Global Friday Presents
Dr. Alda Benjamen
Assistant Professor, History
University of Daytona

Abstract: Assyrians in Modern Iraq: Negotiating Political and Cultural Space (Cambridge University Press, February 2022), is a monograph on twentieth-century Iraqi intellectual history based on extensive primary research from within the country. Drawing upon oral and ethnographic sources and archival documents, in Arabic and modern Aramaic, uncovered at the Iraqi National Archives in Baghdad and private collections from the north, it explores the role of minorities in Iraq’s intellectual and mostly leftist opposition. It demonstrates how, within newly politicized urban spaces, minorities became attracted to intellectual and political movements that allowed them to advance their own concerns while engaging with other Iraqis of their socio-economic background and relying on transnational community networks. Assyrian intellectuals not only negotiated but also resisted government policies through their cultural production, thereby achieving a softening of Baʿthist policies towards the Assyrians that differed markedly from those of later repressive eras.

Biography: Alda Benjamen is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of Dayton where she teaches courses on the modern history of the Middle East. Recently, she was the Avimalek Betyousef Faculty Fellow in the Department of History and the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to that, she was Fellow at the John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress and a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Pennsylvania Museum and the Smithsonian. These roles provided invaluable experience in public history, archival practices and community engagement. 

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