Steve Wininger: Bahoz Kurdi

When I began my academic journey, my goal was to become journalist, specifically, a Middle East and combat correspondent. I never imagined that my studies would lead me into graduate school and a PhD program. Little did I know that God had bigger plans for me. I had heard about the Kurds in the late 1980's when stories of Saddam Hussein's genocidal campaign against the Kurds appeared in American news.

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During that time, there was no internet and international news organizations. It was during a research project about ISIS that I really discovered the Kurds. It was during this time that I became active in the Kurdish cause, and began meeting Kurdish people from all over the world. My activism is what ignited my research interest in the Kurdish people.