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PHILIP HITTI, BRAZIL, AND THE DIASPORIC HISTORIES OF AREA STUDIES

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2014

Abstract

This article rethinks area studies through the diasporic histories of influential graduates of the Syrian Protestant College. My focus is on Philip Hitti and his ties with fellow alumni who migrated to the Brazilian city of São Paulo. Examining his first visit to Brazil in 1925, letter exchanges through the 1940s, and a second trip in 1951, I ask how Hitti and São Paulo-based alumni sought to establish an Arab studies program in Brazil. In borrowing a template for studying the Middle East, Hitti and colleagues imbued it with a widespread sentiment that Arab and Muslim legacies of the Iberian peninsula had shaped Portugal, and thus Brazil's historical and linguistic formation. They relocated a model of area studies but refitted its content. In revealing how the institution of area studies moved across and merged with varied sociocultural settings, these diasporic histories provincialize the U.S. model for knowing the Middle East.

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Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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References

NOTES

Author's note: This article is based on research funded by the Immigration History Research Center (IHRC) of the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis and by DePaul University in Chicago. For support to study the Philip Hitti collection, I thank everyone at the IHRC, especially Donna Gabaccia, Elizabeth Haven Hawley, and Daniel Necas. Previous versions of this article were presented at the Brazilian Studies Association meeting at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University, and the Department and Program of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. For thought-provoking suggestions at these and other venues, I thank Theresa Alfaro-Velcamp, Andrew Arsan, Jerry Dávila, Sarah Gualtieri, Waïl Hassan, Simon Jackson, Akram Khater, Lorenzo Macagno, Eugene Nassar, Chernoh Sesay Jr., and Oswaldo Truzzi. I express my personal gratitude to Josephine El Karkafi for translation assistance from Arabic to English. Most important, I am indebted to IJMES editor Beth Baron, associate editor Sara Pursley, and four anonymous reviewers whose critical engagements made this a better piece. All shortcomings are my own.

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32 Khuri-Makdisi, The Eastern Mediterranean.

33 “Letter of Howard Bliss,” 6 July 1913, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 4, Folder 6.

34 Starkey, “A Talk with Philip Hitti,” 25. See also Philip K. Hitti, “From Lebanon to Princeton,” 46–47, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 21, Folder 2.

35 Hitti published a booklet in Arabic on this figure a year later; see Hitti, Philip, Antuniyus al-Bishʿalani: Awwal Muhajir Suri ila al-ʿAlam al-Jadid (New York: Syrian American Press, 1916)Google Scholar.

36 “Letters to the Editor: Dr. Hitti Reveals the Bishalany Story,” Lebanese American Journal, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 1, Folder 1.

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39 Duʾun (Taufik Duoun), Taufiq Fadlallah, Min Wahy al-Sabʿin 1883–1953: Fi al-Silah bayna al-Mughtaribun wa-l-Muqimun (Beirut: Mansurat Matabi Sadir, 1953)Google Scholar.

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47 Philip K. Hitti, “The Syrians as Immigrants,” The Syrian Review, December 1917, pp. 5–9, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 18, Folder 1. This statement was repeated in the opening paragraph of Hitti's first book, The Syrians in America (New York: George H. Doran, 1924).

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53 Ibid., 253; Kurban, “Nota Biográfica,” 61.

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55 Letter from Philip Hitti to wife Mary, 18 July 1925, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 1, Folder 4.

56 Letters from Philip Hitti to wife Mary, 20 July 1925, 25 July 1925, 29 July 1925, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 1, Folder 4, IHRC; Letter from Philip Hitti to wife Mary, 24 July 1925, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 2, Folder 2; Duoun, “Al-duktūr Filīb Hiti.”

57 Letters from Philip Hitti to wife Mary, 2 August 1925, 11 August 1925, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 1, Folder 4; Rashid J. Abu-Kessem, “A Report on Dr. Hitti's Visit to Brazil,” 28 August 1925, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 29, Folder 13. Abu-Kessm graduated from AUB in 1909, and after spending some time in New York, he migrated to Brazil, where he served as secretary of the AUB alumni association in the 1920s.

58 Letters from Philip Hitti to wife Mary, 25 July 1925.

59 Letter from Near East Colleges Assistant Director to Mary Hitti, quoting Philip Hitti's telegram, 10 August 1925, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 2, Folder 2. This number and occasion were repeated in “Alumni Fund Progresses: Dr. Hitti Visits South America,” News Letter of Near East Colleges, September 1925, 1, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 30, Folder 10; as well as Rashid J. Abu-Kessem, “A Report on Dr. Hitti's Visit to Brazil,” 28 August 1925, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 29, Folder 13, p. 10.

60 Jamil Safady, “Entrevista com o Dr. Said Abu-Jamra,” A Pátria, 25 January 1945, 1–2, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 29, Folder 10.

61 Rashid J. Abu-Kessem, “A Report on Dr. Hitti's Visit to Brazil,” 28 August 1925, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 29, Folder 13, p. 5.

62 Some twenty years later, Duoun and the Safady brothers affirmed that during this first trip to Brazil, Hitti encouraged alumni to examine the “viability” of an advanced Arabic course in Brazil. Jamil Safady, “Associacão da Literatura Árabe-Brasileira,” A Pátria, 5 May 1945, 1, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 29, Folder 9; Duoun, A emigração sirio-libanesa, 279; Safady, Cenas e Cenários, 204.

63 Isaac Marcosson, “Brazil in Evolution,” The Saturday Evening Post, 19 September 1925.

64 Phillip Hitti, “Brazil: A True Melting Pot,” Letter to the Editor, New York Times, 25 October 1925.

65 Letter to Philip Hitti from Brazilian Ambassador, S. Gurgel Amaral, 28 October 1925, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 5, Folder 2; “Herdeiros afortunados das tradições latinas,” O Paíz, 19 December 1925, 1. Duoun later reiterated that Hitti's defense of Brazil was praised by Brazilian diplomats in the United States and was also republished in Brazilian newspapers. See Duoun, A emigração sirio-libanesa, 252–53.

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71 Ibid. Unlike most conventional understandings of area studies that locate its origins in World War II and U.S. expansion during the Cold War, Mitchell suggests that Middle East area studies in the United States first emerged during the interwar period. See Mitchell, “The Middle East.”

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79 Lockman, Contending Visions of the Middle East.

80 Philip Hitti, “Os estudos árabes em o novo mundo,” A Pátria, 28 March 1945, 1–2, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 29, Folder 10.

81 Ibid. The original version, published in Arabic, was translated into Portuguese and reprinted in Jamil Safady, “Resposta da Liga Andaluza de Letras ao manifesto do Dr. Philip K. Hitti na criação da Cadeira de Árabe na Universidade de São Paulo,” A Pátria, 14 April 1945, 1–2, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 29, Folder 10.

82 Jamil Safady, “Biografia do Dr. Philip K. Hitti,” A Patria, 13 July 1944, 1, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 30, Folder 3; Philip Hitti, “As Contribuições dos Árabes para a ciência,” A Patria, 12 January, 1945, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 29, Folder 10; Philip Hitti, “A América e a Herança Árabe: Nosso Legado Cultural do Leste Árabe,” A Pátria, 30 April 1945, 27, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 29, Folder 10; Philip Hitti, “Os Estados Unidos da America e os Povos Árabes,” A Pátria, 14 May 1946, 16, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 29, Folder 21; Philip Hitti, “A Síria, o Líbano e os Estados Unidos,” A Pátria, 9 July 1946, 1; Philip Hitti, “As origens do nacionalismo no mundo árabe,” 30 June 1947, A Pátria, 1–2; Philip Hitti, “As origens do nacionalismo no mundo árabe,” 31 Maio 1947, Correio do Oriente, 1–2; Philip Hitti, “As origens do nacionalismo no mundo árabe,” 1 January 1948, Folha do NortePágina Libanesa, 10, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 29, Folder 21.

83 Jamil Safady, “Resposta da Liga Andaluza de Letras.”

84 Jamil Safady, “A idéia dos estudos árabes no Brasil,” A Pátria, 1945, 1, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 30, Folder 3.

85 Jamil Safady, “Associacão da Literatura Árabe-Brasileira: Resposta do Dr. Said Abu-Jamra, sob o Pseudônimo de ‘Arabí,’” A Pátria, 5 May 1945, 1, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 29, Folder 9; Duoun, “Al-duktūr Filīb Hiti”; Duoun, A emigração sírio-libanesa, 279.

86 “Carta do Dr. Philip K. Hitti ao Dr. Professor Jamil Safady,” A Pátria, 13 July 1944, 1, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 30, Folder 2.

87 Sawaya, Paulo, Esboço histórico da Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciência e Letras da Universidade de São Paulo, 1934–1969 (São Paulo: FFLCH, 1979)Google Scholar; de Lourdes de Albuquerque Fávero, Maria, “A Universidade no Brasil: das origens à Reforma Universitária de 1968,” Educar 28 (2006): 1736Google Scholar.

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92 Francisco da Silveira Bueno, “Influências orientais na língua portuguesa,” O Estado de S. Paulo, 11 March 1943, 4.

93 Jamil Safady, “Instalação do Centro Brasileiro de Cultura Árabe,” A Pátria, 10 October 1944, 1, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 29, Folder 10.

94 “Instalação oficial da cadeira de árabe, a primeira do Brasil,” A Pátria, 15 August 1944, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 29, Folder 10; Duoun, A emigração sirio-libanesa, 280; Calil, “O livro e seu autor,” 659–60.

95 “A criação do curso de árabe da nossa universidade,” A Pátria, 15 August 1944, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 29, Folder 10.

96 Calil, “O livro e seu autor,” 659.

97 Letter to Philip Hitti from Wadih Safady, 28 August 1944, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 29, Folder 10; Letter to Philip Hitti from Wadih Safady, 22 September 1944, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 29, Folder 10; Letter to Philip Hitti from Wadih Safady, 12 May 1945, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 6, Folder 21. See also Letter to Jamil Safady from Philip Hitti, 21 August 1945.

98 Letter to Philip Hitti from Wadih Safady, 22 September 1944, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 29, Folder 10.

99 Letter to Philip Hitti from Wadih Safady, 12 May 1945, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 6, Folder 24.

100 Safady, “Entrevista com o Dr. Said Abu-Jamra.”

101 Jamil Safady, “Associacão da Literatura Árabe-Brasileira: Resposta do Dr. Said Abu-Jamra.”

102 Jamil Safady, “Resposta da Liga Andaluza de Letras.”

103 Letter to Philip Hitti from Wadih Safady, 5 February 1946, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 9, Folder 21.

104 Motoyama, Shozo, “A Construção da Universidade, 1930–1969,” in USP, 70 Anos: Imagens de uma história vivida (São Paulo: Edusp, 2006), 134Google Scholar.

105 Eurípedes Simões de Paula, “Apresentação,” in Jamil Safady, Panorama da Imigração Árabe, vii-viii; Lacaz, Médicos sírios e libaneses do passado, 91; Motoyama, Shozo, “Lista de Diretores,” in USP, 70 Anos: Imagens de uma história vivida (São Paulo: Edusp, 2006), 678Google Scholar.

106 Theodoro, Janice, “Eurípedes Simões de Paula (1910–1977),” Revista de História 160 (2009): 4143Google Scholar.

107 Hitti's visit received ample coverage, not only in A Pátria but also in mainstream media. “Constituiu notável acontecimento cultural, a visita do professor Philip K. Hitti a São Paulo,” A Pátria, 13 October 1951, 1, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 30; “Contribuição filosofíca árabe à cultura ocidental,” A Gazeta, 14 August 1951, A Pátria, 13 October 1951, 1, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 29, Folder 7; “Organizações árabes e judaicas nos EE. Unidos contra os sionistas,” Jornal de Notícias, 4 August 1951, 1, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 30; “O Prof. Philip K. Hitti em S. Paulo,” Diario Comércio e Indústria, 2 September 1951, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 30; “Encontra-se em São Paulo um orientalista norte-americano,” Folha da Manhã, 18 August 1951, 1, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 30.

108 de Paula, Eurípedes Simões, “Resumo das conferências proferidas pelo prof. Philip K. Hitti na Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras da Universidade de São Paulo,” Revista de História 3 (1952): 248–56Google Scholar. Excerpts of Eurípedes Simões de Paula's August 1951 speech are cited by Safady, Cenas e Cenários, 207.

109 Calil, “O livro e seu autor,” 659.

110 de Paula, Eurípedes Simões, Marrocos e suas relações com a Ibéria na antiguidade (São Paulo: FFLCH, 1946), 7Google Scholar.

111 Freyre, Casa grande e senzala, 12–3, 214–16, 223–25. It must be noted here that the prominence Freyre attributed to the Moors in the Portuguese colonization of Brazil necessarily mythologized the violent and unequal relations between lighter-skinned men who enslaved darker-skinned women. Freyre argued that much of the “mixing” between Portuguese (male) masters and enslaved (female) Africans or Afro-Brazilians was due to the Portuguese men's coexistence with Moorish women in Islamic Iberia for centuries. The point is that race, gender, and sexuality are constitutive elements of area studies, wherever such models emerge. For two interesting discussions of the present-day politics of Moorishness in Brazil, see Amar, Paul, The Security Archipelago: Human-Security States, Sexuality Politics, and the End of Neoliberalism (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Aidi, Hisham, Rebel Music: Race, Empire, and the New Muslim Youth Culture (New York: Pantheon, 2014)Google Scholar.

112 Freyre, Gilberto, Um brasileiro em terras portuguesas (Rio de Janeiro: J. Olympio, 1953), 138–39Google Scholar.

113 Dávila, Jerry, Hotel Trópico: Brazil and the Challenge of African Decolonization (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2010), 14CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dávila, Jerry, “Entre dois mundos: Gilberto Freyre, a ONU e o apartheid sul-africano,” História Social 19 (2010): 144–45Google Scholar.

114 “Professor Philip K. Hitti: Homenageado na Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras da USP,” A Pátria, 6 November 1951, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 29, Folder 4. Shorter excerpts of José Resstel's speech are cited by Safady, Cenas e Cenários, 207–208.

115 Ibid.

116 These talks were summarized by Eurípedes Simões de Paula, in “Resumo das conferências,” 248–56. Similar Portuguese and Arabic summaries were also published in a booklet, “Resumo das conferencias do Prof. Dr. Philip K. Hitti,” Universidade de São Paulo and Editora Comercial Safady, in Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 24, Folder 22.

117 Harvey, Leonard Patrick, Muslims in Spain, 1500–1614 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

118 Hitti, Philip, Os árabes, trans. Eduardo, Otávio da Costa (São Paulo: Companhia Editora Nacional, 1948)Google Scholar. For letters concerning translation and copyrights of Os árabes from 1945 to 1952, see Philip Hitti Papers, IHRC 894, Box 13, Folder, as well as Box 14, Folder 20.

119 Just two years earlier, Sawaya represented USP in the 200th-year anniversary of Princeton University. de Souza Campos, Ernesto, História da Universidade de São Paulo (São Paulo: Edusp, 2004), 132Google Scholar.

120 Kaphan, Elisabeth Maria Sawaya, “Paulo Sawaya (1903–2003),” Jornal da USP 18 (2003)Google Scholar.

121 Ibid.

122 Excerpts of Paulo Sawaya's August 1951 speech are cited by Safady, Cenas e Cenários, 209.

123 “The AUB Alumni World,” Middle East Forum 28 (1953): 36.

124 “Brasil-República Árabe Unida: Acôrdo Cultural,” 17 May 1960, published in the “Diário Oficial” on 22 January 1965. The accord was initiated in the lead-up to the Brazilian president's visit with ʿAbd al-Nasir in 1961. For Quadros's view of ʿAbd al-Nasir, see Skidmore, Thomas, Politics in Brazil, 1930–64: An Experiment in Democracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), 199Google Scholar. Brazilian president Quadros actually had a portrait of ʿAbd al-Nasir in his office (personal communication, Jerry Dávila).

125 Simões de Paula, “Apresentação,” vii-viii; Safady, Cenas e Cenários, 210; Theodoro, “Eurípedes Simões de Paula,” 41.

126 Rodrigo Martins, “Alcorão desvelado: Professor de árabe dedica duas décadas de esforço para criar a primeira versão oficial do livro sagrado em português,” Carta Capital, 12 July 2006, 54–55. Nasr spent a good part of his career working on the Portuguese translation of the Qurʾan, approved by the Islamic League of Mecca in 2005.

127 The program is today part of USP's “Departmento de Letras Orientais.” For more information, see: http://www.letrasorientais.fflch.usp.br/arabe (accessed 4 April 2014).

128 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 4, 6.

129 In Brazil, see the “Núcleo de Estudos Medio-Orientais” coordinated by Professor Paulo Gabriel Hilu da Rocha Pinto at the Universidade Federal Fluminense in Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, https://pt-br.facebook.com/neomuff; and the Biblioteca América do Sul-Países Árabes directed by Professor Paulo Elias Farah in São Paulo, http://www.bibliaspa.com.br. In Argentina, see the Programa de Estudios sobre Medio Oriente coordinated by Professor Juan José Vagni at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, http://www.cea2.unc.edu.ar/africa-orientemedio/mediooriente.php; and the Centro de Estudios del Medio Oriente Contemporáneo run by Professor Paulo Botta. In Chile, see the Centro de Estúdios Árabes of Professor Eugenio Chahuan at the Universidad de Chile, http://www.estudiosarabes.uchile.cl/home/home.htm. In Mexico, there is the Centro de Estudios de Asia y África at El Colégio de México in the federal capital, http://ceaa.colmex.mx/index.php/historia. Although the centers in Chile and Mexico were founded in the 1960s, the others began in the 2000s (all links accessed 4 April 2014).

130 In this regard, Mitchell writes that “the future of area studies lies in their ability to disturb the disciplinary claim to universality and the particular place this assigns to areas.” See Mitchell, “The Middle East,” 98.