Essays on Kurds

Amir Hassanpour (1943–2017) is a renowned Marxist scholar of Kurdish Studies. He received his PhD in Communication Studies, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. He taught at the universities of Windsor and Concordia before joining the Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, University of Toronto, Canada. He was a prolific author, a popular teacher, and a Marxist revolutionary thinker who left us a rich body of knowledge to rethink and rebuild theories of culture and language rights, nationalism and class struggle, and the politics of resistance movements in the Middle East.

List of Illustrations – List of Tables – Shahrzad Mojab: Foreword: The Renewal of Kurdish Studies – Acknowledgments – Orality and Nationalism – The Absence of Peasant Revolts in the Middle East: A Historiographic Myth – The Politics of A-political Linguistics: Linguists and Linguicide – The Indivisibility of the Nation and Its Linguistic Divisions – The Making of Kurdish Identity: Pre–twentieth-century Historical and Literary Sources – Language Rights in the Emerging World Linguistic Order: The State, The Market, and Communication Technologies – Diaspora, Homeland, and Communication Technologies – Satellite Footprints as National Border: MED-TV and the Extraterritoriality of State Sovereignty – Nation and Nationalism – The (Re)production of Patriarchy in the Kurdish Language – "The Morning of Freedom Rose Up": Kurdish Popular Song and the Exigencies of Cultural Survival – Wanderings in "Adalar Sahilinde" – References – Index.

"Amir Hassanpour was a prominent multilingual, multidisciplinary, philosophical, analytical, and deeply humane Kurdish researcher, writer, and activist. These articles about human rights (also linguistic human rights and linguicide), justice, equality, freedom, and democracy are supremely relevant not only for all interested in the Kurds and the Kurdish languages, but for all oppressed peoples in the world—and for the apolitical researchers whom he critiqued."—Tove Skutnabb-Kangas, Associate Professor (retired), Åbo Akademi University and Robert Phillipson, Professor Emeritus, Department of Management, Society and Communication, Cophenhagen Business School

"This volume reaffirms that Amir Hassanpour was a pioneer in critically investigating and writing about Kurdish media culture, historiography, sociolinguistics, and nationalism. Grounded in wide-ranging and rich literature, the chapters are informed by theoretical and methodological lenses such as Marxism, feminism, and critical cultural studies. The author problematizes and provides fresh understanding of the complexity of a number of socio-cultural and historical issues, makes original contributions to theorizing them, and presents further research directions. This collection is a must-read for students and scholars of Middle Eastern studies in general and Kurdish studies in particular."—Jaffer Sheyholislami, Associate Professor, School of Linguistics and Language Studies, Carleton University