August 2022

20th Century US Working Group

The 20th Century US Working Group serves as a forum for graduate students in the History, American Studies, and other departments to give and receive feedback on drafts, collaborate on exam lists, and hear from faculty and students about developments in the field. The group is open to all graduate students whose work touches on the United States in the twentieth century. Students who attend meetings can expect a collaborative, respectful, and inclusive environment to share their work and foster community with members of different cohorts. 
 

Fluid Jurisdictions: Colonial Law and Arabs in Southeast Asia

 
This wide-ranging, geographically ambitious book tells the story of the Arab diaspora within the context of British and Dutch colonialism, unpacking the community’s ambiguous embrace of European colonial authority in Southeast Asia. In Fluid Jurisdictions, Nurfadzilah Yahaya looks at colonial legal infrastructure and discusses how it impacted, and was impacted by, Islam and ethnicity. But more important, she follows the actors who used this framework to advance their particular interests.
 

Foreign Policy: "Germany Has Confronted Its Past. Now It Must Confront the Present" by Marci Shore

Russian President Vladimir Putin has sent the Russian army to reenact World War II in a grotesque, postmodern key. His “special operation” to “de-Nazify” Ukraine is an unprovoked attack on a sovereign democratic state and a campaign of mass slaughter. The Ukrainian military has been defending Ukraine much more skillfully than the Russian military has been attacking it. (Ukrainians know why they are fighting.) Nevertheless, the Kremlin has an enormous advantage in terms of its arsenal, the size of its economy, and comfortable indifference to lives lost.