This book is based on papers presented at the conference. However, it is not a typical publication of academic conference proceedings because the topics are not completely congruent with those of the conference. Some lectures that could not be held due to travel restrictions related to the coronavirus pandemic were submitted as book contributions. In addition, I also wrote a short contribution on the Jewish history of the region, which has been often neglected in previous presentations of the region. The various authors for this volume have been intensively involved with the region in recent years. However, the authors do not only focus on the situation on the ground, but also on the international context of the autonomous administration. The conflict in Syria is no longer just a civil war, but a transnational conflict with important roles played not only by actors such as Russia or the USA, but also Turkey or Iran. Given the transnationality of the conflict and the role of the hegemonic powers, these authors share thoughtful analyses from very different perspectives. It is important to share these diverse views with the world so that the tragic conflict might become more comprehensible. This does not mean, however, that I necessarily advocate each particular position taken by the varied contributors to this book. The intent is to offer you multiple perspectives and certainly not a common narrative.

Kurds and their Struggle for Autonomy: Enduring Identity and Clientelism is a comprehensive study of the roots of Kurdish identity, the processes of identity formation among the Kurds, and the Kurds’ seemingly never-ending struggle for self-determination. By relying on a hybrid theoretical model of identity politics, this book offers a thorough treatment of the origins, characteristics, and evolution of Kurdish culture in general, and political culture in particular. It also examines the historical explanations and nuances of Kurdish struggles for some form of autonomy, assesses economic imperatives that shape the potentials and challenges of Kurdish social and political life, and offers a critical review of the contemporary Kurdish institutional and policy dynamics in Iraq and Syria.

Against the backdrop of war and violence, social-political as well as lingual repressions, and the challenges presented by a patriarchal society, Kurdish poetesses have been creating meaningful work throughout the centuries. This collection of translated poems brings to light some of these underrepresented female writers, whose work has been essential to the development of Kurdish poetry. Representing various Kurdish regions and dialects, this volume of selected poems touches upon themes such as sexuality, violence, gender domination, intimacy, fantasy, and romantic love. While this collection offers illuminating insights into the work of Kurdish poetesses, it is the hope of its creators, the Exeter Kurdish Translation Initiative, that it inspires further translations and publication of Kurdish literature. This beautiful and groundbreaking collection of English translations from Gorani, Sorani, Kurmanji, and Arabic was achieved through an innovative collaborative translation project in the Centre for Kurdish Studies, University of Exeter. From the nineteenth to the twenty-first century, it expresses women’s voices on politics, nationalism, gender, love, science, education, and everyday Kurdishness in memory, elegy, dream, and discourse. See such haunting lines from Gulîzer as “May those who have stayed not say the leaving is easy./ May those who have left not say the staying is simple.” Or “When two rivers separate/ How do they part their water?” Anyone interested in women’s poetry, diaspora, translation, and transnation will want to hear these poems. – Regenia Gagnier FBA, author of Literatures of Liberalization: Global Circulation and the Long Nineteenth Century and editor, The Global Circulation Project The vivid image of love, lost, hope, beauty, desire, violence, pain, and suffering that are sketched in this book enchant and attract readers to enter into a more intimate lives of Kurdish women. In this exquisite collection of poems written by Kurdish women and translated into English for the first time, we are exposed to a more imaginative way of hearing Kurdish women’s voices. It is in the interstices of lived words and the lifeworld that Kurdish women poets candidly dream freedom and suggest ways to move beyond all forms of oppression and violence. – Shahrzad Mojab, Professor, University of Toronto and the editor of Women of Non-State Nation: The Kurds. CONTENTS Translating Kurdish Poetry as a Collective Endeavour – Farangis Ghaderi and Clémence Scalbert Yücel Unsung Poets of Kurdistan: A Reflection on Women’s Voices in Kurdish Poetry – Farangis Ghaderi and Clémence Scalbert-Yücel Mestûre Erdelan Hêmin Fayeq Bêkes Jîla Huseynî Diya Ciwan Tîroj Trîfa Doskî Viyan M. Tahir Gulîzer

“The author will lead you through an abbara in Mardin thousands of which connect streets, neighborhoods and houses, darkness to light, sorrow to joy and from the visible to the unknown. You’ll pass through it for one has to pass through himself to find himself. While Joseph discovers his real mother in the triangle of Houston, Matera and Mardin, you’ll journey through ages meeting queen snakes sailing through the skies, ancient prophets telling you their parables, and a living wizard who is going to discover the lost water streams under your feet..." - Dr. Hakki Öcal “Ahmet Tezcan's novel isn't just a narrative, it's a travel book about the discovery of Mesopotamia through a touching story. Especially Bahe's story... It falls like a stone on one's heart.” - Orhan Miroğlu “If Hegel had had a chance to read Ahmet Tezcan's marvellous book Abbara while explaining his famous "the real is actual" he would have absolutely had the adventure of the Spirit drop by the streets of Mardin. A novel that through beautiful design passes beyond the dialectic of the difference and the identity.” - Dr. Gülgun Türkoğlu Pagy

Combines ancient coins and innovative digital technologies to study the citizens of Syrian Antioch and their imperial conquerors.

From the bestselling author of Lawrence in Arabia, a piercing account of how the contemporary Arab world came to be riven by catastrophe since the 2003 United States invasion of Iraq. In 2011, a series of anti-government uprisings shook the Middle East and North Africa in what would become known as the Arab Spring. Few could predict that these convulsions, initially hailed in the West as a triumph of democracy, would give way to brutal civil war, the terrors of the Islamic State, and a global refugee crisis. But, as New York Times bestselling author Scott Anderson shows, the seeds of catastrophe had been sown long before. In this gripping account, Anderson examines the myriad complex causes of the region’s profound unraveling, tracing the ideological conflicts of the present to their origins in the United States invasion of Iraq in 2003 and beyond. From this investigation emerges a rare view into a land in upheaval through the eyes of six individuals—the matriarch of a dissident Egyptian family; a Libyan Air Force cadet with divided loyalties; a Kurdish physician from a prominent warrior clan; a Syrian university student caught in civil war; an Iraqi activist for women’s rights; and an Iraqi day laborer-turned-ISIS fighter. A probing and insightful work of reportage, Fractured Lands offers a penetrating portrait of the contemporary Arab world and brings the stunning realities of an unprecedented geopolitical tragedy into crystalline focus.

This is the first book to examine and compare how rebels govern civilians during civil wars in Latin America, Africa, Asia, and Europe. Drawing from a variety of disciplinary traditions, including political science, sociology, and anthropology, the book provides in-depth case studies of specific conflicts as well as comparative studies of multiple conflicts. Among other themes, the book examines why and how some rebels establish both structures and practices of rule, the role of ideology, cultural, and material factors affecting rebel governance strategies, the impact of governance on the rebel/civilian relationship, civilian responses to rebel rule, the comparison between modes of state and non-state governance to rebel attempts to establish political order, the political economy of rebel governance, and the decline and demise of rebel governance attempts.

Dr Tainter describes nearly two dozen cases of collapse and reviews more than 2000 years of explanations. He then develops a new and far-reaching theory.

In The Real North Korea, Lankov substitutes cold, clear analysis for the overheated rhetoric surrounding this opaque police state. Based on vast expertise, this book reveals how average North Koreans live, how their leaders rule, and how both survive