Weldon C. Matthews

Title: Associate Professor
Office: 410B Varner Hall
Phone: (248) 370-3525
Fax: (248) 370-3528
Email: [email protected]

Education:
Ph.D., University of Chicago

Major Fields:
Modern Middle East, Nationalism

Biography:
Weldon C. (Don) Matthews received his Ph.D. from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago in 1998. He specializes in the history of the Middle East, Arab nationalism, and U.S. relations with the Middle East. Since coming to Oakland University in 2002, his courses have included “The Arab-Israeli Conflict,” “The Modern Middle East,” “The Cold War in the Middle East,” and “The Middle East and the United States.” He is the author of Confronting an Empire, Constructing a Nation: Arab Nationalists and Popular Politics in Mandate Palestine (I. B. Tauris, 2006), which examines the development of the Palestinian Arab national movement in the 1920s and 1930s. His articles and book reviews have appeared in the International Journal of Middle East Studies, the Journal of Islamic Studies, the Encyclopedia of the Arab Israeli Conflict, and other publications. His current book project is tentatively titled Modernities in Contention: The United States and Revolutionary Iraq, 1958–1968. Professor Matthews and his wife, Marshia, live in Warren and enjoy mountain biking in the state parks, hearing live jazz, and other pleasures that the Detroit area offers.

Publications:

Book

Confronting an Empire, Constructing a Nation: Arab Nationalists and Popular Politics in Mandate Palestine (London and New York: I.B. Tauris, 2006)

Articles and Chapters

"The Kennedy Administration and Arms Transfers to Ba'thist Iraq," Diplomatic History 43:3 (June 2019): 469-92.

"The Kennedy Administration, the International Federation of Petroleum Workers, and Iraqi Labor under the Ba'thist Regime," Journal of Cold War Studies 17:1 (Winter 2015): 97-128.

"How Does a Gangster Regime End?  The Uprising in Syria," Oakland Journal 23 (Fall 2012): 5-17.

"The Kennedy Administration, Counterinsurgency, and Iraq's First Ba'thist Regime," International Journal of Middle East Studies 43 (2011): 635-53.

"The Long View on the Arab Spring," Passport: Newsletter of the Society for the History of American Foreign Relations (September 2011).

“The Consequences of the 1967 War for the Palestinians,” in Encyclopedia of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, ed. Cheryl Rubenberg (Boulder, Col.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2010).

“Hot Summer in the Galilee: Reflections on the Israeli-Hizbollah Conflict of 2006,” The Oakland Journal 12 (Winter 2007): 7–19.

“The Middle East: Secular Nationalism,” in The Encyclopedia of Western Colonialism Since 1450, ed. Thomas Benjamin (Macmillan Reference, 2006).

“Two Ottoman Officials on Gender and Class in Nablus, 1916,” in The Modern Middle East: A Sourcebook, ed. Camron Amin, Benjamin Fortna, and Elizabeth Frierson (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). Annotated translation with an introduction.

“Pan-Islam or Arab Nationalism? The Meaning of the 1931 Jerusalem Islamic Conference Reconsidered,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 35 (February 2003): 1-22.

“The Rise and Demise of the Left in West Bank Politics: The Case of the Palestine National Front,” Arab Studies Quarterly 20 (Fall 1998): 13-31.