Michael Gunter
{{Short description|American academic}}
{{for|the American football player|Mike Gunter}}
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}}Michael M. Gunter is a professor of political science at Tennessee Technological University{{Cite web|title=Michael Gunter|url=https://www.tntech.edu/stories/faculty/michael-gunter.php|access-date=2021-06-11|website=www.tntech.edu}} 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,”{{Cite journal|last=O’Leary|first=Brendan|date=2017-12-15|title=The Kurds, the Four Wolves, and the Great Powers|url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/695343|journal=The Journal of Politics|volume=80|issue=1|pages=353–366|doi=10.1086/695343|s2cid=204416748 |issn=0022-3816}} while Martin van Bruinessen wrote that Gunter is "probably the most prolific of today’s scholars of Kurdish politics.”{{Cite web|date=2020-05-25|title=Kurdish Studies Vol 8, No 1 (2020) Special Issue on Alevis|url=https://kurdishstudies.net/product/alevis2020/|access-date=2021-06-11|website=Kurdish Studies|language=en-US|archive-date=2021-11-09|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211109160508/https://kurdishstudies.net/product/alevis2020/|url-status=dead}} 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.{{Cite web|title=TTU professor publishes history of Kurdish people|url=https://www.tntech.edu/news/releases/ttu-professor-publishes-history-of-kurdish-people.php|access-date=2021-06-11|website=www.tntech.edu}} "Gunter’s analyses and writings sometimes strike readers as controversial, but he says his views are often based on information that hasn't yet been made public."{{Cite web|date=2008-03-11|title=Tech Times {{!}} Gunter ranking|url=http://www.tntech.edu/techtimes/2004/04_08/08_27/gunter.html|access-date=2021-06-11|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080311004853/http://www.tntech.edu/techtimes/2004/04_08/08_27/gunter.html |archive-date=2008-03-11 }} He has served as the secretary-general of the EU Turkey Civic Commission (EUTCC), an NGO in Brussels that lobbies the EU parliament on behalf of the Kurds since 2009. He is a member of the Board of Advisory Editors of The Middle East Journal, The Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, and The International Journal of Turkish Studies, among others.
Education
Gunter earned his B.A. in American history in 1964 from Columbia University,{{Cite web |title=Columbia College Today |url=https://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/feb01/feb01_bookshelf2.html |access-date=2022-06-10 |website=www.college.columbia.edu}} his M.I.A. from Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs in 1966, and his Ph.D. in international relations from Kent State University in 1972.{{cite web|title=Gunter Named Outstanding Teacher|url=http://www.college.columbia.edu/cct_archive/sep00/sep00_profile_gunter.html|publisher=www.college.columbia.edu|accessdate=2008-07-09}}{{cite web|url=http://www.tntech.edu/sociology/faculty/gunter.html |title=Dr. Michael M. Gunter |accessdate=2008-07-09 |publisher=www.tntech.edu |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20080409120525/http://www.tntech.edu/sociology/faculty/gunter.html |archivedate=2008-04-09 |url-status=dead }}
Teaching experience
Gunter taught at Kent State from 1967 to 1971. Since 1972, Gunter has taught political science at Tennessee Tech University. He was an assistant professor from 1972 to 1976, an associate professor from 1976 to 1981, and a professor since 1981. He won the university's Caplenor Faculty Research Award in 1995–1996 and the Outstanding Teaching Award in 1999–2000. He is only the second faculty member in Tennessee Tech's history to win both of these awards.
He was also a Senior Fulbright-Hays Lecturer in international relations at Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey from 1978 to 1979. He was an instructor of ESL and American Culture at Shanghai Xuhui Education College in Shanghai, China during the summer of 2001. He was an adjunct professor for Fisk University in the fall of 2002. He was a visiting professor for The International University in Vienna, Austria during the summers of 2002 and 2003, where he won the Distinguished Visiting Professor Award in 2003. He also taught courses on Kurdish and Middle Eastern politics, among others, for the U.S. Government Areas Studies Program and U.S. Department of State Foreign Service Institute in Washington, D.C. Since 2018, he has been a “Distinguished Professor of the Centre for Turkish Studies of Shaanxi Normal University” in Xi’an China.
Recent publications
- The Kurds in the Middle East: Enduring Problems and New Dynamics, co-ed., 2020{{Cite book|url=https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781793613585/The-Kurds-in-the-Middle-East-Enduring-Problems-and-New-Dynamics|title=The Kurds in the Middle East: Enduring Problems and New Dynamics|language=en-us}}
- Kurdish Autonomy and U.S. Foreign Policy, co-ed., 2020{{Cite book|date=2019-09-20|title=Kurdish Autonomy and U.S. Foreign Policy|url=https://www.peterlang.com/view/title/70649|access-date=2021-06-11|website=www.peterlang.com|language=en}}
- The Kurds: A Divided Nation in Search of a State, 3rd ed., 2019{{Cite web|title=The Kurds: A Divided Nation in Search of a State (2019 Edition) — Markus Wiener Publishers|url=https://markuswiener.com/books/kurds-a-divided-nation-in-search-of-a-nation/|access-date=2021-06-11|website=markuswiener.com}}
- Routledge Handbook on the Kurds, ed., 2019{{Cite web|title=Routledge Handbook on the Kurds|url=https://www.routledge.com/Routledge-Handbook-on-the-Kurds/Gunter/p/book/9780367580582|access-date=2021-06-11|website=Routledge & CRC Press|language=en}}
- Historical Dictionary of the Kurds, 3rd ed., 2018{{Cite book|url=https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538110508/Historical-Dictionary-of-the-Kurds-Third-Edition|title=Historical Dictionary of the Kurds, Third Edition|language=en-us}}
- The Kurds, a Modern History, 2016{{Cite book|last=Gunter|first=Michael M.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1-7ksgEACAAJ|title=The Kurds: A Modern History|date=2016|publisher=Markus Wiener Publishers|isbn=978-1-55876-614-3|language=en}}
- Kurdish Issues: Essays in Honor of Robert W. Olson, ed., 2016{{Cite web|title=Mazda Publishers - Kurdish Issues|url=http://www.mazdapublishers.com/book/kurdish-issues|access-date=2021-06-11|website=www.mazdapublishers.com}}
- Out of Nowhere, The Kurds of Syria in Peace and War, 2014{{Cite book|last=Gunter|first=Michael M.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=96wNngEACAAJ|title=Out of Nowhere: The Kurds of Syria in Peace and War|date=2014|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-1-84904-435-6|language=en}}
- Earlier, Gunter published many other books and over 200 scholarly journal articles and book chapters.
Controversies
Gunter has been criticized for denying the Armenian genocide and claiming that Armenians are responsible for "provoking" their own persecution.{{Cite journal|last=Usitalo|first=Steven A.|date=2016|title=Armenian History and the Question of Genocide by Michael M. Gunter (review)|url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/630524|journal=Holocaust and Genocide Studies|volume=30|issue=2|pages=376–378|doi=10.1093/hgs/dcw044 |issn=1476-7937}} His book Armenian History and the Question of Genocide was described as "a very badly written and poorly argued volume" by historian Richard Hovannisian.{{Cite journal|last=Hovannisian|first=Richard G.|date=2015-12-01|title=Denial of the Armenian Genocide 100 Years Later: The New Practitioners and Their Trade|url=https://utpjournals.press/doi/10.3138/gsi.9.2.04|journal=Genocide Studies International|volume=9|issue=2|pages=228–247|doi=10.3138/gsi.9.2.04|s2cid=155132689 |issn=2291-1847}} The book was partially funded by Turkish Coalition of America. He published a positive review of Guenter Lewy's book The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey after having blurbed it, raising criticism of professional integrity.{{Cite journal|last=Kéchichian|first=Joseph A.|date=2007|title=A Response to Michael Gunter's Review of "The Armenian Massacres in Ottoman Turkey: A Disputed Genocide (IJMES 38 [2006]: 598-601)|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/30069560|journal=International Journal of Middle East Studies|volume=39|issue=3|pages=509–512|doi=10.1017/S0020743807070857 |jstor=30069560 |s2cid=162021204 |issn=0020-7438}}{{Cite web|title=Michael Gunter: He blurbed a book ... Should he then have reviewed it? {{!}} History News Network|url=https://historynewsnetwork.org/article/41948|access-date=2021-06-15|website=historynewsnetwork.org|date=17 August 2007 }}
References
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Category:Deniers of the Armenian genocide
Category:Kent State University alumni
Category:School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University alumni
Category:Year of birth missing (living people)
Category:Tennessee Technological University faculty