Youth Politics and Populism in Interwar Lebanon

with Dylan Baun

hosted by Susanna Ferguson

| Starting with the nationalist and anticolonial movements of the early 20th century, youth have played an important role in political life in the modern Middle East. But despite their importance, youth often go unrecognized as a category of analysis. In this episode, we speak with historian Dylan Baun about his work on youth politics in interwar Lebanon, exploring the rituals and political practices of groups like Kata'ib (Phalange) and the Progressive Socialist Party which would become key actors in the fighting of 1958 and later on, in the Lebanese Civil War of 1975-1990. We learn how young people forged political community both through and beyond sectarian violence, a phenomenon that Dr. Baun argues became strongly associated with rebellious youth.

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Starting with the nationalist and anticolonial movements of the early 20th century, youth have played an important role in political life in the modern Middle East. But despite their importance, youth often go unrecognized as a category of analysis. In this episode, we speak with historian Dylan Baun about his work on youth politics in interwar Lebanon, exploring the rituals and political practices of groups like Kata'ib (Phalange) and the Progressive Socialist Party which would become key actors in the fighting of 1958 and later on, in the Lebanese Civil War of 1975-1990. We learn how young people forged political community both through and beyond sectarian violence, a phenomenon that Dr. Baun argues became strongly associated with rebellious youth.

Contributor Bios

Dylan Baun is an Assistant Professor of Modern Middle East and Islamic World History at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Baun received his Ph.D. in Middle Eastern and North African Studies (History, Culture and Society) from the University of Arizona. He is the author of numerous articles on the history of youth and young people in the modern Middle East, in journals including Arab Studies Journal and International Journal for the History of Sport.

Susanna Ferguson is Assistant Professor of Middle East Studies at Smith College. She writes and teaches on the history of gender, sexuality, and political thought in the modern Arab world.

Credits

Episode No. 497
Release Date: 11 March 2021
Recording Location: Nashville, TN / Northampton, MA
Sound production by Susanna Ferguson
Music: Zé Trigueiros
Special thanks to Sam Dolbee
Images and bibliography courtesy of Dylan Baun

Further Listening

	Dylan Baun, Heidi Morrison, Murat Yildiz	402 2/19/19	Histories of Childhood and Youth in the Middle East
	Peter Wien	285 12/2/16	Nationalism, Communism, and Fascism in the Modern Middle East
	Pascale Ghazaleh	449 2/11/20	The Language of Protest in 19th Century Egypt
	Sam Dolbee	059 7/7/12	AUB and 1930s Rural Development
	Hilary Falb Kalisman	231 3/15/16	AUB and the British Mandates

Images

Members and supporters of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party in the late 1940s. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Select Bibliography

Irene Gendzier, Notes From the Minefield (Columbia University Press, 1997).

A Revolutionary Year: The Middle East in 1958, ed. Roger Louis and Roger Owen (IB Tauris, 2002).

The Middle East in 1958: Reimagining a Revolutionary Year, ed. Jeffery Karam (Bloomsbury, 2020).

Orit Bashkin, The Other Iraq: Pluralism and Culture in Hashemite Iraq (Stanford University Press, 2009).

James Gelvin, Divided Loyalties: Nationalism and Mass Politics in Syria at the Close of Empire (University of California Press, 1998).

Elizabeth Thompson, Colonial Citizens: Republican Rights, Paternal Privilege and Gender in French Syria and Lebanon (Columbia University Press, 2000).