The Middle Eastern Communities and Migrations (MECM) Student Research Paper Series (SRPS) highlights the research and writing skills of JMU undergraduate students for the university community and wider public audience. The SRPS is a forum for JMU students working on topics related to the Middle East to publish their work in an on-line peer-reviewed occasional paper series.
MECM SRPS #3 2020: Modern Afghanistan Papers II
These essays were prepared as Final Papers for Dr. Shah Mahmoud Hanifi’s HIST 372 Afghanistan in Regional and Global Systems class in the fall 2018. Dr. Hanifi and the authors are grateful for peer-review commentary from Graduate Students at the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies, London School of Economics, and the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom.
Submissions from 2020
PDF - War in the Hazarajat: Imposed Identities and Flawed Schemes of State Building, Matthew Anderson
PDF - War and Violence in Afghanistan: A Legacy of Social Suffering, Ashleigh Heider
PDF - The Colonial Politics of Water: Mapping Afghanistan’s Indus and Oxus Rivers, Lauren Palmieri
MECM SRPS #2 2017: Early Modern Islamicate Histories
This set of papers brings together research on the great Muslim empires of the early modern world. The studies by Rachel Barton and Dylan Russell were written in Dr. Timothy J. Fitzgerald’s “HIST 341: History of the Ottoman Empire” course during the spring of 2016. Connor Hamel’s paper was produced in Dr. Shah Mahmoud Hanifi’s “HUM 252: Global South Asia” course in the fall of 2016. The authors were asked to set their work in conversation with current scholarship, use primary sources where possible, and consider global contexts and comparisons. The papers were accepted and revised after a blind review process, involving three faculty experts in each case.
Submissions from 2017
PDF - Significant Others: The Fashioning of Orientalism in the Travelogues of 18th-Century British Women, Rachel Barton
PDF - Safavid Trade During the 17th Century: Iran's Transit Economy, Connor J. Hamel
PDF - The Price Revolution in the Ottoman Context: Economic Upheaval in the Sixteenth Century, Dylan Lawrence Russell
MECM SRPS #1 2010: Building Knowledge in and of Afghanistan
The first set of papers in the MECM SRPS were originally produced in Dr. Shah Mahmoud Hanifi’s HIST 372 Afghanistan in Regional and Global Systems class during the fall 2010 semester. All students in that class produced research papers focused on Nationalism in Afghanistan, and a number of HIST 372 students presented their work at the university-wide Building Knowledge in and of Afghanistan (BKA) conference held the following spring 2011 semester. The student papers delivered at the BKA conference received a great deal of feedback from two JMU alumni who entered History PhD programs after graduating from JMU. John Miller and H. William Warner served as Discussants at the BKA conference and provided each student presenter with oral and written comments that have been incorporated in the following essays.
Submissions from 2010
PDF - Nationalism in Afghanistan - A Descriptive Analysis, Jawan Shir Rasikh
PDF - Neocolonialism in Cold War Afghanistan, Jonathan Reed
PDF - The Role of Language in Defining Afghan Nationalism, Farid Zareie
