People

John Perry

Assistant Professor of Instruction

Contact Information and CV

Office: SOC 215
Email: jperry10@usf.edu
Curriculum Vitae

Education

Ph.D., University of Kentucky, 2021

Teaching

My classes focus on the history of the United States, the history of the United States in the world, the history of the United States in the Middle East, and Cold War history.  I offer several courses on these subjects, including, “U.S. history II,” “War and Society: the Cold War in the Third World,” and “U.S. Foreign Relations.”  I have also taught “United States in the Middle East, 1945 – Present” “America’s Secret Wars,” “U.S. Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,” “War and Society: World War I and II,” “U.S. History to 1877,” “History of Western Civilization I,” and History of Western Civilization II.”  Furthermore, I have instructed political science courses, including, “U.S. National Government,” “U.S. State and Local Government,” and the sociology course, “Contemporary Social Problems.”  In my classes, I emphasize local, non-state actors from the Developing World and minority populations within the United States.  I focus on historical critical thought and developing students’ ability to craft academic arguments.  I often utilize cross-disciplinary models.  In my classes, issues and developments are examined not only historically but also through lenses from the fields of political science, sociology, anthropology, and/or international relations.

Research

My research investigates the U.S. government’s relationship with non-state actors of the Middle East.  In my dissertation, “Statelessness and Contested Sovereignty in the Middle East: the United States, Palestinian Refugees, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Syrian Ethnic Minorities, 1945 – 1958,” I explored how local, non-state groups of the region transformed the early Cold War in the Middle East.  I argued that the actions of actors such as Palestinian refugees, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Syria’s Armenian and Kurdish populations often defined, and redefined, the strategies, policies, alliances, aims, and objectives of the U.S. government and the regional governments of the Middle East.  Far from helpless victims, I argued that these groups were primary agents of change during the early Cold War.  Moreover, such actors demonstrate the significance of the Middle East’s transition from empire to nation-state.  As minority nationalists, or the periphery of the periphery, these groups lost their homelands when the nation-state system was imposed on the region.  Their stories highlight an important dimension to the history of the nation-state in the Middle East.  In completing my dissertation, I conducted research in Lebanon, at the American University of Beirut, and in Israel, at the Moshe Dayan Center of Tel Aviv University.  In both countries, I investigated Arabic newspapers, journals, periodicals, and newsletters.  I am currently revising my dissertation for publication as a monograph.