THE CENTER FOR MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES NEWS HARVARD UNIVERSITY 2016–17 2 LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR A message from William Granara 3 CMES OPENS FIELD OFFICE IN TUNISIA Inaugural celebration 6 NEWS AND NOTES Updates from faculty, students, alumni, and visiting researchers; Margaux Fitoussi on the Hara of Tunis; Q&A with Emrah Yildiz 26 EVENT HIGHLIGHTS Lectures, workshops, and conferences; Maribel Fierro’s view of Medieval Spain; the art of Helen Zughaib LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR 2016–17 HIGHLIGHTS WE COME TO THE END OF ANOTHER ACADEMIC YEAR about which CMES can boast an impressive list of accomplishments. It was a year in which we welcomed the largest cohort of our AM program, 15, increasing this year’s total enrollment to 28 students! I’m happy to report that we will be receiving 18 AM students next fall, testament to a highly successful and thriving master’s program in Middle Eastern studies at Harvard. A highlight of spring semester was the official opening and inaugural celebration of the CMES Tunisia Office, which we have been planning for the past three years. Mr. Hazem Ben-Gacem, AB ’92, our host and benefactor, opened the celebrations. Margot Gill, FAS Administrative Dean for International Affairs, and Malika Zeghal, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Professor in Contemporary Islamic Thought and Life, joined me in welcoming our Tunisian guests, along with Melani Cammett, Professor of Government, Lauren Montague, CMES Executive Director, and Harry Bastermajian, CMES Graduate Programs Coordinator. Ten graduate students participated in our second annual Winter Term program in Tunis and were also part of the hosting committee for the event. This year’s symposia and workshops included Fitna: Civil War or Sectarian Conflict? convened by Roger Owen, A.J. Meyer Professor of Modern Middle East History Emeritus, and The Naksa Fifty Years Later: New Sources, Questions, and Approaches to the ’67 War, convened by Shawwaf Visiting Professor Khaled Fahmy and myself. Our Gibb Lectures this spring were delivered by Maribel Fierro, Research Professor at the Centro de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales in Madrid and Visiting Scholar at CMES and at the Islamic Legal Studies Program at Harvard Law School. CMES’s Arabian Peninsula Studies Initiative took a quantum leap forward this year with four lectures and a two-day conference organized with the Agha Khan Program at the Graduate School of Design. The conference, After Dark: Nocturnal Landscapes and Public Spaces in the Arabian Peninsula, brought together scholars from across the globe to examine in various ways how public spaces are designed and used at night. This was the first joint venture between GSD and CMES, and I wish to thank my co-convener, Gareth Doherty, Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture and Senior Research Associate, for his vision and expertise. Steve Caton, Khalid Bin Abdullah Bin Abdulrahman Al Saud Professor of Contemporary Arab Studies and former CMES director, led a two-day workshop, Soil, Flesh, and Flows: Environmental Temporalities and Expertise in the Middle East. I take this occasion to pay tribute to Feryal Hijazi, Preceptor in Arabic, who will complete her appointment at Harvard at the end of June. Over the past eight years, Feryal has been a devoted teacher and mentor to hundreds of our students, a dedicated member of the Arabic language faculty, and a warm and cheerful colleague at CMES and NELC. —William Granara, CMES Director ON THE COVER: Dougga, Tunisia, by Sihem Lamine CENTER FOR MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES OPENS FIELD OFFICE IN TUNISIA On January 17, the Center for Middle Eastern Studies opened its first overseas office, in Tunisia, home to a tradition of learning and research that extends from Antiquity to the present. The office and the year-round programs run from the location are made possible by the support of Harvard College alumnus Hazem Ben- Gacem ’92. “The Middle East is a part of the world that you’ll never The Harvard contingent at the inaugural celebration of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies Tunisia Office fully understand unless you get your feet on the ground and experience it first-hand,” scholarship and education,” incubator for analysis of the exciting new ways that said William Granara, CMES said Ben-Gacem. “I’m very evolving social, cultural, legal, will shape important work Director and Professor of excited by this first step and political movements in the across fields and disciplines,” Arabic. “Thanks to Hazem’s towards a substantial Harvard region, and offer an intellectual said Harvard president Drew generosity, Harvard students presence in Tunisia.” hub for scholars of, and from, Faust. and scholars have greater Founded in 1954, CMES, Tunisia, the Maghreb, the Programs available at the resources to pursue in- through interdisciplinary Mediterranean, and the wider Tunis location for students depth field research and can teaching and research, Middle East region. and faculty from across the more substantively engage has produced hundreds of “Broadening the contexts University include Harvard in language and cultural graduates with Middle East in which teaching and learning Tunisia Scholarships for immersion experiences.” and North Africa expertise happen at Harvard is a crucial Harvard graduate and “From the beginning the who have gone on to directly element of our engagement undergraduate research, hope has been to establish impact students, scholars, and with the world. We are always funding for Harvard faculty an outpost where Harvard the public both in the United seeking opportunities to sabbatical research, an Arabic faculty and students would States and around the world. make the University more language summer program come to discover Tunisia—its Its Tunisia office will provide intentionally global, and the for Harvard graduate and history, language, culture, art, students and scholars with a field office in Tunisia will undergraduate students, and and people—and integrate bridge to renowned Tunisian bring the world to Harvard a three-week Winter Session this experience into their archival facilities, serve as an and Harvard to the world in course for Harvard students. 2016–17 | CMESNEWS 3 TUNISIA OFFICE INAUGURAL CELEBRATION Alex Viox and Lauren Montague Karen Ben-Gacem Leila Ben-Gacem Hazem Ben-Gacem, Becca Wadness, and Anna Boots Amira Ben-Gacem, Margot Gill, and Alya Ben-Gacem Parker Wellington, William Granara, and Sihem Lamine 4 CMESNEWS | 2016–17 Malika Zeghal William Granara, Margot Gill, and Hazem Ben-Gacem Amir Ben-Gacem, Hamida Ben-Gacem, Benjamin Moeling Blaire Byg, Shawheen Rezaei, Margot Gill addresses guests Margaux Fitoussi, and Brittany Landorf 2016–17 | CMESNEWS 5 NEWS AND NOTES FACULTY NEWS Without Borders Seminar and Ali Asani, Professor of Indo- participated in a panel Muslim and Islamic Religion discussion at the Center for the and Cultures, delivered lectures Study of World Religions on in January 2017 on the Ousmane Kane’s book Beyond importance of religious and Timbuktu: An Intellectual cultural literacy in a cosmopoli- History of Islam in West Africa. tan world at Habib University, Sibel Bozdoğan, Lecturer, Aga Khan University, and History of Architecture and Sheida Dayani Gareth Doherty Lahore University for Manage- Urbanism, Harvard Graduate ment Sciences in Pakistan. He School of Design, guest-edited collaborated with prominent the Journal of Decorative and was interviewed and read her Peninsula, a conference Pakistani musician and singer Propaganda Arts 28 (2016), a poem “The Ordinary Man of sponsored by the Aga Khan Ali Sethi in “Misaq-e Ishq: The special issue on Turkey. She this Neighborhood” on Radio Program and the Department of Covenant of Love,” a concert of delivered the Aga Khan Open Source with Christopher Landscape Architecture at the traditional Sufi poetry and Program lecture “An Urban Lydon, and participated in a GSD and CMES. William music held in Lahore. In Atlas for Istanbul 1922–1950: panel discussion on the film The Graham, Harvard University February he delivered a lecture Sources, Methods, and New Salesman at Coolidge Corner Distinguished Service Professor at South Asia Institute’s series Historiographies” at the GSD in Theatre, both in February. She and Murray A. Albertson on the Partition of South Asia, April 2017, and published a recieved a Harvard University Professor of Middle Eastern “Religion, Ethics, and Nascent paper in Architectural Histories Certificate of Teaching Studies, published “Wilfred Nationalism and the Partition,” 4(1):14. Melani Cammett, Excellence for fall 2016. Gareth Cantwell Smith and ‘Oriental- and the talk “Understanding Professor of Government, Doherty, Assistant Professor of ism’,” in The Legacy of Wilfred Islam behind the Headlines” for co-authored “Political Context, Landscape Architecture and Cantwell Smith (SUNY Press, the Harvard Club of San Diego. Organizational Mission, and the Senior Research Associate, 2017). His Encylopaedia of Islam In March he led a discussion of Quality of Social Services: Harvard Graduate School of Three article, “H. adīth Qudsī,” is Tanya Panjwani’s documentary Insights from the Health Sector Design, published Paradoxes of due to appear this spring. While on the renowned Pakistani in Lebanon,” forthcoming in the Green: Landscapes of a on leave this academic year, singer Sanam Marvi, sponsored journal World Development, City-State (University of Cemal Kafadar, Vehbi Koç by the Harvard Ed Portal and with Aytug Sasmaz, PhD California Press, 2017), an Professor of Turkish Studies, the Office of the Arts. In April candidate in the Department of ethnographic account of green delivered “Evliya Çelibi’s he hosted a talk by Musharraf Government. Sheida Dayani, in Bahrain. He also co- Encounter with the Art of the Ali Farooqi, Babar Ali Fellow at Preceptor in Persian, gave a convened, with CMES Director Frenks: A Question of Verisi- the South Asia Institute, “From poetry reading at Hood William Granara, After Dark: militude and Realism in Story to Book (Kahani Se Kitab Museum of Art at Dartmouth Nocturnal Landscapes and Ottoman Self- Evaluation,” the Tak),” in the South Asia University in March 2017.