Department of Political Science

The Arabian Peninsula was under the influence of the Ottoman Empire from 1517 until its collapse in 1918. During this time, three attempts were made to establish a Saudi state, the last of which began in 1902 and ended with the unification of the third Saudi State in 1932. During this period, three Saudi States were formed. The first Saudi State was established in 1745 when the al-Diriyah Agreement was introduced. This landmark agreement was achieved when Imam Mohammed Ibn Saud formed an alliance with Sheikh Mohammed Ibn Abdul Wahhab, a religious and rebellious man who advocated for the pure interpretation of Islamic principles. This alliance enabled Ibn Saud to govern the state, but he left the religious and cultural aspects of the society under the authority of Ibn Abdul Wahhab. As a result, throughout centuries, the religious establishment has greatly influenced the affairs of all three Saudi States. However, following the seizure of the Grand Mosque by religious zealots in 1979, Saudi Arabia underwent changes that radicalized the religious establishment, causing myriad detrimental effects for Saudi women. Oppressed by the weight of unfair laws and obstacles, Saudi women challenged the status quo and fought for equal rights through various methods. While King Abdullah al-Saud introduced some reforms, more significant change was still to come. After King Abdullah’s death, King Salman and his son Mohammed Bin Salman—the Crown Prince and Prime Minster—initiated a series of sweeping reforms under the Vision 2030 initiative to empower women, diversify the economy, and modernize the Kingdom of Saudi. Some key aspects of these reforms were abolishing the Male Guardianship System and removing the ban on women’s driving.

Gubernatorial mansions are historically home to white men. Candidates with contrary identities, such as women and racial minorities have met limited success in their quest for office. Yet the number of women seeking executive level office has increased and these women represent a broader intersectional identity. The low percentage of women governors has been examined in detail, but that analysis largely holds gender as an isolated variable and does not consider the candidates' broader identity. This project posits gender is only one factor of candidate identity called into question when it is nonnormative and varies from historical office holders. I argue candidate identity interacts with the identity expressed by voters and the collective identity found in social movements. The ability of the candidate to navigate this interaction and use it to their advantage is paramount to their success. I find that structural differences in the Democratic and Republican parties provide opportunities and constraints for women candidates. Further, gender, race, and previous political experience are intersectional and create different responses by candidates. Ultimately, successful candidates align their political identity with the collective identity found in contemporary social movements as a mitigation mechanism for voters uncomfortable with who the candidate appears to be.

The present study seeks to argue for a literary approach to writing history. In particular, it will use the case of the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990s and a sample of authors who documented it to show that this approach can add value to our understanding of history beyond what journalistic and historical sources already give us. A literary approach to history gives us a personal account of historical events or—if not directly experienced by the author—a personal reaction, digestion and assimilation of the facts presented in other sources in order to give us a snapshot of the extant zeitgeist that cannot be gleaned from a straightforward presentation of those facts.
The approach advocated in this study is something of two methods of recording history: journalistic account and testimonial. It bridges disciplines, fusing an historical (or comparative political) understanding of the wars that led to the breakup of Yugoslavia and the international response to them and individual perspectives recorded through literary testimonials of those same events. This approach seeks to forge a new avenue of potential inquiry (or add to work already being done in the same vein by applying it to a new case) within the comparative study of history, political science, and literature.
The work of Norman Mailer in forging a type of “literary journalism” will be considered, as well as, and particularly, his writings on the bombings of Kosovo in 1999. Moreover, Italian author Erri De Luca’s collection of short stories, Pianoterra (2008), will be examined using my own translations of the pertinent texts dealing with his time as a humanitarian convoy driver in Bosnia during the war. Finally, the multimedia historical project embarked upon by musician PJ Harvey and photojournalist Seamus Murphy, documenting their travels and interactions with locals in Kosovo, will round out the study with the most abstract example of non-traditional, literary historicizing.

Florida Atlantic University Departmental Dashboard Indicators. Department program reviews for Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Florida Atlantic University.

Florida Atlantic University Departmental Dashboard Indicators. Department program reviews for Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Florida Atlantic University.

Florida Atlantic University Departmental Dashboard Indicators. Department program reviews for Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Florida Atlantic University.

Florida Atlantic University Departmental Dashboard Indicators. Department program reviews for Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Florida Atlantic University.

Florida Atlantic University Departmental Dashboard Indicators. Department program reviews for Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Florida Atlantic University.

Florida Atlantic University Departmental Dashboard Indicators. Department program reviews for Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Florida Atlantic University.

Florida Atlantic University Departmental Dashboard Indicators. Department program reviews for Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Florida Atlantic University.