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Michael Gunter
Michael M. Gunter is a professor of political science at Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, Tennessee and considered an authority on the Kurds in Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran. Brendan O’Leary referred to Gunter as, "The doyen of Kurdish political studies in the United States,” while Martin van Bruinessen wrote that Gunter is "probably the most prolific of today’s scholars of Kurdish politics.” Gunter has written or edited more than 15 books on the Kurdish struggle and 2 more criticized for promoting Armenian genocide denial. Two of those books on the Kurds were among the first analyses in English in modern times of the Kurdish unrest in the Middle East. In writing his analyses, Gunter has worked directly with top Kurdish and other Middle Eastern political leaders. He received the Kurdish Human Rights Watch's “Service to the Kurds Award” in 1998. "Gunter’s analyses and writings sometimes strike readers as controversial, but he says his views are oft ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kurdish Studies
Kurdology or Kurdish studies is an academic discipline centered on the study of Kurds and consists of several disciplines such as culture, history and linguistics. Kurdish studies traces its institutional history to 1916, when in St. Petersburg in the late Russian Empire, during World War I, Kurdish was first taught as a university course by Joseph Orbeli. Term The modern historian Sacha Alsancakli explains that the term "kurdology" started gaining acceptance after 1934 and the first pan-Soviet Kurdological congress held in Yerevan, Armenian SSR, Soviet Union. Early Kurdology Throughout the 17th and the 18th centuries, most works on the Kurds attempted to ascertain the origins of the Kurdish people and their language. Different theories existed including the beliefs that Kurdish was closely related to Turkic languages, that it was a rude and uneducated Persian dialect or that Kurds were originally Chaldeans. Early Kurdology is characterized by the lack of an institutionalized app ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |