Session Abstract

Following the political and economic upheavals that swept the Middle East (and other regions) following World War II, newly independent states and diasporic national communities alike both invoked and were interpellated into discourses and practices of modernization. This formal session panel uses three case studies – Iran, the Armenian diaspora, Syria, and Saudi Arabia – to investigate the ways in which internal pressures to modernize translated into interventions staged on bodies, natural resources, and national corporations. While aimed at and produced for a national audience, these interventions also testify to the ways in which becoming modern in the twentieth century could only take place on an international stage.

The first paper traces the localization of ideals of international technical expertise for mid-twentieth century water management projects through the dam-building and regional development project that the NYC-based Development and Resources Corporation was asked to build in Khuzestan, Iran. The second paper investigates the role of inter-Armenian Olympic-style sports competitions, hosted by the Armenian political parties based in Lebanon, in helping construct a physical ideal of fitness and strength for the ‘modern’ male and female Armenian body. The third paper examines the role played by Boeing and its aircraft in supporting the development of national airlines in Syria and Saudi Arabia, highlighting the centrality of even imported technology to national arguments about development and international connectedness.

This panel embraces the AHA’s commitment to career stage diversity by bringing together two graduate students and one junior faculty. It also embraces field diversity by bringing together papers that connect environmental, sport, and corporate histories to nation-building projects. It eschews a commentator in favor of greater time for audience questions and cross-panel discussion.

Although not directly engaging with the 2011 theme, “History, Society, and the Sacred”, panelists and audience members alike are invited to consider the ways in which modernization – particularly when harnessed to national identity building – in the twentieth-century could be considered a form of ‘sacred’.