News and Events

Mideast History Expert Rashid Khalidi to Deliver 2007 Flexner Lectures on Cold War, Middle East

Rashid Khalidi, one of the foremost authorities on the history of the modern Middle East, will deliver the 2007 Mary Flexner Lectures at Bryn Mawr College on three Wednesdays in October and November. The overarching theme of the series will be "The United States, the Middle East and the Cold War."

Khalidi's talks, which are free and open to the public, will take place at 8 p.m. in Thomas Great Hall. His topics are "Rethinking the Cold War in the Middle East" (Oct. 24), "Oil, Strategy and the Cold War in the Middle East" (Oct. 31) and "The Middle East in the Cold War and Afterwards" (Nov. 7).

Khalidi's visit has prompted a series of associated workshops and discussions for members of the Bryn Mawr faculty and staff. Two discussions to be held in advance of the lectures focused on readings that treat the historical background of Khalidi's Flexner Lecture subjects, including some of Khalidi's previous work. Post-lecture events will give participants an opportunity to discuss each lecture topic with Khalidi, and three special workshops with Khalidi will focus on associated subjects. For dates, times and readings, see the Provost's Web site.

Kahlidi is the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies and Director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University. He has published scores of scholarly works on the history and politics of the Middle East. In recent years, Khalidi has also embraced the role of a public intellectual: his five monographs and two edited volumes include works intended for a general audience, and he has appeared on numerous radio and television news and public-affairs broadcasts. He has also published opinion pieces in the popular press, often urging more consultation with Middle East experts in the shaping of U.S. foreign policy.

Khalidi's research and teaching encompass the history of the modern Middle East, and in particular the countries of the southern and eastern Mediterranean, with an emphasis on the emergence of national identity and the involvement of external powers in the region. He is particularly interested in the role of the press in the formation of new publics and new senses of community, in the place of education in the construction of identity, and in the way narratives of self and other have interacted over the past two centuries in this conflicted region.

Born in the United States to a Lebanese mother and a Palestinian father, Khalidi grew up in New York and earned his undergraduate degree from Yale University. He went on to Oxford University for his doctorate in history, writing a dissertation about British policy toward Syria and Arab nationalism in the years preceding World War I. He taught at the American University in Beirut and at the University of Chicago before his appointment to the Said Chair at Columbia in 2003.

Israeli Scholar of Egyptian Intellectual History
To Speak at Bryn Mawr on September 18

Israel Gershoni, a professor of Middle Eastern and African studies at the University of Tel Aviv, will speak in Thomas 110 on Tuesday, Sept. 18, at 6 p.m. His topic: "Questioning 'Islamofascism': Egyptian Representations of Fascism and Nazism, 1933-1945." Gershon is a noted historian of the Middle East who specializes in the intellectual history of Egypt. His numerous publications on the subject include Redefining the Egyptian Nation, 1930-1945, co-authored with James P. Jankowski.

News Archive: 2007

Center for Visual Culture Features Islamic Topic

On Wednesday, Feb. 7, Bryn Mawr's Center for Visual Culture will present "Beginnings of Islamic Visual Culture," a talk by University of Delaware History of Art Professor Larry Nees. The talk, part of the Center's weekly colloquium series, will be held in Thomas 224 from 12:30 tp 1:45 p.m.; light refreshments will be served.

Religion on Campus Week Offers
Several Perspectives on Islam

As a part of this week, the Muslim Students Association will be presenting several events to raise awareness and initiate dialogue about Islam, an important faith in the American landscape.

Sunday, February 4, 3:30-5 p.m. w/ Q&A, Thomas 224: MythBustin' with the MSA. Islam preaches violence? Muslim women are oppressed? Are they all just intolerant Arabs? All these misconceptions! Sounds like a job for the Muslim Mythbusters! Speakers: Dr. Khalid Blankenship and Manar Darwish

Tuesday, February 6, 7-8:15 p.m at Campus Center: The Black Women of Islam. Co-Founder of Women in Islam Inc. in NYC, Sr. Aisha will be addressing the rise of African American Muslim Women throughout American history. Speaker: Aisha Al-Adawaya

Thursday, February 8, 7:30 p.m.,Thomas 224: Ask a Scholar (Interfaith Event). Speaker: Imam Jawed Ahmed

Palestinian and Israeli Artists Unite for Peace
At Haverford's Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery

Haverford’s Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery will be host to a unique exhibition of Israeli and Palestinian screenprint art, Jan. 26-Feb. 25, 2007. Entitled “35 Prints—35 Years of Occupation: Israeli and Palestinian Artists Against the Occupation and for a Common Tomorrow,” the exhibit was originally created to address the possibility of using art as a bridge to resolving conflict. From their outset, the joint Israeli-Palestinian print exhibitions (which have already appeared in Europe) have promoted several key principles, namely opposition to the occupation, two states for two people, a shared Jerusalem, and support for non-violent means for resolving the conflict.

“Indeed, since 1981, Israeli and Palestinian artists have collaborated on a series of joint projects protesting the occupation and with the intention of working together towards a joint future based upon equal and secure co-existence, in which the culture of one people enriches and reinforces that of the other,” says Haverford Professor of Economics Linda Bell, who is coordinating the exhibit’s appearance at the Gallery.

During the exhibit’s run, a Palestinian and an Israeli artist will visit campus, and provide expertise on art and the historical context of this conflict for a forum or series of forums.

Located in Whitehead Campus Center, the Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery is open 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday and noon-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. On Wednesday evenings, the Gallery will stay open until 8 p.m. An opening reception is scheduled for Friday, Jan. 26 from 5-7 p.m. For more information, call (610) 896-1287 or visit www.cantorfitzgeraldgallery.org.

Mideast Studies Initiative Welcomes Visiting Anthropology Professor Tamara Neuman

This year, the Tri-College Middle Eastern Studies Initiative and the Bi-College Peace and Conflict Studies Program welcome Visiting Assistant Professor Tamara Neuman to the Bryn Mawr campus. Neuman, an anthropologist who studies the religious dimensions of the Israeli settlement movement, has taught at Reed College and the University of Chicago and comes to Bryn Mawr from a research affiliation at Harvard University. She earned her B.A. in classics and anthropology from Brandeis University and a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Chicago.

During her time at Bryn Mawr, Neuman will be working on a book titled Seizing Zion: Jewish Militancy and Israeli Settlement Over the Green Line. The manuscript is based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork she conducted, primarily in Hebron, with the support of Fullbright Hays, the CASPIC/John T. and Catherine D. MacArthur Foundation, and the Henry Frank Guggenheim Foundation... read more

News Archive: 2006

March 18, 2006: A Palestinian Night: Part II

Penn's Y'allah Dance Troupe will perform and give a workshop in Middle Eastern dance techniques, and Sarah Farahat '05, who has recently returned from Palestine, will speak at this event sponsored by Students for Justice in Palestine. "A Palestinian Night: Part II" will take place in Thomas Great Hall from 8:30 to 10 p.m. Arabic food will be offered. For more information, contact heideh@bmc, or nbarclay@bmc.

March 31, 2006: Sooyong Kim to lecture on an Ottoman poet

Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Islamic Culture Sooyong Kim will offer a lecture, entitled "Ottoman or Not? A Sixteenth-Century Poet and His Literary Biographers." The lecture is scheduled for March 31 (Friday), 12:00 - 2:00 pm, in the Dorothy Vernon Room, Haffner.

Lipstick Jihad Author to Speak at Bryn Mawr

Azadeh Moaveni, author of Lipstick Jihad: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America and American in Iran , will speak at Bryn Mawr in April. Stay connected for more information on date, time and place.

Moaveni grew up in San Jose and studied politics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She won a Fulbright fellowship to Egypt, and studied Arabic at the American University in Cairo. For three years she worked across the Middle East as a reporter for Time Magazine before joining the Los Angeles Times to cover the war in Iraq. She lives in Beirut.

2005

November 1, 2005: Natalie Zemon Davis Lecture to Examine 16th-Century Muslim's European Soujourn

Historian Natalie Zemon Davis will be the inaugural speaker for a new lecture series dedicated to the memory of Michael Powell, a brilliant and multitalented young scholar of medieval history and culture whose career at Bryn Mawr College was cut short by cancer in 2004. Davis' lecture, titled "Trickster Travels: A 16th-Century Muslim Between Worlds," will take place on Tuesday, Nov. 1, from 7 to 9 p.m. in Thomas Great Hall on the Bryn Mawr campus. The lecture will examine the life of Hassan El Wazzan, a Moroccan diplomat who, after being captured by pirates and imprisoned in Rome by Pope Leo X, converted to Christianity and penned several books about the Muslim world for a European audience ... read more

"Iranica: Modes of Transmission" in Carpenter Library

Like many American institutions, Bryn Mawr holds a small collection of ceramics and works on paper from medieval Iran. Taken together, they testify to the enthusiasms that motivated Western collectors of Iranica, and the mechanisms by which their desires were fulfilled. An exhibition in the Kaiser Reading Room of Rhys Carpenter Library will examine three "modes of transmission" through which objects made in Iran were translated into Western collections. Dates: Sept. 19 to Dec. 1. ... read more

BMC Collaborates With Main Line School Night on Mideast lecture Series

To help members of the local communities understand developments in the Middle East, a gathering of experts from Bryn Mawr and Swarthmore Colleges and a Turkish Fulbright Scholar will present a lecture series on the politics and culture of the Middle East. Hosted by Main Line School Night, the series, "The Middle East: Various Perspectives," presents five top scholars, many from the Middle East, over five Tuesdays in September and October to tell the stories behind the headlines. All lectures are held at Lower Merion High School, 245 E. Montgomery Ave., Ardmore ... read more

Fulbright Specialist Speaks on Islam and Nationalism in Turkey

Fulbright Visiting Specialist Alev Cinar, a political scientist from Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey, has an unusual perspective on Islam's relationship to national identity in the Middle East. In a world where "Islamist" movements are generally identified with traditionalism while secularism is identified with modernity, the current ruling party in Turkey represents a unique blend of Islamic and modern identities, Cinar says. She explored these issues in a lecture titled "Modernity, Islam and Secularism in Turkey" on Tuesday, Sept. 13, from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m . in the Ely Room at Wyndham House ... read more

Haverford's Hurford Humanities Center Offers
Night of Traditional Afghan Music

on Saturday, Nov. 5, at 8 p.m. in Marshall Auditorium at Haverford College, Haverford's Hurford Humanities Center will sponsor a evening of traditional music from Afghanistan as performed by Farida Wahwash and the Ensemble Kaboul. During the Soviet period, Mahwash was the voice of Radio Kaboul, and perhaps the only female Afghani singer to earn the honoriific "Ustad." Mahwash now lives in Los Angeles and tours with Ensemble Kaboul, a group of Afghan musicians based in Geneva. She has agreed to participate in a pre-concert conversation about her life in and out of Kabul. See the BBC Web site for more information about Mahwash and the Ensemble Kaboul.

$2 Million Mellon Grant to Support
Tri-Co Arabic-Language Study

Bryn Mawr, Haverford and Swarthmore Colleges have received a $2 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support a new faculty position in Arabic language study to be shared among the three colleges, assisting the three institutions in establishing the Tri-College Islamic/Middle Eastern Studies Initiative ... read more

Opportunities for Students

State Dept. Offers Scholarships for Summer Language Study Abroad

The United States Department of State and the Council of American Overseas Research Centers (CAORC) are pleased to announce the availability of scholarships for intensive overseas study for Summer 2007 in critical-need languages such as Arabic, Bangla, Hindi, Punjabi, Turkish and Urdu.

As part of the National Security Language Initiative (NSLI), a U.S. government interagency effort to expand dramatically the number of Americans studying and mastering critical need foreign languages, the Department of State Critical Language Scholarships will provide funding for U.S. citizen undergraduate, master’s and Ph.D. students to participate in beginning, intermediate and advanced level summer language programs at American Overseas Research Centers.

Recipients of these scholarships will be expected to continue their language beyond the scholarship period and later apply their critical language skills in their professional careers. For more information, visit the COARC Web site.

Arabic Table!

Arabic table meets Wednesday at noon in Haffner Dining Room. Join Debi Harrold and others to practice your Arabic and/or help others practice theirs.