U.S. and Non-U.S. Scholars

Fulbright New Century Scholars Program
Overview • Previous NCS Programs • NCS Scholar List • NCS Brochure • 2002-2003

Rebecca Bryant

Postdoctoral Fellow
Cornell University
Society for the Humanities Oral Histories of Pre-Conflict Village Life in Cyprus
United States

Dr. Bryant is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Cornell University Society for the Humanities, where she is completing a book, Learning the Nation, which draws out theoretical implications of earlier research on education and nationalism in Cyprus. Her previous research of the past decade has examined colonialism, the state, education and nationalism in Cyprus, Greece, and Turkey. She received her Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Chicago in 1998, and her first book, The Cultures of Nationalism in Cyprus: Colonialism, Conflict, and After (forthcoming) was based on her dissertation research. That work is a comparative anthropology of the logics of nationalism in Cyprus, which argues that two conflicting styles of nationalist imagination led to the violent rending of the island in 1974 and have since sustained that division. Along with interests in education, ethnic conflict, the nation-state, and violence, Dr. Bryant also has research interests in citizenship practices, social memory, the construction of history, and "invented" traditions. Other works currently in progress examine such topics as political culture and folk music in Turkey.

Dr. Bryant taught anthropology for three years at the American University in Cairo and for one year under a Fulbright fellowship at Bogaziçi University in Istanbul. She has received fellowships and grants to support her work from the Social Science Research Council, the United States Institute of Peace, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Council of American Overseas Research Centers, and the National Academy of Education/Spencer Foundation, among others.

Selected Publications:

The Cultures of Nationalism in Cyprus: Colonialism, Conflict, and After. London, I.B. Tauris, 2003. (Forthcoming.)
"The Purity of Spirit and the Power of Blood: A Comparative Perspective on Nation, Gender and Kinship in Cyprus." The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 8:3, 2002.
"Justice or Respect? A Comparative Perspective on Nationalisms and Politics in Cyprus." Ethnic and Racial Studies 24:6, 2001.
"An Aesthetics of Self: Moral Remaking and Cypriot Education." Comparative Studies in Society and History 43:3, 2001.
"An Education in Honor: Patriotism and Rebellion in Greek Cypriot Schools." In Colotychos, Vantelis, ed. Cyprus and Its People: Nation, Identity, and Experience in an Unimaginable Community, 1955-1997. Boulder, Westview Press, 1998.

Oral Histories of Pre-Conflict Village Life in Cyprus

The project that I will conduct under an NCS fellowship aims comparatively to examine the contours of historical memory through oral narratives by both Greek and Turkish Cypriots of pre-1974 village life. Dominated and influenced by the irredentist nationalisms of Greece and Turkey, Cyprus of this century has experienced intercommunal conflict and mistrust that ultimately resulted in 1974 in a Greek coup d'etat, a Turkish military intervention, and the division of the island into two ethnically homogeneous parts. As a result of its rending, Cyprus represents a tragically important site for examining the nation and narrative, memory and personhood.

My goal is to collect oral histories of the lives of Turkish and Greek Cypriot villagers from two separate villages that had a mixed (Turkish and Greek) population before intercommunal conflict began. My aim in this project is to understand the shape of memory and what memory shapes-its narrative dimensions, its norms, and its logics. Rather than examining "monumental" history, my aim is to look at the home, the shop, and the village, at births and weddings and funerals, as the truly important sites and events around which difference is inscribed. I claim, moreover, that it is in the particularly intimate memories of home, childhood, family, and friends that one can see most clearly the manner in which community narratives circumscribe and limit personal histories. The comparison of Greek and Turkish narratives of the same places and events, I contend, can reveal how the logic, meaning, and processes of memory and narrative have differed in the two communities, and how these differences may continue to impede peace between them.

Fully comparative work on ethnic conflict is essential to understanding the dynamics of conflict and possibilities for peace. My previous work directly aimed at understanding the role of differing logics in the conflict that rent Cyprus, and the role of education in producing that conflict. The current project contributes to NCS objectives in that it is an examination of a conflict in abeyance, or a conflict always at the point of eruption. This set of circumstances allows us to ask what dynamics may sustain conflict (or the possibility of conflict) even through a prolonged period of enforced peacekeeping and lack of contact with the other.

One important aim of my project is to understand to what extent and in what ways conflict is incorporated into a narrative of self. In Cyprus, personal memories and experiences are often invoked to explain both pessimism and optimism about possible futures for the island. I believe that a fuller understanding of the dynamics that produce these differing narratives of self may provide us with a way of evaluating the possibilities for a multicultural Cyprus-or the possibilities for multiculturalism in any post-conflict society-and ways to enhance those possibilities. These questions are especially critical at this moment, when there are ongoing talks aimed at reunifying the island and integrating the entirety of it into the European Union.