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WORK TITLE: The Home I Worked to Make
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WEBSITE: http://sites.northwestern.edu/wendypearlman/
CITY: Chicago
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LAST VOLUME: CA 414
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Female.
EDUCATION:Brown University, B.A., 1996; Georgetown University, M.A., 2000; Harvard University, Ph.D., 2007.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, assistant professor, 2008-15; associate professor, 2015-19; professor, 2019-; Perspectives on Politics, coeditor-in-chief, 2023-.
AWARDS:Fulbright fellow, 1996-97; Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research fellow, 2016-18, 2021-22. Has also been a Starr Foundation Fellow at the Center for Arabic Studies Abroad at the American University in Cairo, a Junior Peace Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace, and a postdoctoral Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
WRITINGS
Has contributed chapters to books and published articles in journals, including American Political Science Review, British Journal of Political Science, Middle East Law and Governance, Perspectives on Politics, Comparative Sociology, Comparative Politics, Arab Studies Journal, Security Studies, and Studies in Comparative International Development.
SIDELIGHTS
Wendy Pearlman holds degrees from Brown University, Georgetown University, and Harvard University and teaches in the Department of Political Science at Northwestern. Her research interests are the comparative politics of the Middle East and the Arab-Israeli conflict, social movements, political violence, and refugees. She has traveled and studied widely, in Spain, Germany, Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Israel, and the West Bank and Gaza Strip. She contributes chapters to books and articles to various journals in her field, including British Journal of Political Science, Middle East Law and Governance, Perspectives on Politics, Comparative Sociology, Arab Studies Journal, Security Studies, and Studies in Comparative International Development.
Occupied Voices
Pearlman traveled to the Middle East in the wake of the breakdown in peace negotiations in 2000. There, she spent time interviewing Palestinians living in Israel, who spoke to her of their losses and suffering. In her first book, Occupied Voices: Stories of Everyday Life from the Second Intifada, Pearlman collects their stories. David Pitt, writing in Booklist, remarked that this study is not “about politics or war; it’s about people who live in the midst of a terrible conflict.”
A Publishers Weekly critic noted that “some readers will come away only with despair, a sense that the conflict will never be settled.” Sherna Berger Gluck, reviewing Occupied Voices in the Oral History Review, called the book a “well written commentary that incorporates both the specific geographic and political context.” Pearlman, a fluent Arabic speaker, was able to capture the stories of a cross- section of people: a community organizer, a professor, a television reporter, a shopkeeper, and others. “Particularly evocative,” observed Gluck, “is her account of the little boy who asked his parents to buy him a toy tank so that he could protect his family after a missile crashed inside his room.” She concluded that the “travails and the aspirations for peace of these Palestinian narrators” are “compelling reading.”
Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement and We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled
Pearlman next published Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement. It has long been thought that the use of violence by Palestinian national movement for self- determination was the work of extremists in the ranks. Instead, as A.G. Reiter, a contributor to Choice, put it, Pearlman argues that it stems from a “lack of leadership and coordination associated with fragmented groups.” In tracing the history of the movement as far back as 1918, the study “makes an important contribution to the academic literature on political violence,” one that could be applied to other such historic conflicts, such as those in South Africa and Northern Ireland.
In We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria, Pearlman once more adopts the interview method to collect the firsthand stories of displaced Syrians, talking of life both before and after the 2011 Syrian rebellion. As Pearlman noted in We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled, her interviewees included “housewives and rebel fighters, hair-gelled teenagers and businessmen in well-pressed shirts, die-hard activists and ordinary families caught in the crossfire.” One man, for example, was made to bury alive a young girl. Annie Bostrom, critic inBooklist, called the stories “spare and haunting testimonies” that make for a “powerfully edifying work of witness.” AKirkus Reviews critic pronounced this “a poignant and humane collection.” In Publishers Weekly, a reviewer concluded that the “book is filled with hope, informed by an understanding of the unity possible.”
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Muzoon: A Syrian Refugee Speaks Out
Rather than collect a variety of stories in her next book, Pearlman partnered with Muzoon Almellehan to tell her specific story in Muzoon: A Syrian Refugee Speaks Out. Cowritten with Almellehan, the book describes how she and her family were to escape from Syria when she was twelve years old. Along with describing what life was like in Syria and why the family felt compelled to leave, the book also conveys what life was like in their Jordanian refugee camp. There, Almellehan was so passionate about education and about convincing the girls in the camp to come to school that she became known as the Malala of Syria. As an adult, she has become an advocate for refugees and a UNICEF goodwill ambassador. Written for a middle-school audience, the book hopes to inspire young readers.
Sharon Rawlins, writing in Booklist, called the book “moving and gripping” and an “inspiring memoir.” A reviewer in Publishers Weekly amplified those compliments, writing that the book’s “vivid descriptions prove immersive.” The result is a “powerful experiential telling that’s situated as both ‘my story’ and a ‘window into many other stories.'”
The Home I Worked to Make: Voices from the New Syrian Diaspora
Pearlman returned to the format of collecting interviews from Syrian refugees in The Home I Worked to Make: Voices from the New Syrian Diaspora. The focus is on the refugees’ sense of home, both the home they left behind and what they have done to create a new home for themselves. Pearlman interviewed more than 500 refugees and stitched together some of their stories and what they have in common to help readers understand their experiences.
“A stunningly curated text” is how a writer in Kirkus Reviews described the book. They applauded Pearlman for how it “weaves these tales together beautifully, artfully teasing out their commonalities, complexities, and contradictions.” They also appreciated the “unexpected and incisive” conclusions that Pearlman is able to share.
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BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Booklist, July, 2003, David Pitt, review of Occupied Voices: Stories of Everyday Life from the Second Intifada, p. 1860; May 15, 2017, Annie Bostrom, review of We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria, p. 12; April 15, 2023, Sharon Rawlins, review of Muzoon: A Syrian Refugee Speaks Out, p. 40.
Choice, July, 2012, A.G. Reiter, review of Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement, p. 2141.
Kirkus Reviews, April 15, 2017, review of We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled; June 1, 2024, review of The Home I Worked to Make: Voices from the New Syrian Diaspora.
Oral History Review, winter-spring, 2005, Sherna Berger Gluck, review of Occupied Voices, p. 73.
Publishers Weekly, May 19, 2003, review of Occupied Voices p. 63; March 27, 2017, review of We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled, p. 91; April 10, 2023, review of Muzoon, p. 64.
ONLINE
HarperCollins website, https:// www.harpercollins.com/ (November 7, 2017), author profile.
Northwestern University website, http:// www.polisci.northwestern.edu/ (July 3, 2024), author profile.
WENDY PEARLMAN
Professor; Crown Professor of Middle East Studies; Interim Director, Middle East and North Africa Studies Program
B.A.: Brown University, 1996; Ph.D.: Harvard University, 2007
Curriculum Vitae
pearlman@northwestern.edu
Website
847-491-2259
Scott Hall 204
Office Hours: By appointment only.
Interests
Research Interest(s): Comparative Politics of the Middle East, Social Movements, Conflict Processes, Emotions, Migration and Refugee Studies, and The Arab-Israeli Conflict
Program Area(s): Comparative Politics
Regional Specialization(s): Middle East
Subfield Specialties: Comparative Historical Analysis; Conflict Studies
Biography
A scholar of the comparative politics of the Middle East, social movements, and forced migration, Wendy Pearlman has studied or conducted research in Morocco, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey, Spain, Germany, Israel, and the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. She is the author of five books: Occupied Voices: Stories of Everyday Life from the Second Intifada (Nation Books, 2003); Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement (Cambridge, 2011); We Crossed A Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from Syria (HarperCollins, 2017); Triadic Coercion: Israel’s Targeting of States that Host Nonstate Actors (with Boaz Atzili, Columbia, 2018); and Muzoon: A Syrian Refugee Speaks Out (with Muzoon Almellehan, Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2023). She has published forty academic articles or book chapters, including in American Political Science Review, Perspectives on Politics, International Migration Review, International Security, Comparative Politics, Comparative Political Studies, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Politics & Society, Security Studies and Studies of Comparative International Development.
Since June 2023, Wendy has served as Co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal Perspectives on Politics. Her teaching has been recognized by the Charles Deering McCormick Professorship of Teaching Excellence, Weinberg College Distinguished Teaching Award, R. Barry Farrell Award for Excellence in Teaching, and repeat elections to the Associated Student Government Faculty Honor Roll. As a recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Fellowship for Experienced Researchers, Wendy was a fellow at EUME at the Forum Transregionale Studien in Berlin during the summers 2016-2018 and 2021-2022. Previously, Wendy was a Fulbright Scholar in Spain, a Starr Foundation Fellow at the Center for Arabic Studies Abroad at the American University in Cairo, a Junior Peace Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace, and a postdoctoral Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government.
Wendy’s sixth book, provisionally titled The Home I Worked To Make: Voices from the New Syrian Diaspora, is forthcoming from Liveright Books in 2024. It is based on interviews that she has conducted with more than 500 displaced Syrians on five continents since 2012.
Books
Triadic Coercion: Israel’s Targeting of States That Host Nonstate Actors (with Boaz Atzili) Columbia University Press, 2018
We Crossed a Bridge and it Trembled: Voices from Syria (HarperCollins, 2017)
Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellencebridge
Violence, Nonviolence, and the Palestinian National Movement (Cambridge University Press, 2011)
2011 Foreign Policy Runner-up, Best Book on the Middle East; 2012 Choice Outstanding Academic Title
Occupied Voices: Stories of Everyday Life from the Second Intifada (Nation Books, 2003)
Washington Post Bestseller, Boston Globe Bestseller
Muzoon: A Syrian Refugee Speaks Out co-authored with Muzoon Almellehan (Knopf Books for Young Readers, 2023)
Select RECENT Publications
“Emotional Sensibility: Exploring the Methodological and Ethical Implications of Research Participants’ Emotions,” American Political Science Review, first published online, December 14, 2022.
“Putting Palestinian Agency First,” Introduction to the Special Issue: Recentering the Palestinian People in the Study of Politics, Middle East Law and Governance, Vol. 14, No. 3 (October 2022).
“How Homeland Experiences Shape Refugee Belonging: Rethinking Exile, Home, and Integration in the Syrian Case,” International Migration Review, Vol. 57, No. 1 (October 2022), pp. 160-186.
“Mobilization from scratch: Large-scale collective action without preexisting organization in the Syrian uprising,” Journal of Comparative Political Studies Vol. 54, No. 10 (September 2021), pp. 1786-1817
“Host state policy, socio-economic stratification, and Syrian refugees in Germany and Turkey,” Comparative Politics Vol. 52, No. 2 (January 2020), pp. 241-272.
“Syrian Views on Obama’s Red Line and the Case for Limited Strikes against Assad,” Ethics & International Affairs, Vol. 34, No. 2 (July 2020), pp. 189-200.
“Civil Action in the Syrian Conflict,” in Deborah Avant et. al, eds. Civil Action and Dynamics of Violence in Conflict (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), pp. 35-63.
“Moral Identity and Protest Cascades in Syria,” British Journal of Political Science, 48, no. 4 (October 2018), pp. 877-901.
“Becoming a Refugee: Reflections on Self-Understandings of Displacement from the Syrian Case,” Review of Middle East Studies Vol. 52, No. 2 (November 2018), pp. 299-309.
“Memory as a field site: interviewing displaced persons,” International Journal of Middle East Studies Vol. 49, No. 3 (August 2017), pp. 501-505.
“Narratives of Fear in Syria,” Perspectives on Politics 14, no. 1 (March 2016), pp. 21-37.
“Palestinians and the Arab Spring,” in Adam Roberts, Michael J. Willis, Rory McCarthy, and Timothy Garton Ash, eds., Civil Resistance in the Arab Spring: Triumphs and Disasters (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), pp. 248-269.
Courses taught
Poli Sci 350: Social Movements, undergraduate lecture course
Poli Sci 351: Middle East Politics, undergraduate lecture course
Poli Sci 395: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, undergraduate seminar
Poli Sci 390: Power and Resistance, undergraduate seminar
Poli Sci 454: Social Movements and Mobilization, graduate seminar
Poli Sci 486: Advanced Topics in Middle East Politics, graduate seminar
Pearlman, Wendy THE HOME I WORKED TO MAKE Liveright/Norton (NonFiction None) $28.99 7, 9 ISBN: 9781324092230
A collection of interviews with Syrian refugees about their conceptions of home.
When Pearlman, author of We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled, began interviewing Syrian refugees in 2011, she thought she was going to write about the Arab Spring. When the theme of home emerged from her conversations with more than 500 participants, she began to seek deeper truths. "Commentators have analyzed the Syrian war through lenses such as protest, violence, geopolitics, sectarianism, extremism, and refugee crisis," she writes. "Fewer have considered what Syrians' extraordinary experiences can teach us about something so commonplace that it touches every human life: home." Pearlman's inquiry leads to a set of stunningly diverse stories that paint a picture of not only the traumatic displacement of the Syrian diaspora, but also the profundity with which Syrians approach their exile from their country. In one story, a gay refugee defines home as a place where he can be himself. After a rocky start in Trogen, Germany, one refugee's insistence on being helpful to his new community resulted in a loving relationship with a German woman who insisted that he call her "Oma," the German word for grandmother. In Turkey, a devastating earthquake helped a Syrian Australian man realize the depth of care he could expect from his newfound Australian community. In another moving story, a doctor chronicles a life-changing experience in Khartoum, Sudan, that reconnected her with her faith. Pearlman weaves these tales together beautifully, artfully teasing out their commonalities, complexities, and contradictions. No matter how dark the content, the author effectively centers the voices of refugees, drawing unexpected and incisive conclusions from her rich data. Pearlman includes a detailed chronology that runs up to August 2023.
A stunningly curated text that "strikes at the core of what it means to exist as a person in the world."
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
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MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"Pearlman, Wendy: THE HOME I WORKED TO MAKE." Kirkus Reviews, 1 June 2024, p. NA. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A795673773/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=73756b85. Accessed 26 June 2024.
Muzoon: A Syrian Refugee Speaks Out. By Muzoon Almellehan and Wendy Pearlman. May 2023.288p. Knopf, $17.99 (9781984851987); lib. ed., $20.99 (9781984851994). Gr. 5-8.956.91.
In an inspiring memoir, Syrian refugee Almellehan tells of how, in 2013, at age 12, she escaped from Syria to Jordan with her family, due to the civil war, and became known as the "Malala of Syria" because of her efforts to promote education for youth, particularly girls. As her family left Syria, all she brought with her were her schoolbooks--her "most important things." Almellehan vividly describes her daily life and the conditions in the camps her family lived in (mice crawling over them while they slept) until they eventually emigrated to Newcastle, England. She recounts her often-frustrating efforts to be allowed to take the courses that she needed to apply for college. Although Almellehan's story invites comparisons to Malala Yousafzai's--and the two even met and became friends when Malala visited Muzoon's camp--Almellehan's journey and message is uniquely her own: "People shouldn't just learn about us," she says. "They should learn from us." A moving and gripping memoir. --Sharon Rawlins
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2023 American Library Association
http://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
Rawlins, Sharon. "Muzoon: A Syrian Refugee Speaks Out." Booklist, vol. 119, no. 16, 15 Apr. 2023, p. 40. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A747135470/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=d170161b. Accessed 26 June 2024.
Muzoon: A Syrian Refugee Speaks Out
Muzoon Almellehan, with Wendy Pearlman. Knopf, $17.99 (288p) ISBN 978-1-9848-5198-7
With Pearlman (We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled, for adults), debut author Almellehan documents events that led her family to leave Iztaa, their home in southwest Syria, while offering insight into "a kind of situation that could happen to anyone." Twelve years old "before the war began," Almellehan plays soccer with cousins, helps with harvesting olives from the family's trees, and arrends school. As Arab Spring protests occur in Tunisia in 2011, the news shows "people wanting better lives... realizing that they have the power to demand freedom." When the protests reach her hometown, "a burst of heavy machine-gun fire ripped through the air" as she and her brother sell fresh-picked almonds door-to-door, and further violence follows. In 2013, the family leaves Syria for a refugee camp in Jordan--but it takes nearly another three years before the family can emigrate to the U.K. Throughout, Almellehan's insistence on continuing her own education extends to her encouraging other children, especially girls; working with UNICEF and' Save the Children; and meeting Malala Yousafzai. Vivid descriptions prove immersive throughout this powerful experiential telling that's situated as both "my story" and "a window into many other stories." Ages 10-up. (May)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2023 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
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Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"Muzoon: A Syrian Refugee Speaks Out." Publishers Weekly, vol. 270, no. 15, 10 Apr. 2023, p. 64. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A747080106/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=46673316. Accessed 26 June 2024.