While plowing through grant proposals, I have come across a number of books that have been released in the past year that I really must read.

Authors most relevant to my dissertation work including Stacie Goddard, Ron Hassner, and Anthony Smith have all written new books that speak to questions of the origins of national identity and the role of nationalism in international territorial conflict.

Also a number of special interest books have been released this year including controversial Israeli historian Benny Morris’s One State, Two States, his latest take on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and Shlomo Sand’s The Invention of the Jewish People, which has kicked up its share of sand in Israel and elsewhere.

If any of these were to magically appear on my doorstep, I would be a very happy camper.

It was pointed out to me recently that I have failed to post anything to this site since October 5, so a brief update is in order:

The Fall Quarter at Northwestern has just ended as has my time as a TA for Jim Mahoney’s Political Science 310: Methods of Political Inference course. I am happy to report that, although the class was quite challenging, my students really pulled out all stops in the end and did quite well in their final papers and exams. Congratulations to all. Next quarter, I will be TAing for Wendy Pearlman’s Political Science 390: Middle East Politics course and continuing my work with the Northwestern Middle East Forum.

Over the break, I will be continuing work on grants to secure funding for future fieldwork. Thanks to ongoing assistance from the staff at the Northwestern Office of Fellowships and my dedicated dissertation committee, I managed to complete both the Fulbright IIE and Fulbright Hays grants. I am now engaged in writing the United States Institute for Peace’s Jennings Randolph Peace Scholarship Dissertation Program application. I will also be moving ahead with writing a paper based on my fieldwork in the summer in Serbia.

With any luck, it will be a very productive month. Thank you as always for reading.

This week in Jim Mahoney’s Political Science 310: Methods of Political Inference course, we are exploring the formulation of concepts for qualitative research.

To make my TA sections a bit more interesting, I am having my students this week explore the ladder of generality, methods of analytical differentiation, and concept stretching in part through an analysis of this episode of Dinosaur Comics: 

1. How are T-Rex’s thoughts on sandwichocracy related to the ladder of generality?
2. What forms of analytical differentiation are T-Rex, Utahraptor, and Dromiceiomimus employing in their concept-building exercise?
3. Do they raise any concerns with regard to conceptual stretching?

Please discuss. I am eternally grateful to my friend and colleague, Mitch Troup, who introduced me to this delightful comic

.

]]> http://arielzellman.wordpress.com/2009/10/05/dinosaur-comics-and-concept-building/feed/ 0 arielzellman dinosaur-sandwich-ocracy http://arielzellman.wordpress.com/2009/09/21/paper-accepted-for-isa-2010-in-new-orleans/ http://arielzellman.wordpress.com/2009/09/21/paper-accepted-for-isa-2010-in-new-orleans/#comments Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:03:45 +0000 arielzellman http://arielzellman.wordpress.com/2009/09/21/paper-accepted-for-isa-2010-in-new-orleans/ ]]>

I am happy to report that my paper-in-progress, “Kosovo is Serbia”: Nation and Homeland in Contentious Territorial Politics, has been accepted for next year’s International Studies Association annual conference.

The conference will be held in New Orleans from February 17 through February 20, 2010 at the Hilton Riverside Hotel. My panel, “Building Nations,” will take place on Saturday, February 20, at 8:30 am. Much to my surprise, I have also been assigned to chair the panel! This will be a first for me so if anyone has any pointers on how to do this job well, please pass them along!

For your reading pleasure, I have attached the paper abstract after the jump. Enjoy and, as always, feedback is greatly appreciated:

“Kosovo is Serbia”: Nation and Homeland in Contentious Territorial Politics

In the two decades following the breakup of Yugoslavia, Serbia has slowly reconciled itself to the new Balkan political map in every substantive instance save one: Kosovo. Serbia’s intransigence has weathered regime change from dictatorship to democracy and political incumbency from ultranationalists to liberal continentalists. This outcome stands in stark contrast to Serbia’s eventual renunciation of claims to Bosnia in 1995 and its calm acquiescence to Montenegro’s secession in 2006. Both territories boast significantly larger Serbian populations than Kosovo, both are economically more productive, and Montenegro with its Adriatic coastline is more strategically valuable. This behavior is not explained by conventional approaches to international territorial conflict. Rather this paper examines the integral role of Kosovo in the Serbian national imagination. As Serbia’s medieval capital, claims center not on its material assets or ethnic demographics but on the meanings that popular national narratives draw from the territory itself. Homeland claims of this nature assign worth to territory neither dependent on nor perfectly substituted by strategic, economic, or political prerogatives. The value-laden nature of these spaces contributes to the sense that they are integral to the identity of the state and nation making compromise highly unlikely.

This evening marks the beginning of the Jewish observance of  Rosh Hashana, the 5770th year since creation according to a literal reading of the Torah (we don’t actually believe that the universe is less than 6000 years old, but this is another discussion).

This is a time of year when Jews reflect back on their accomplishments and failures of the past year, ask for forgiveness for wrongs they have committed against others, and look forward to a new year with a clean conscience and a determination to make the world a better place. This past year has certainly been a challenging one for me, but I am proud of what I have accomplished. Between renewing my personal life and working hard to move my academic program forward at Northwestern, I can point to many successes.

In October and December, I passed both my comprehensive exams in International Relations and Comparative Politics. In February, I had the opportunity to present a version of my second year paper at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association in New York. With much productive feedback from my discussants, fellow panelists, and others I met, I was able to press forward with my dissertation prospectus which I successfully defended in June.

As my regular readers will know, I also had the amazing experience of conducting six weeks of field work in Serbia from June through July this past summer. There I established close contacts with people across the country and the political spectrum laying the groundwork for what I hope will be an interesting chapter in my dissertation and future travels. I have spent the last several weeks writing, improving, and revising my application for the Fulbright IIE grant for travel and research in Israel in the 2010-2011 academic year. I will be submitting my final draft by next Friday.

Immediately following the weekend coinciding with the two days of Rosh Hashana yontif, I will be starting the fall quarter at Northwestern. In addition to taking Edna Grad’s intermediate Hebrew course, I will also be TAing Jim Mahoney’s course, PS 310: Methods of Political Inference. This should be both a wonderful opportunity to interact with a batch of eager and interested political science undergrads and to improve my own research methodology.

I have also begun work as the Research Assistant for Northwestern’s newly formed Middle East Forum, a group of faculty, staff, and graduate students who have come together to raise the profile of Middle East Studies at our University. The group is co-chaired by Professors Hendrik Spruyt of Political Science and BCICS and Elie Rekhess of History and Judaic Studies. I will be posting more on our activities as things develop.

Needless to say, I am looking forward to an exciting year full of new challenges and opportunities. I am grateful to my friends and family who have consistently been there for me as I navigated the last year and who I know will be there to share my successes and help me shoulder my disappointments in the year to come. Thank you all as always for reading and a sweet and happy new year to you all.

תודה רבה ולשנה טובה ומתוקה! -אריאל זלמן

After seven or so drafts and many many hours of work, I have finally submitted my Fulbright IIE grant application in time for Northwestern’s internal deadline: yesterday. Now my application will be reviewed by internal committees for further comment and criticism so I can rewrite it another six times before the national deadline. The process is a bit exhausting, but incredibly helpful.

A huge thank you to my recommenders, Will Reno, Hendrik Spruyt, and Ed Gibson, for your timely letters, and to Edna Grad for her Hebrew language evaluation. Also to my Fulbright Faculty Advisor, Yohanan Ptrovsky-Shtern for his insightful thoughts on my application essays as well as to Steve Hill and Brad Zakarin for their input and help with the application process.

I am also happy to report that both Bar Ilan University in Ramat Gan and Hebrew University in Jerusalem have agreed to serve as my affiliate institutions in the 2010-2011 academic year, assuming I receive the Fulbright. Thank you to professors Jonathan Fox and Dan Miodownik for your incredibly quick turn around on my required letters.

Because the grant is still “in production,” I am not going to post either my Statement of Proposed Research or Personal Statement for reader review just yet. However, if you are dying to take a look at it, let me know and I can send them to you by e-mail. Wish me luck. I need it!

Hi folks, a number of my friends have pointed out that I have been slacking on my blog as of late. While procrastination should need no excuse, it seems that I owe you all an explanation. Allow me to provide several:

1. I am back in Chicago so my fieldwork is finished for the summer. This means fewer interesting stories, interviews, and travels for awhile
2. I have just moved. I have spent the last two weeks packing up my old apartment in Evanston and relocating to my new place in Lincoln Park. Thank you to Lina, Peter, and Dima without whom the move would not have been possible! I will likely be spending the next week cleaning the old place so my generous landlord of the past three years is not left with that thankless task.
3. Classes do not start again until the end of September. This means that I do not have a lot of important university news to announce either.

In short, things have slowed down quite a bit for the remainder of the summer. As I get back to work on my Fulbright IIE application next week, I may post some written material up for comment. In the meantime, you should all visit a new blog, Religio-N-Politics, written by my friend and colleague Nukhet Sandal. She is a senior Ph.D. candidate at USC whom I met last year at ISA in New York. Her specific area of scholarship is international relations and religion, a very hot topic these days. Check it out!

Wednesday evening I arrived home to Chicago safe and sound. There was some drama along the way, but it clearly all turned out for the best. Here is more or less what happened on the way.

I left Manga at about 8:45 in the morning to catch the Jat bus from Slavija to Nikola Tesla International Airport. I got on the shuttle just as it was leaving but arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare. A warning to travelers, the airport is the biggest tourist trap in the whole of the country. Once passing through security, you will be confronted with a long string of overpriced duty free shops and restaurants. The gates, which each require another security check for international departures, are not announced until an hour before the flight. On the up-side, overpriced in Serbia remains a relative term. I got breakfast for about 500 dinar; that’s less than 10 USD and still slightly cheaper than you would find at an American airport for a similar amount of food.

The Jat flight was pleasant enough and not terribly bumpy. The staff lost my vegetarian meal along the way so I was a bit hungry, but I still had a few Cliff Bars left from my trip. On the way to Frankfurt, I cracked open my recently purchased copy of The Bridge Over the Drina, a classic Balkan novel written in 1945 by Ivo Andric for which he received the 1961 Nobel Prize in Literature. This book and its over 400 pages kept me enthralled most of the way home when I wasn’t napping or watching a movie. I highly highly recommend it to anyone who wishes to understand the tumultuous history of the region without a heavy academic overlay.

In Frankfurt, I had to wait a few hours for my flight. This was probably a good thing for at least two reasons. First, I had no boarding pass issued in Belgrade, so I had to check in again. This required finding the correct line in Frankfurt’s cavernous airport and innumerable Lufthansa desks. Proper signage would really have helped here. Second, it turns out that our original plane was having technical difficulties so they had to bring in a smaller one. This meant that about half the original passengers were bumped to stand-by. Oops. Fortunately, after waiting for an hour in line at the terminal, I was given a seat. The big bonus? They gave me a free upgrade to business class.

This meant, of course, that my flight home was much more comfortable than the way there. I enjoyed a seat that could be electronically reclined in at least 10 different positions with a lumbar massage, a personal television screen with movies, games, and music galore, a fine selection of free alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages the entire flight, and most importantly, lots and lots of space to spread out. Thank you Lufthansa! I wish I could afford to travel like this on a regular basis.

Since we were a bit delayed out of Frankfurt due to the plane switch, we arrived in Chicago about an hour late. Being in business class, however, meant that I was one of the first people out of the plane. This meant that I could get through customs much more quickly and out to the baggage claim. Lina was a real sweetie and picked me up at Terminal 5 and I was home by 10 pm.

Having had a few days to sleep off the jet lag, I’m doing my utmost to get back into the swing of things. I am looking forward to a quiet Shabbat back in town. Come next week, I will be kicking off my search for a new apartment for September 1 and getting the remainder of my Fulbright IIE grant written. I will also be beginning work on a paper based on my research in Serbia. With all the data I collected over the last five and a half weeks, I have a lot to process. I am so thankful to all of my new friends and contacts in Serbia who took the time to meet with me and share their thoughts and reflections on the course and nature of Serbian politics, history, and community. It was an absolutely amazing time and I must return again in the near future. Thank you also to the Buffett Center for International and Comparative Studies and the Kellogg School of Business’s Dispute Resolution Research Center for allowing me this incredible opportunity.

Živili!

This post is going to be a short one. On Tuesday I woke up late and spent most of the morning and early afternoon writing the post about my interviews and activities on Monday. I also did a bit more work on my Fulbright IIE grant, finished up some relevant paperwork, and started packing up my things for my flight today (Wednesday). Finishing up at around 2 pm, I decided to try one last time to secure an interview with someone at the New Serbia Party (Nova Srbija).

This center-right nationalist party is best known through the activities of its leader, Velimir Ilić, a bombastic figure who played a key role in the fall of Slobodan Milosevic. He led a motercade from Čačak, where he was mayor at the time, on October 5, 2000 to Belgrade atop a bulldozer culminating in the charge on Parliament seen on television screens across the world. Since then, he has distinguished himself through his frequent emotional outbursts and use of profanity, particularly on national television. The party’s platform is remarkably similar to that of the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) and the two usually run on a joint ticket during national elections. The party currently holds 10 seats in the National Assembly.

My interview with one prominent party member was brief but informative enough. For them, Kosovo is an integral and indivisible part of Serbia owing particularly to its place in national history and mythology. They are officially against any kind of partition of the province but they do support a widely autonomous Kosovo within the national sovereignty of Serbia. Also like most other parties, they recognize and support the independence of Montenegro as well as Bosnia Herzegovina as a state guarantor of the Dayton Accords. In the course of the interview, I did not learn anything new about the conflict over Kosovo but at this point in my research, I would have been greatly surprised if I had. My host generously offered to answer any other questions I might have through email, and I promised to be in touch.

In the evening, Rabbi Asiel invited me for dinner at his flat. There I had the pleasure of meeting his wife and two children who had recently returned from the United States. It was really wonderful to see him and the whole family. They and the rest of the Jewish community here have been very kind and welcoming hosts this whole trip. I am very much looking forward to my next visit to see them all again. In the late evening, I returned to Manga to finish packing up my things, to enjoy one last 1 liter plastic bottle of Nikšićko Tamno, and to give a final goodbye to my many friends I have made here. This morning I was up early to write this post and tie up loose ends. I will be catching a Jat bus from Slavija at 9 and flying out of Belgrade at noon assuming everything is running on time. By 8 o’clock this evening, I should be back home in Chicago. What a trip!

Now that I have practically come to the end of my work here in Serbia, I thought it would be a good idea to put together some final reflections. Since everything else I have written over the last 6 weeks has been incredibly serious, I decided to give humour a go.

So here is it, the Mickey Mouse Guide to Kosovo in Serbian Politics. The “insights” I provide here are nothing more than cardboard cut-outs of much more complex issues. I did my best to play up every major political stereotype and be equally offensive to every party. Keeping that in mind, I hope you enjoy it.

Democratic Party (DS): Kosovo is Serbia … except when it’s not.

Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS): Kosovo is Serbia whether the Europeans like it or not.

G17 Plus: Kosovo is Serbia, we paid for it!

Liberal Democratic Party: Kosovo was Serbia, get used to it.

New Serbia: Kosovo is Serbia and anyone who disagrees is a jerkoff scumbag!

Progressive Party: Kosovo is Serbia, why isn’t Brussels listening?

Radical Party: Kosovo is Serbia and over there is too…

Socialist Party: Kosovo is Serbia, Milosevic was just doing his job.