIN FIELD Tuesday, May 21, 1991 SEATING DIAGRAM Guests will find this diagram helpful in locating the approximate seating of the degree candidates. The seating roughly corresponds to the order by school in which the candidates for degrees are presented, beginning at top left with the College of Arts and Sciences. The actual sequence is shown in the Contents on the opposite page under Degrees in Course. Reference to the paragraph on page seven describing the colors of the candidates' hoods according to their fields of study may further assist guests in placing the locations of the various schools. STAGE Graduate Faculty Faculty Faculties Engineering Nursing Medicin College College Wharton Dentaline Arts Dental Medicine Veterinary Medicine Wharton Education Graduate Social Work Annenberg Contents Page Seating Diagram of the Graduating Students . 2 The Commencement Ceremony .. 4 Commencement Notes .. 6 Degrees in Course . 8 The College of Arts and Sciences .. 8 The College of General Studies . 17 The School of Engineering and Applied Science .. 18 The Wharton School .. 26 The Wharton Evening School .. 30 The Wharton Graduate Division .. 32 The School of Nursing .. 37 The School of Medicine .. 39 The Law School .. 40 The Graduate School of Fine Arts .. 42 The School of Dental Medicine .. 45 The School of Veterinary Medicine .. 46 The Graduate School of Education .. 47 The School of Social Work .. 49 The Annenberg School for Communication .. 50 The Graduate Faculties .. 51 Certificates .. 57 General Honors Program .. 57 Advanced Dental Education .. 57 Education .. 58 Fine Arts .. 58 Commissions .
    [Show full text]
  • Trans-Valuing Tribalism in Yemeni Audiocassette Poetry
    Int. J. Middle East Stud. 34 (2002), 29–57. Printed in the United States of America W. Flagg Miller METAPHORS OF COMMERCE: TRANS-VALUING TRIBALISM IN YEMENI AUDIOCASSETTE POETRY Over the course of more than three decades, efforts to integrate theories of political economy with verbal culture have produced some of the most generative inquiries into the social meaning of discursive form. Beginning in the 1960s, sociolinguists developed what became known as the “ethnography of speaking,” 1 with the aim of considering verbal skills and performance as aspects of a socioeconomic system whose resources are apportioned according to a hierarchical division of labor. Critical of the more formalist and universalist language paradigms of Leonard Bloomfield and Noam Chomsky, these theorists argued that speaking is a socially and culturally constructed activity that is meaningful precisely in its relationship to specific systems of material organization. By the 1970s, sociologists were extending these insights to broader political theory by proposing that linguistic competence be considered a form of “capital” that is distributed in “linguistic markets.” 2 Through pioneering interdisci- plinary efforts, inquiries into the competences of individual speakers gradually yielded to analyses of situated calculations that individuals make in exchange—calculations of quantities and kinds of return, of symbolic and economic capital, of alternative representations. Meaning was becoming as much a matter of value and power as it was an expression of relationships between, as Ferdinand de Saussure once proposed, a “sound pattern” and a “concept.” 3 Indeed, in recent work in linguistic and cultural anthropology, studies of meaning have been linked even more intentionally to political economy by scholars who locate signs within social and material contexts.
    [Show full text]
  • The Wenner-Gren Foundation
    Curren t VOLUME 57 SUPPLEMENT 14 OCTOBER 2016 Anthropolog Current Anthropology y The Wenner-Gren Foundation SUPPORTING ANTHROPOLOGY FOR 75 YEARS 1941−2016 October 2016 GUEST EDITORS: LESLIE C. AIELLO, LAURIE OBBINK, AND MARK MAHONEY LESLIE C. AIELLO e Wenner-Gren Foundation: Supporting Anthropology for 75 Years SUSAN LINDEE and JOANNA RADIN V Patrons of the Human Experience: A History of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for olume 57 Anthropological Research, 1941–2016 ILJA A. LUCIAK Vision and Reality: Axel Wenner-Gren, Paul Fejos, and the Origins of the Wenner-Gren 2016 is the 75th anniversary of the Foundation for Anthropological Research Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Supplement Research. e papers in this supplementary issue of Current Anthropology provide the 14 rst comprehensive history of the foundation and its role in the development of the eld Page s of anthropology. S211 Current Anthropology is sponsored by e Wenner- − S332 Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, a AXEL WENNER-GREN PAUL FEJOS LITA OSMUNDSEN foundation endowed for scientic, educational, and charitable purposes. e Foundation, however, is not to be understood as endorsing, by virtue of its Sponsored by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research nancial support, any of the statements made, or views expressed, herein. THE UNIVERSIT Y O F CHICAGO PRESS The Wenner-Gren Foundation Supporting Anthropology for 75 Years, 1941–2016 Guest Editors: Leslie C. Aiello, Laurie Obbink, and Mark Mahoney Wenner-Gren Symposium Series Editor: Leslie Aiello
    [Show full text]
  • Mean Well. Speak Well. Do Well
    HEAD OF SCHOOL HEAD OF SCHOOL July 1, 2020 Pre-K–8 Co-educational, independent school Beverly Farms, MA MEAN WELL. SPEAK WELL. DO WELL. MISSION At Glen Urquhart School, INTRODUCTION we encourage children to: Glen Urquhart School (GUS) seeks a person with vision, integrity, energy, and a passion for Pre-K through 8th grade education to lead this exceptional school in • Explore their intellects and develop their its fifth decade. imaginations, Glen Urquhart School is a leader in Pre-K-8 education. Ahead of its time, Glen • Pose questions as Urquhart School’s program was founded in 1977 on an experiential, place-based often as they devise philosophy that integrated all subjects and created opportunities for students to be solutions, passionate in their pursuit of knowledge. At the core of our challenging academic • Speak individually, yet program today is the student - and the excitement of discovery. work collaboratively, • Discover the best As a school, it is our mission to keep curiosity alive. What does that mean for our within themselves, children? It means a strong academic foundation is essential, but not nearly enough. • Respect all people Our program is built on posing questions, making meaning, and solving problems creatively. How does one discipline inform another? Where do literature, science, and value their mathematics, language, music, art, and history intersect? This integration is the very differences, and essence of our interdisciplinary curriculum. • Act responsibly in our community and in the We have always believed that knowledge from different disciplines needs to be world. synthesized, because one discipline informs another. Our students learn their math facts and grammar rules.
    [Show full text]
  • Jackie Curry's
    Also in this issue: Forceful Prose and Periodic Table Rows: Commonwealth alumni/ae in the sciences Two Alumnae, One Mission CMCommonwealth School Magazine Spring 2014 The Math Team’s Successful Formula with “Speak your Body” Jackie Curry’s lessons in dance and life Why I Made It “In Flight” by Amanda Dai ’15 here are only three students in my largest Printmaking class. Perhaps because of technological advancements, the world is moving toward digitized art and away Tfrom tedious, time-consuming arts like printmaking. But I love printmaking. I love sitting for hours, class after class, steadily carving out the image of a bird from a zinc plate, adding a myriad of details with great care and fastidious design. You could say I’m a perfectionist; even after six months of work, my plate wasn’t close to being done. But instead of being discouraged or frustrated with the sluggish progress, I pulled back to evaluate each step and proudly saw my hours of toil shape into an intricate, rich image. Ironically, what I find most fascinating and exciting about printmaking is the level of unpredictability when a print rolls through the press. You can control the image on your plate, you can control what colors you blend into the lines, and you can control what kind of paper your print will show up on. But once you place that paper on top of the plate, even with delicate and precise positioning, what comes out the other side is completely out of your control. Practically anything can happen. This print was no exception.
    [Show full text]
  • Mabry / the Levantine Review Volume 2 Number 1 (Spring 2013)
    Mabry / The Levantine Review Volume 2 Number 1 (Spring 2013) ARAB DI-NATIONALISM Tristan Mabry* Abstract This paper presents a new conception of “Arab nationalism,” which conventionally means pan-Arab nationalism and defines an Arab as an Arabic speaker. Yet the term “Arabic” is elusive, as is the generic “Arabic speaker.” Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), derived from the Koran, is the official language of Arab League states, but is nobody’s mother tongue, or spoken language for that matter. Arabic vernaculars are deemed low status and are distinct from MSA. The division of “High” and “Low” languages between formal and informal spheres is called diglossia (“divided tongues”). This renders an ethnolinguistic situation in Arab states with unique social and political consequences. Arab-defined citizens are born into unique ethnolinguistic communities that are not state-supported, and are indoctrinated instead with a pan-Arab “national” identity shared by many states. I call this phenomenon Arab dinationalism. Without school or book, the making of a nation is in modern times inconceivable. George Antonius, The Arab Awakening, 1938 The literature on Arab nationalism, however defined, is very broad, very deep, and very muddy. Much of it is dedicated to the singular problem of defining “Arab” and consequently “Arab nationalism.” Some of this work developed from the study of nationalism and some of this work developed from the study of Arabs, yet the two tracks do not frequently converge. Terminology is a principal reason why much of the research on Arab nationalism is muddled. What are the precise distinctions separating Arab nationalism, pan-Arab nationalism (qawmiyya), and Arab patriotism (wataniyya)? In the context of specific countries, what is the difference, for example, between Egyptian nationalism and Egyptian patriotism? Or Egyptian nationalism and pan-Arab nationalism? From the perspective of nations and nationalism scholarship, Ernest Gellner offers the most influential answer to this set of questions.
    [Show full text]