Field Notes: The Making of Middle East Studies in the United States

Zachary Lockman

ISBN 10: 0804798052 / ISBN 13: 9780804798051

Published by Stanford University Press, 2016

About this Item

Field Notes uncovers how Middle East studies as an academic field was built over the course of the 20th century--a process replete with contention, anxiety, dead ends, and consequences both unanticipated and unintended. Num Pages: 376 pages. BIC Classification: HBJF1; HBJK; JNK. Category: (G) General (US: Trade). Dimension: 160 x 237 x 27. Weight in Grams: 686. . 2016. 1st Edition. Hardcover. . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland.

Seller Inventory # V9780804798051

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Field Notes: The Making of Middle East Studies in the United States
• Publisher: Stanford University Press
• Publication Date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0804798052
• ISBN 13: 9780804798051
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

Field Notes reconstructs the origins and trajectory of area studies in the United States, focusing on Middle East studies from the 1920s to the 1980s. Drawing on extensive archival research, Zachary Lockman shows how the Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Ford foundations played key roles in conceiving, funding, and launching postwar area studies, expecting them to yield a new kind of interdisciplinary knowledge that would advance the social sciences while benefiting government agencies and the American people. Lockman argues, however, that these new academic fields were not simply a product of the Cold War or an instrument of the American national security state, but had roots in shifts in the humanities and the social sciences over the interwar years, as well as in World War II sites and practices. This book explores the decision-making processes and visions of knowledge production at the foundations, the Social Science Research Council, and others charged with guiding the intellectual and institutional development of Middle East studies. Ultimately, Field Notes uncovers how area studies as an academic field was actually built—a process replete with contention, anxiety, dead ends, and consequences both unanticipated and unintended.

About the Author

Zachary Lockman is Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies and of History at New York University. He is the author of Contending Visions of the Middle East: The History and Politics of Orientalism (2004, 2010).