Description: Examines the role of minorities and identity in twentieth-century Iraqi political and cultural history through the relationship between the state and the Assyrians.
Brief description: Alda Benjamen is Faculty Fellow in the Department of History at University of California, Berkeley where her work concerns questions about memory, home, and belonging in multilingual and diasporic communities in the context of rural-to-urban and global migrations. She is editor of a special issue of the Journal of Contemporary Iraq and the Arab World, 'Co-existence and Pluralism in Northern Iraq' (2020), and a roundtable for the International Journal of Middle East Studies, 'Minoritization and Pluralism in the Modern Middle East' (2018).
Review Quotes: 'Benjamen's groundbreaking study examines Assyrians as Iraqis, Christians, and political activists who moved within regional, national, and international networks. Historians of the Middle East will appreciate her nuanced appraisal of pluralism and diversity, which draws attention to the small towns and landscapes of northern Iraq.' Heather J. Sharkey, University of Pennsylvania