Keith David Watenpaugh | |
|---|---|
 Keith David Watenpaugh in 2018 | |
| Born | (1966-10-08)8 October 1966 (age 59) |
| 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 |
Keith David Watenpaugh (born October 8, 1966) is an American academic. He is Professor of Human Rights Studies at theUniversity of California, Davis. A leading American historian of the contemporary Middle East,human rights, and modernhumanitarianism, he is an expert on theArmenian genocide and its denial, and the role of therefugee in world history.[1]
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 inSyria,Iraq, andTurkey.[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]
In addition to publishing inThe American Historical Review, theInternational Journal of Middle East Studies,Journal of Human Rights,Humanity,Social History,The Huffington Post and theChronicle of Higher Education,[1] Watenpaugh is author ofBeing Modern in the Middle East: Revolution, Nationalism, and Colonialism and the Arab Middle Class (Princeton: Princeton University Press 2006) andBread from Stones: The Middle East and the Making of Modern Humanitarianism (Oakland: University of California Press, 2015).
He is co-editor of Karnig Panian'sGoodbye, 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 atAntoura, Lebanon, where he was subjected to violent attempts atTurkification.[6]
Following the2003 American-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, he led the first investigation of conditions facing universities and research centers inBaghdad. 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 theCoalition Provisional Authority.
Since 2013, Watenpaugh has directed a jointUniversity 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 theFord Foundation and theOpen Society Foundations (2017–2019), he directed the development and implementation of theArticle 26 Backpack, a digital tool that improves refugee academic document security and empowers better access to higher education opportunities.[9]
Watenpaugh is a recipient (2019) of theInstitute of International Education Centennial Medal in recognition of his research, advocacy, and the Article 26 Backpack.[10]
He has been a Fellow of theAmerican Council of Learned Societies (2013),[11] a Senior Fellow in International Peace at theUnited States Institute of Peace (2008–2009)[12] and has served on the editorial board of theInternational Journal of Middle East Studies.[13]
In 2018 he held theRichard von Weizsäcker Distinguished Visitor and Lecturer fellowship at theAmerican Academy in Berlin; distinguished research fellow (2018) of theIssam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs atAmerican 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 theAndrew W. Mellon Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellow in Middle East Studies atWilliams 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 theAmerican Historical Association Norris & Carol Hundley Award competition.[16]
Watenpaugh is anEagle Scout.
His wife,Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh, is also a historian and a professor at UC Davis.[17]
Bread 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]Archived 2006-10-21 at theWayback Machine
"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 withChris GratienThe 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 theWayback Machine
"Middle East Brain Drain," National Public Radio'sTalk of the Nation - 11/22/2006[5]
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