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Program in Middle Eastern Studies

ANNUAL NEWSLETTER May 2013

Dear Faculty, Students, Alumnae and Friends of Middle Eastern Studies,

The academic year 2012-2013 has been one in which our eyes and minds have been focused on , where a solution to the violence still does not appear to be in view, and on , where the death of U.S. citizens, including a highly respected diplomat, is a reminder of an incomplete transition to peace. These topics, the fate of the Arab Spring in , the aftermath of the U.S. withdrawal from , and its draw-down in Afghanistan, as well as the U.S. failure to achieve real progress in peace negotiations in -Palestine have been the subject of formal and informal discussions among the faculty and students of the Middle Eastern Studies Program. Meanwhile, our students continue to go on study abroad, especially to and Egypt, and occasionally to and .

During this academic year, Rachid Aadnani was successfully reappointed as Lecturer of and Middle Eastern Studies, while Dan Zitnick was appointed to teach beginning and advanced Arabic at Wellesley College during the next academic year. The Program expects to obtain formal approval to do a search for a tenure-track position in Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies in 2013-2014.

While we did have a film series in the Fall, we have focused our energy this year on preparing important events for early next Fall, including a symposium on transnational feminist perspectives on war, memory, and nation-building and a campus visit by a Middle Eastern film director. This ambitious programming has been in part inspired by the generous donation by Suzette Dauch ’58 and Jay R. Schochet of Newport, Rhode Island, whose ongoing support has been invaluable to our Program, which, in comparison with many other fields of study at Wellesley College, is still so young and so in need of support.

Meanwhile we supported the student organizations al-Muslimat and Wellesley Arab Women in their superbly organized and well attended events of Arab Awareness Week, including a symposium on Muslim women in academia, a lecture by Nasser Rabat on monumental mosques in the Arab world today, and a lecture by about his new book Brokers of Deceit: How the U.S. has Undermined Peace in the Middle East, all in April.

In May we held our final dinner for graduating seniors majoring or minoring in Middle Eastern Studies, featuring Middle Eastern food.

On July 1, I will be handing over the directorship of MES to Prof. Louise Marlow, who will be returning from a three-semester sabbatical. I am grateful for your support during the three semesters of my directorship and am committed to stay closely involved with the Program in the years to come.

Let me conclude with wishing you a wonderful, enjoyable, productive, and peaceful summer.

Lidwien Kapteijns Kendall/Hodder Professor of History Director of Middle Eastern Studies

ANNUAL NEWSLETTER May 2013 1 CURRICULAR NEWS COURSE OFFERINGS IN ARABIC AND MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES 2013-2014

Term(s): Fall. MWTh 9:50-11:00 am; MWTh 11:10-12:20 pm FALL 2013 COURSES Each semester of ARAB 201 and ARAB 202 earns 1.0 unit of credit; however, both semesters must be ARAB 101 - Elementary Arabic (1.0) completed satisfactorily to receive credit for either An introduction to the Arabic language. The course course. takes a comprehensive approach to language learning and emphasizes the four skills of listening, ARAB 301 - Advanced Arabic I (1.0) speaking, reading, and writing. Students are Continuation of ARAB 201-ARAB 202. Involving further introduced to the principles of grammar, taught how development of students’ skills in listening, speaking, to read and write in the Arabic alphabet, and trained reading and writing, this course exposes students to in the basics of everyday conversation. Through the a variety of authentic Arabic materials, including use of a variety of written, video and audio materials, print and online sources, incorporating MSA and as well as other resources made available through diglossia. Focus on enhanced communication skills the Web, the course emphasizes authentic materials in Arabic and attention to the use of language in its and stresses the active participation of students in the sociocultural context. Appropriate for students who learning process. have completed ARAB 201- ARAB 202 at Wellesley Instructor: Ramadan, Zitnick or the equivalent in summer courses or study abroad Prerequisite: None programs. Distribution: None Instructor: Zitnick Term(s): Fall. MTWTh 8:30-9:40; MTWTh 9:50-11:00 Prerequisite: ARAB 201-ARAB 202 or permission of the Each semester of ARAB 101 and ARAB 102 earns instructor. 1.0 unit of credit; however, both semesters must be Distribution: LL completed satisfactorily to receive credit for either Term(s): Fall. MTh 11:10-12:20 pm course.

ARTH 247 - The Fabric of Society: Islamic Art and Architecture in their Social Context, 650-1500 (1.0) Until recently, most scholarship approached Islamic art through stylistic taxonomies or technical studies, while limiting its effects to aesthetic pleasure. In contrast, this course seeks to bridge Islamic art and social history, in order to show how Islamic objects and monuments served to mediate a broad range of social relations, which shaped in turn the formal ARAB 201 - Intermediate Arabic (1.0) characteristics of the artworks. We will look at the A continuation of ARAB 101-ARAB 102. The course interplay between the invention of the mosque takes students to a deeper and more complex and the construction of the new Muslim community level in the study of the Arabic language. While from the seventh century onwards, the use of continuing to emphasize the organizing principles of early Islamic palaces as stages for political and the language, the course also introduces students to disciplinary spectacles, the exchange of portable a variety of challenging texts, including extracts from objects designed as gifts and commodities around newspaper articles, as well as literary and religious the Mediterranean, the female patronage of public materials. Students will be trained to work with longer devotional spaces. texts and to gain the necessary communicative skills Instructor: Balafrej to prepare them for advanced-level Arabic. Prerequisite: None. ARTH 100 and ARTH 101 Instructor: Aadnani recommended. Prerequisite: ARAB 101, ARAB 102 or permission of the Distribution: ARS instructor. Term(s): Fall. MTh 11:10-12:20 pm Distribution: None Normally offered in alternate years.

2 Program in Middle Eastern Studies HIST 396 - Port Cities of the Indian Ocean in Historical Perspective (1.0) This is a research seminar about themes in the history of Indian Ocean port cities, namely those situated on the littorals of the Red Sea, East Africa, the Persian Gulf, and South Asia. The course engages with different dimensions of life in port cities, including their relations with immediate or distant overlords; diverse communities of traders; flows of religious experts, free and unfree labor, and other migrants; the technology that sustained ocean-wide links and the epidemics that threatened them; and the impact of colonial (especially British) rule. Covering the period 1500 to the present, the course emphasizes the period preceding World War II, yet traces some themes and poor? How have the events of September to the present. Student research papers are at the 11 and the U.S.-led “war on terror” affected the center of this seminar. prospects for greater freedom and prosperity in the Instructor: Kapteijns and Rao Middle East in the future? What do the 2011 revolts Prerequisite: By permission of the instructors mean for the existing regimes and prospects for Distribution: HS Democracy? These are some of the questions we will Term(s): Fall. W 2:15-4:45 pm examine in this course. In readings, lectures and class discussions, the analysis of general themes and trends MES 331 - Islamic Cultural World in Premodern Travel will be integrated with case studies of individual Arab Accounts (1.0) states. The course engages with travel accounts produced Instructor: Hajj by premodern Muslim travelers as well as European Prerequisite: One unit in Political Science travelers writing about the Islamic world. Delving into Distribution: SBA such travel chronicles in order to make forays into Term(s): Fall. MTh 9:50-11:00 am the social and cultural fabric of premodern Islamic cultures, the course will attempt to foreground the POL2 358-01-F - Seminar. Political Conflict in the permeability and diversity of the premodern Islamic Middle East (1.0) world from North Africa to South Asia. In what sundry Topic for 2013-14: The Arab-Israeli Conflict modes were these travelers’ experiences constructed This class will provide an in-depth understanding and preserved in these accounts? What insights of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the evolution of into the operations of premodern Islamic cultures the conflict over time. Our goal is to develop an could we gain from these travel narratives? We will appreciation of the complexities and the dynamism read extracts from representative travel accounts, of this conflict through an examination of its origins, and assess their contents critically to appreciate the the actors involved, and the key historical and modes and sensibilities instrumental in shaping the political factors that have shaped it. understanding of the premodern Islamic world. Instructor: Hajj Instructor: Latif Prerequisite: POL2 217 or one unit in Middle Eastern Prerequisite: None. history. Enrollment is limited; interested students must Cross-Listed as: SAS 331 fill out a seminar application available on the political Distribution: LL; HS science department website homepage. Term(s): Fall. T 1:30-4:00 pm Distribution: SBA Term(s): Fall. M 2:50-5:20 pm POL2 217 - Politics of the Middle East and North Africa (1.0) REL 244 - Jerusalem: The Holy City (1.0) How do Arab-Islamic history and culture shape An exploration of the history, archaeology, and politics in the contemporary Middle East and North architecture of Jerusalem from the Bronze Age to Africa? Why is the Arab world—despite its tremendous the present. Special attention both to the ways in oil-wealth—still characterized by economic which Jerusalem’s Jewish, Christian, and Muslim underdevelopment and acute gaps between rich continued on page 4

ANNUAL NEWSLETTER May 2013 3 REL 330 - Seminar. Religion and Violence (1.0)* CURRICULAR NEWS continued from page 3 An exploration of the sources and manifestations of religious violence. Topics include the role of violence communities transformed Jerusalem in response to in sacred texts and traditions, intra- and inter-religious their religious and political values and also to the conflicts, religion and nationalism, and religious role of the city in the ongoing Middle East and Israeli- violence in today’s global society. Selected examples Palestinian peace process. from Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions and Instructor: Geller contemporary religious conflicts in Africa, South Asia, Prerequisite: None and the Middle East. Distribution: REP; HS Instructor: Marini Term(s): Fall. MTh 4:10-5:20 pm Prerequisite: HIST 205, REL 200 or REL 230, PEAC 104, or Normally alternates with REL 243. permission of instructor. Distribution: SBA; REP REL 260 - Islamic/ate Civilizations (1.0) Term(s): Fall. W 2:15-4:45 pm Historical survey of Muslim-majority societies and the Normally alternates with REL 319. diverse cultural forms produced within them from the *Discuss with instructor if you want to count towards seventh century to the beginnings of the modern MES Major or Minor before registering. period. Topics include literary and artistic expression, architecture, institutions, philosophical and political thought, religious thought and practice. Critical attention to the concept of “civilization” and its uses and drawbacks for understanding the complex historical and cultural processes under study in the course. Instructor: Marlow Prerequisite: None Distribution: REP; HS Term(s): Fall. TF 9:50-11:00 Normally alternates with REL 262.

REL 263 - Islam in the Modern World (1.0) A study of the modern history of the Islamic religion, and its interaction with other historical forces in SPRING 2014 COURSES shaping particular developments in Muslim societies ARAB 102 - Elementary Arabic (1.0) from the late eighteenth century to the present. The An introduction to the Arabic language. The course course explores the emergence and development takes a comprehensive approach to language of religious ideas and movements in the context learning and emphasizes the four skills of listening, of the colonial and post-colonial periods, and speaking, reading, and writing. Students are the histories of modern nation states. Readings introduced to the principles of grammar, taught how encompass a variety of perspectives and address to read and write in the Arabic alphabet, and trained a range of topics, including religious practice and in the basics of everyday conversation. Through the interpretation, matters of governance and the state, use of a variety of written, video and audio materials, economics, gender and gender relations, dress (for as well as other resources made available through men and women), and the participation of women the Web, the course emphasizes authentic materials in various arenas of public life. The course explores and stresses the active participation of students in the Islam as a diverse and dynamic religious tradition learning process. that is responsive to change, and enquires into the Instructor: Ramadan, Zitnick divergent understandings and connotations of ‘Islam’ Prerequisite: ARAB 101 to different speakers, groups and perspectives in a Distribution: None variety of modern and contemporary contexts. Term(s): Spring Instructor: Marlow Each semester of ARAB 101 and ARAB 102 earns Prerequisite: None 1.0 unit of credit; however, both semesters must be Distribution: REP; HS completed satisfactorily to receive credit for either Term(s): Fall. TF 11:10-12:20 pm course.

4 Program in Middle Eastern Studies ARAB 202 - Intermediate Arabic (1.0) A continuation of ARAB 201. The course takes students to a deeper and more complex level in the study of the Arabic language. While continuing to emphasize the organizing principles of the language, the course also introduces students to a variety of challenging texts, including extracts from newspaper articles, as well as literary and religious materials. Students will be trained to work with longer texts and to gain the necessary communicative skills to prepare them for advanced-level Arabic. Instructor: Aadnani Prerequisite: ARAB 101, ARAB 102, ARAB 201 or permission of instructor. Distribution: LL Term(s): Spring Each semester of ARAB 201 and 202 earns 1.0 unit of credit; however, both semesters must be completed and women; Sufism’s permeation of artistic and satisfactorily to receive credit for either course. aesthetic traditions, especially poetry and music; the reception, interpretations and practices of Sufism in REL 262 - The Formation of the Islamic Tradition (1.0) Western countries. Historical study of the Islamic tradition, from its Instructor: Marlow beginnings in Arabia through its shaping in the Prerequisite: Open to juniors and seniors, students seventh to tenth centuries in the diverse and newly who have taken at least one unit in Middle Eastern integrated regions of Western and Central Asia and Studies or Religion, and by permission of the North Africa. Topics include the sacred sources of the instructor. Islamic religious tradition, the Prophet and the Qur’an; Distribution: REP; HS the formulation of religious law, ethics, theology Term(s): Spring and philosophy; varied patterns of piety and Normally alternates with REL 367. mysticism; and the development of Sunni and Shi’i understandings of Islam and Islamic history. Particular WGST 299 - Sexuality and Gender in Muslim and attention to the diversity within the Islamic tradition, Arab Worlds (1.0) its intercultural contacts, and its continuing processes This interdisciplinary course seeks to understand of reinterpretation. The course also addresses sexuality in the Muslim and Arab worlds in a matrix approaches, methods, issues and new directions in of gender, race, class, geopolitics, and religion. It the study of Islam and Muslim societies. expands beyond the arbitrary designation of the Instructor: Marlow “Middle East” and examines old and new diasporas Prerequisite: None in areas that include East and South Asia, Europe, Distribution: REP; HS and North America. It takes a relational approach Term(s): Spring that highlights historical and transnational linkages Normally alternates with REL 260. and relations of power between socio-cultural, political, and economic structures that construct REL 364 - Seminar. Sufism: Islamic Mysticism (1.0) sexuality in different locations and historical An interdisciplinary exploration of the diverse junctures. The course challenges mainstream manifestations of mysticism in Islamic contexts. representations of sexuality in the Muslim and Arab Topics include the experiences and writings of worlds, interrogates binaries of religious and secular, individual Sufis, including Rabi’a, al-Junayd, Hujwiri, and applies micro and macro methods to examine Ibn al-’Arabi, Jalal al-Din Rumi, ’Abd al-Qadir Jilani, sexuality as a form of governmentality in local and Ruzbihan Baqli; the formation of Sufi organizations global contexts. and development of mystical paths; the place of Instructor: Shakhsari Sufism in Islamic legal, theological and philosophical Prerequisite: WGST 120 traditions as well as in Muslim religious practice; Sufism Term(s): Spring in local contexts; both urban and rural; holy men

ANNUAL NEWSLETTER May 2013 5 RECENT EVENTS On April 5, 2013, Professor gave a lecture as part of the trauma, war, and upheaval as Nadya Hajj, Political Science, Newhouse Salon Series, entitled the Andalibian family’s life of participated in a panel lecture, “Shifting Ground: The City and the beauty and tranquility is ruptured “Critical Scholarship: Women, Countryside in Modern Egyptian by the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Islam and the Academy: Fiction.” This reading was organized by Integrating the study of Islam and Professor Ramadan and co- Gender across Disciplines.” This On November 13, 2012, Dr. sponsored by the Newhouse lecture was part of Celebrate Rahimeh Andalibian, psychologist, Center for the Humanities and Islam Awareness Week. family therapy expert, author, Middle Eastern Studies. speaker, and producer, gave a On March 11, 2013, Yasmine reading and discussion of her In the Fall semester, the Arabic Ramadan, the Mellon Post- debut novel, The Rose Hotel, Program sponsored a Film Series: Doctoral Fellow in Arabic Studies, which presents an intimate, le Grand Voyage, and Hawl. true-life story of the impact of

FACULTY NEWS Rachid Aadnani, joined Professor Transitional Settings,” she delves Nahr al Bared (NBC) and Beddawi Rollman in leading a Winter into the formalization of property refugee camps in . Session Course (HIST 290) in rights in transitional settings, Results suggest that following . Fifteen Wellesley where there is an absence of an influx of remittances, Fatah, College students participated in formal state structures. This paper a non-state hegemon with long this program. hypothesizes that in the presence time horizons, formalized property of capital for investment, a rights through the creation of Rana Abdul-Aziz was on family non-state hegemon with long local camp committee offices leave in the Fall, welcoming time horizons can intervene to that served as a third party daughter, Reema, on August 14. formalize property rights. The enforcement mechanism. Findings She returned to Wellesley in the hypothesis is tested using 191 reveal that in transitional settings, Spring and taught ARAB 102. Rana surveys and interviews collected in formalized property rights are will leave Wellesley College after central leverage points that serve this semester. We thank her for her critical state building functions dedication and collegiality these by uniting and galvanizing a past five years and wish her all the community around a new political best in her future endeavors! party.

Roxanne Euben was on leave Lidwien Kapteijns chaired both for 12-13 and will return from the Department of History and the sabbatical in the Fall. Middle Eastern Studies Program this year. On July 1, she will hand Barbara Geller offered REL 243 over the directorship of MES Women in the Biblical World. to Louise Marlow, who will be returning from her sabbatical. Nadya Hajj, in her second year at Wellesley College, published Lidwien’s book, Clan Cleansing an article about her on-going in Somalia: The Ruinous Turn of research study of institutional 1991 (University of Pennsylvania formation in Palestinian refugee Press: Penn Studies in Human camps in Comparative Politics. In Rights, 2013) came out in “Institutional Formation in January and is attracting much

6 Program in Middle Eastern Studies attention from Somali websites Ramadan will teach Elementary different version of this article, and readers. She gave lectures Arabic next year, while continuing titled “Killing Me Softly with about her book at the African to conduct her research as a Your Rights: Queer Death and Studies Association meeting in fellow at Wellesley’s Newhouse the Politics of Rightful Killing” is Philadelphia, the Nansen Peace Center for the Humanities. forthcoming (December 2013) Institute in Lillehammer (Norway), in the book Queer Necropolitics, The publications of Sima Shakhsari Oxford University, and the School edited by Jin Haritaworn, Adi (WGST) this year included an of Oriental and Kuntsman and Silvia Posocco, and article titled “Transnational in London. Lidwien’s article on published by Routledge. Governmentality and the Politics the U.S. Hollywood movie Black of Life and Death.” This article Hawk Down (“Black Hawk Down: Wilfrid Rollman, joined by Professor was published in May 2013 in the Recasting U.S. Military History at Aadnani and 15 Wellesley International Journal of Middle Somali Expense”), in Framing students, led the Wellesley College East Studies, as well as an article Africa: Portrayals of a Continent Wintersession Program in Morocco titled “From Homoerotics of Exile in Contemporary Mainstream (HIST 290). Cinema, edited by On his return form Nigel Eltringham from Wintersession (New York: 2013 in Morocco, Berghahn Books, Wil Rollman made a 2013), is expected to short layover in Paris appear this month. to pursue research Lidwien is also part for his book on Qaid of a small team of Najim al-Lakhsassi. scholars editing a While there he read source publication French Embassy consisting of English and Consular translations of the correspondence religious poetry of pertaining to pre- Brava (the Indian colonial Morocco Ocean city south of now housed at Mogadishu), which the new Centre were composed du Archives in the language Diplomatiques of that city, a form de la Courneuve. of northern Swahili During the Fall term called Chimiini. of 2012 he gave to Homopolitics of Diaspora: a short course on the “Arab Fran Malino offered HIST 115, Cyberspace, the War on Terror, Spring” as part of the Sherborn Routes of Exile: and , and the Hypervisible Iranian Council on Aging’s Lifetime a first-year seminar. Queer” in the Journal of Middle Learning Program. More recently East Women’s Studies, Special (May, 2013) he gave a lecture to Louise Marlow was on leave for 12- Issue: Queering Middle Eastern the Natick Historical Society on 13 and will return from sabbatical Cyberscapes (Fall 2012). “History and the Arab Spring. He in the Fall. will offer a courses on “Islam in Sima also had the honor of being Middle Eastern and North African Yasmine Ramadan completed published in the Transgender Politics” at Boston University her first year as the Mellon Post- Studies Reader II, published by and on “the and doctoral Fellow in Arabic Studies. Routledge in February 2013. The the Middle East since 1945” at The two-year post-doctoral title of the article in the TSRII is Wellesley College during the fellowship began in fall 2012 and “Shuttling between Bodies and summer term. continues through the academic Borders: Transmigration and year of 2013-2014. Professor the Politics of Rightful Killing.” A

ANNUAL NEWSLETTER May 2013 7 NEWS FROM OUR ALUMNAE

understanding of conflicts: Carolyn Brunelle ’07 their causes, dynamics and is a PhD Candidate in possible solutions. Focus Islamic law at the University on regions of conflict in of Pennsylvania. She the Middle East and Asia is currently in the early Pacific--most recently stages of a dissertation Syria and Egypt. She gives exploring medieval Zahiri the UN access to outside legal thought as a window expertise by commissioning onto a number of trends field research papers in modern Islamic legal for concise and incisive reform. She recently won policy options, bringing Penn’s Ezra Pound prize in wellesley.edu . subject-matter experts literary translation for a story she together for small conferences translated as part of her MA thesis Ameera Keval ’12 spent with senior and operational level in contemporary Arabic literature. the summer after graduating UN staff or arranging face-to-face She is happy to speak with any from Wellesley studying Arabic briefings for UN officials. Prior to Wellesley students or alumnae in Amman, Jordan. She also joining the SSRC, Parnian worked considering graduate school in traveled around the region with with the Afghanistan-Pakistan Middle Eastern studies, and can family and friends and then Regional Project at NYU’s Center be reached at bcarolyn@sas. moved to California and started on International Cooperation upenn.edu. graduate school at the Monterey in New York. She continues her Institute of International Studies. voluntarily engagement with Kacie Lyn Kocher ’09 has She is currently pursuing a Masters Seeds of Peace, which works been completing her MSc at the degree in Nonproliferation and with youth from the Middle East London School of Economics in a Terrorism Studies. At MIIS she and South Asia, and the Paula joint program of the International continues to study Arabic and Loyd Foundation, which provides Development and Economic expanding her knowledge of the scholarships for Afghan women. In History departments. She is MENA region. She also joined her this tough job market, her continuing her work with the NGO school’s softball team (The MIISfits) language skills (Arabic, Dari/Farsi, she founded in Istanbul, Canimiz and enjoys the beautiful California Hindi/Urdu), understanding of the Sokakta (roughly meaning, coast! history, politics, and cultures of ‘We’re alive on the streets’ in the regions, and writing skills have Turkish), which seeks to use mobile Dana Montalto ’09 is graduating been extremely helpful. Advice technologies to address problems this May from law school and to MES majors: focus on language of street harassment and other returning to Boston. After the bar and writing skills and travel to the forms of gender-based violence. exam this summer, she will be region as much as you can. Recently, she gave a TEDx talk clerking at the Massachusetts about her work, entitled ‘Silence federal district court. Colleen Purcell ’12 will be is a Choice’ in Istanbul. Unsure graduating from Brandeis of what’s next, she will complete Parnian Nazary ’10 has been University International Business her master’s degree in the fall working as a Program Associate School with a Masters of Arts in and is searching for opportunities with Conflict Prevention and International Economics and that integrate technology-based Peace Forum (CPPF) at the Social Finance. She will take the CFA on solutions within development Science Research Council (SSRC) June 1st and is pursuing jobs in programs. Kacie would be happy in New York, working with the Dubai at energy consulting firms. to talk with any alumnae or United Nations to strengthen its She plans to move to the UAE in current students: klkocher@alum. July.

8 Program in Middle Eastern Studies Seema Rathod ’05 finished her Christina Satkowski ’07 is master’s degree in Education completing her M.A. in Arab Policy and Management at the Studies at . Harvard Graduate School of In 2011, she began a year-long Education in December and will Fulbright research fellowship walk in graduation ceremonies this in Amman, Jordan, where she May. She is now a policy analyst studied professional development in the Office of Planning and networks among middle school Research at the Massachusetts teachers. She is now back in Department of Elementary and Washington, D.C., doing research Secondary Education. The piece for a book about the war in of news she is happiest to share is Afghanistan together with a that she had a son last year, who journalist. will turn 1 on May 29. She hopes to teach him some Arabic when he Alex Stark ’10 is currently is young and hopes that he will be completing a Master’s in fluent in the language some day. International Relations at the London School of Economics. She will begin a PhD in Government (sub-field International Relations) at Georgetown University next fall.

NEW FACULTY

Lamia Balafrej is currently completing her Ph.D. at the FULBRIGHT FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHING Université de Provence with a ASSISTANTS IN ARABIC dissertation entitled “Traces of the Painter: Form, Representation 2013-2014 and Agency in Late Timurid This coming fall Fulbright scholar Lana Nabil Qaddoura, from Jordan, Book Painting (ca. 1470-1500).” will be joining the Arabic/MES family. Ms. Qaddoura will be assisting Currently a Fellow at the with the teaching of Arabic, organizing the weekly Arabic Tables and Metropolitan Museum of Art, she also overseeing other Arabic student oriented cultural events. Ms. has held a pre-doctoral fellowship Qaddoura has taught secondary school in Jordan. at the Smithsonian Museum and has taught at , We take this opportunity to express our thanks to Huda Tallaq, our the University of Aix-Marseille and Fulbright Teaching Assistant in Arabic during 2012-2013. Ms. Tallaq, the Ecole Normale Supérieure who is from , has been a wonderful addition to our Program in in Paris. Lamia will offer courses Arabic. We offer her our best wishes for the future. in Islamic, Medieval, and trans- Mediterranean art as well as joining the ARTH 100 team.

Dan Zitnick is currently completing an MA in Teaching Arabic as a Foreign Language at the . He also holds an MA in Modern Middle East Studies. Dan will teach both Elementary and Advanced Arabic this Fall.

ANNUAL NEWSLETTER May 2013 9 WNEWS FROM OUR CURRENT STUDENTS The Middle Eastern Studies debates. Grace also worked Program congratulates the on a publication about Israeli/ following graduating Majors and Palestinian incitement to violence. Minors: She plans to stay in DC but is looking for a more permanent Grace Abuhamad ’13, Eden Bass position in research or policy ’13, Selema Beg ’13, Leila Chaieb focusing on the Middle East. ’13, Nisreen Dahod ’13, Marwah Maasarani ’13, Lois Taylor-Kamara Emily Bary ’14 is a rising senior ’13 (Majors). double majoring in Middle Eastern Misbah Aslam ’13, Jessica Studies and Political Science, who Beckhart ’13, Gayron Berman has enjoyed her coursework in ’13, Mary Elizabeth Kenefake ’13, Wellesley’s Middle Eastern Studies Shogher Talar Keskinyan ’13, Kim Program and likes observing Quarantello ’13, Ariel Robinson the overlaps between her two ’13, Samantha Spiga ’13 (Minors). majors and areas of interest. Last year, she began studying Arabic Grace Abuhamad ’13 and has just finished her fourth graduated a semester early and semester. She is interested in Mary Kenefake ’13 is a MES moved to Washington, DC to journalism and hopes to be able minor (History major). In March, work at The Washington Institute to apply her language skills and she traveled to Doha, to for Near East Policy in the Arab her study of politics in the Middle present original research written Politics program. At the think tank, East to an eventual career as a for HIST 334 (World Economic she focused on Syria, witnessing— reporter. Orders) about the economic up close—the frustrating policy history of . The conference was organized by the Middle Eastern Studies Students Association at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. In spring 2012 she studied abroad at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. She’s currently looking for jobs in the media and journalism field.

DONORS The Program in Middle Eastern Studies gratefully acknowledges the generous support it has received from Suzette Dauch ’58 and Jay R. Schochet of Newport, Rhode Island.

10 Program in Middle Eastern Studies