Keith David Watenpaugh (born October 8, 1966) is an American academic. He is Professor of Human Rights Studies at the University of California, Davis. A leading American historian of the contemporary Middle East, human rights, and modern humanitarianism, he is an expert on the Armenian genocide and its denial, and the role of the refugee in world history.[1]
Keith David Watenpaugh | |
|---|---|
 Keith David Watenpaugh in 2018 | |
| Born | 8 October 1966 |
| Spouse | Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh |
| Awards | Institute of International Education Centennial Medal, Richard von Weizsäcker Distinguished Visitor and Lecturer fellowship |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Human Rights, Religious Studies, Genocide |
| Institutions | University of California, Davis |
Watenpaugh is the founding director of the UC Davis Human Rights Studies Program, the first academic program of its kind in the University of California system.[2] He has been a leader of international efforts to address the needs of displaced and refugee university students and professionals, primarily those affected by the wars and civil conflicts in Syria, Iraq, and Turkey.[3]
He serves on the academic advisory board of the National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement;[4] and is a founding steering committee member of the University Alliance for Refugees and at-Risk Migrants[5]
Works
editIn addition to publishing in the American Historical Review, the International Journal of Middle East Studies, Journal of Human Rights, Humanity, Social History, The Huffington Post and the Chronicle of Higher Education,[1] Watenpaugh is author of Being Modern in the Middle East: Revolution, Nationalism, and Colonialism and the Arab Middle Class. (Princeton: Princeton University Press 2006), and Bread from Stones: The Middle East and the Making of Modern Humanitarianism (Oakland: University of California Press, 2015).
He is co-editor of Karnig Panian's Goodbye, Antoura: A Memoir of the Armenian Genocide (Palo Alto: Stanford University Press, 2015). Panian was an Armenian Genocide child survivor who was held in the Ottoman orphanage at Antoura, Lebanon, where he was subjected to violent attempts at Turkification.[6]
Refugee university students and scholars
editFollowing the 2003 American-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, he led the first investigation of conditions facing universities and research centers in Baghdad. His team's findings appear in "Opening Doors: Academic Conditions and Intellectual Life in Post-War Baghdad,"[7] which was highly critical of early American cultural and education policies in post-invasion Iraq, especially those adopted by the Coalition Provisional Authority.
Since 2013, Watenpaugh has directed a joint University of California, Davis Global Affairs and Human Rights Studies project to assist refugee university students and scholars from the war in Syria. The project has documented how refugee higher education is neglected by traditional governmental and intergovernmental refugee agencies, and has proposed new methods and techniques for their assistance, including ways to increase their mobility.[8]
With the support of the Ford Foundation and the Open Society Foundations (2017–2019), he directed the development and implementation of the Article 26 Backpack a digital/human tool that improves refugee academic document security and empowers better access to higher education opportunities.[9]
Awards and honors
editWatenpaugh is a recipient (2019) of the Institute of International Education Centennial Medal in recognition of his research, advocacy, and the Article 26 Backpack.[10]
He has been a Fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies (2013),[11] a Senior Fellow in International Peace at the United States Institute of Peace (2008–2009)[12] and has served on the editorial board of the International Journal of Middle East Studies.[13]
In 2018 he held the Richard von Weizsäcker Distinguished Visitor and Lecturer fellowship at the American Academy in Berlin; distinguished research fellow (2018) of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at American University of Beirut; distinguished visiting professor (2016) at The Strassler Family Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Clark University; and the George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Tanner Humanities Center, University of Utah (2005–2006).[14]
He has also had the Fulbright, Fulbright-Hays, Social Science Research Council, Will Rogers and the American Academic Research Institute in Iraq fellowships; he was the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellow in Middle East Studies at Williams College from 1998 to 2000.
His scholarship has won multiple awards from professional organizations. His most recent book, Bread from Stones, is an Ahmanson Foundation Book in the Humanities;[15] and won honorable mention (2016) in the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association Norris & Carol Hundley Award competition.[16]
Watenpaugh is an Eagle Scout.
Personal life
editHis wife, Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh, is also a historian and a professor at UC Davis.[17]
Selected publications and interviews
editBread From Stones: The Middle East and the Making of Modern Humanitarianism (Oakland: University of California Press, 2015)[1]
Being Modern in the Middle East: Revolution, Colonialism, Nationalism and the Arab Middle Class, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006.) [2]
"The League of Nations' Rescue of Armenian Genocide Survivors and the Making of Modern Humanitarianism, 1920-1927," American Historical Review, 115:5, (December 2010).[18]
"Syria's Lost Generation" Chronicle of Higher Education, (June, 2013).[19]
"The Article 26 Backpack Digital Platform Empowers Refugee Students," IIE Networker (Spring 2018) [20]
"A Matter of Rights Professor shares his efforts to help refugees access higher education" University of California News [21]
"We Will Stop Here and Go No Further: Syrian University Students and Scholars in Turkey" (2014)[22]
Ottoman History Podcast, Syrian University Students and the Impacts of War (2014)[23]
Ottoman History Podcast Interview with Chris Gratien The Middle East in the Making of Modern Humanitarianism (2015)[24]
"Why Trump's Executive Order Is Wrongheaded and Reckless," Chronicle of Higher Education, (January, 2017) [3]
"A Fragile Glasnost on the Tigris" Middle East Report 228: Fall 2003.[4] Archived 2003-12-10 at the Wayback Machine
"Middle East Brain Drain," National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation - 11/22/2006 [5]
References
edit- ^ a b "Keith David Watenpaugh | University of California, Davis - Academia.edu".
- ^ "Human rights studies take off at UC Davis". Davis Enterprise. 2015-12-13. Retrieved 2021-05-27.
- ^ "Syria's Lost Generation". The Chronicle of Higher Education. 2013-06-03.
- ^ "National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement". University of California. Retrieved 27 May 2021.
- ^ "University Alliance on Refugees and At-Risk Migrants". Rutgers University. Retrieved 27 May 2021.
- ^ Goodbye, Antoura: A Memoir of the Armenian Genocide | Karnig Panian. Stanford University Press. 2015. ISBN 9780804795432.
- ^ "Opening the Doors".
- ^ "Keith Watenpaugh and Adrienne Fricke, "No More Lost Generations: The Syrian Refugee Crisis and Higher Education" - Center for Middle Eastern Studies". Archived from the original on 2016-08-09. Retrieved 2016-06-17.
- ^ "Refugees Reclaim Human Rights with Technology". 2018-11-27.
- ^ "LAURELS: A Medal for Keith David Watenpaugh". 2019-02-19.
- ^ "Keith David Watenpaugh F'12". www.acls.org. Archived from the original on 2016-08-16.
- ^ "United States Institute of Peace Welcomes 22nd Class of Jennings Randolph Senior Fellows".
- ^ "International Journal of Middle East Studies".
- ^ "Home - Tanner Humanities Center - the University of Utah".
- ^ "The Ahmanson Foundation Humanities Endowment Fund - University of California Press". www.ucpress.edu. Archived from the original on 2010-05-27.
- ^ "Norris & Carol Hundley Award Recipients » Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association".
- ^ Day, Jeffrey (February 28, 2022). "UC Davis Alumnus Brings Attention to Armenian Genocide With Lecture Series". UC Davis College of Letters and Science. Retrieved May 20, 2023.
- ^ Watenpaugh, Keith David (2010). "The League of Nations' Rescue of Armenian Genocide Survivors and the Making of Modern Humanitarianism, 1920–1927". The American Historical Review. 115 (5): 1315–1339. doi:10.1086/ahr.115.5.1315. PMID 21246885.
- ^ "Syria's Lost Generation". The Chronicle of Higher Education. 2013-06-03.
- ^ Watenpaugh, Keith David. "The Article 26 Backpack Digital Platform Empowers Refugee Students".
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ^ Watenpaugh, Keith David. "A Matter of Rights Professor shares his efforts to help refugees access higher education".
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ^ Fricke, Adrienne. "We Will Stop Here and Go No Further: Syrian University Students and Scholars in Turkey".
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ^ "Syrian University Students and the Impacts of War".
- ^ "The Middle East in the Making of Modern Humanitarianism".
External links
editOfficial Website