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News Harvard University THE CENTER FOR MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES NEWS HARVARD UNIVERSITY SPRING 2018 2 LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR A message from William Granara 5 NEWS AND NOTES Q&A with Houssem Chachia; updates from faculty, students, alumni, and visiting researchers; Ottoman cuisine, student profiles 26 EVENT HIGHLIGHTS Lectures, workshops, and conferences; Turkish-Ottoman women composers; Nasser Rabbat on Islamic architecture LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR SPRING 2018 HIGHLIGHTS GREETINGS AND SALAMAAT TO ALL THE MEMBERS OF OUR CMES FAMILY! This past spring has been once again a busy and highly successful season for CMES. Here at the Center we hosted our first CMES Tunisia Postdoctoral Fellow, Houssem al-Din Chachia, who specializes in post-1492 Mediterranean history, with an emphasis on minority communities and Arab, Jewish, and Christian relations. Houssem, who teaches in the Department of History at the University of Sfax (Tunisia), taught an Arabic seminar in the spring: “The Arab Maghreb from Colonial to Postcolonial.” We also had the great pleasure of hosting Salim Tamari, who returned for a second appointment as Shawwaf Visiting Professor. Salim taught two very popular classes, supervised AM theses, and delivered public lectures on campus and throughout the area during the semester. Nasser Rabbat, Aga Khan Professor and Director of the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at MIT, delivered this year’s H.A.R. Gibb Memorial Lectures in April. The lectures, featured in this newsletter, were among the most highly attended in the history of the series. Our symposia this spring included Growing Up in Contemporary Iraq, convened by Emeritus Professor Roger Owen and Weatherhead Fellow Muhamed Almaliky, MD; and Honoring the Life and Legacy of Professor Herbert C. Kelman, organized by CMES research associates Sara Roy and Lenore Martin. Our Sohbet-i Osmani series, created and directed by Cemal Kafadar, Vehbi Koç Professor of Turkish Studies, was highlighted in late April by a magnificent concert of music written by Turkish- Ottoman women composers. CMES Tunisia began the semester by hosting ten Harvard students for its three-week winter term program. In March, Professors Gülru Necipoğlu and Cemal Kafadar visited the Tunisia Office and delivered lectures on Ottoman and Tunisian intersections. Most significantly, CMES continued to fund research projects for an increasing number of students, many of them conducting fieldwork throughout the Middle East. The final product was a record- breaking number (eleven!) of excellent AM theses, based on research conducted abroad. —William Granara, CMES Director ON THE COVER: Dar Othman Dey, in the Medina of Tunis, by Sihem Lamine Q&A WITH HOUSSEM CHACHIA In 2017-18, Houssem Chachia in the Maghreb of displaced in general, and in Spain in conversion of coming and going was the inaugural recipient of Moriscos and Sephardim particular, evolved between members of the two minorities the CMES Tunisia Postdoctoral from 1492 to 1756. Second, it the second half of the fifteenth between the three religions of Fellowship, part of the CMES attempts to understand the century and the beginning the Mediterranean: Judaism, Tunisia Office and related dynamics of expulsion and the of the seventeenth century. Christianity, and Islam. In my programming made possible by settlement to problematize Moreover, to understand research, I problematize the the support of Harvard College the situation of the two the process of resettlement limitations of this settlement alumnus Hazem Ben-Gacem ’92. groups. I do so by analyzing and the reintegration of the and the possibility of talking The fellowship brings Tunisian the dynamics of expulsion, or two minorities in Maghreb about a solidarity between scholars, especially those whose how the thought of exclusion societies during this same the Sephardic and Moriscos research includes Tunisia and in the Iberian Peninsula period, I consider the religious minorities during the period North Africa, to Harvard for an academic year to pursue their research and teach a course in their area of specialization. What was your doctoral dissertation about? My research spans work on identity, cultural, historical, and minority studies. Chronologically, I focus on the sixteenth to eighteenth century. The title of my dissertation was “Sephardim and Moriscos: The Journey of the Expulsion and Installation in the Maghreb (1492–1756)—Different Stories and Itineraries.” In 2015, it was named by the Arab Center for Travel Literature: London–Abu Dhabi as the best research in the field of historical geography and travel narrative. The dissertation is in two parts: First, it examines the politics of expulsion and settlement SPRING 2018 | CMESNEWS 3 of expulsion and resettlement and the historical roots of Jawlah bayna h. ānāt al-Bah. r for many researchers, it is on the basis that they have such discourse to answer a al-Mutawassit. (A Tour through paradise. I can always find all the same Iberian origin, and fundamental question: Is the the Mediterranean Taverns), the books and articles I need. on expulsion as a milestone in Tunisian image of the West and Abdelwahed Braham, The system to request books their journey. negative or is it a combination of Isbāniyā h. ād. inat al-Andalus. is simple and fast, and you both hostility and admiration? In discussing these points and have access to many online What are your current reading the texts, students resources. I also appreciate research interests? What What course are you teaching examine different vocabularies, the wide range of lectures, project have you been spring term? What does it in various historical, conferences, symposiums, and working on this year? cover? geographical, cultural, political, workshops that the Harvard My research interests have This semester, I am teaching and sociological events from campus offers. I like the open recently evolved a little a seminar on the theme “The the seventeenth to the twenty- educational atmosphere, to include the East–West West in Tunisian Eyes: Through first century. and the discussions between encounter. Lately, I have the Travel Literature.” This researchers from all over become interested in course is for students at an How do you like working the world, who form a very understanding the relationship advanced level of Arabic and with Harvard students? rich community. One, of between the West and the it is conducted entirely in In general, I really enjoy course, cannot forget the Arabo-Muslim world (especially Arabic. The goal of the course teaching and students to me faculty, administration, and the Maghreb) in the modern is to examine the evolution are the fruits of academia. staff members at CMES, who era. Currently, I am working of Tunisian travel literature Harvard students, however, are always very friendly, on a monograph entitled “The and the relationship between are special in their curiosity ready to help, and willing to ‘Images’ of the West through Tunisia and the West. Thus, we and inquisitiveness. Although accommodate. I want to take Tunisian Eyes from the 17th are focusing on the image of we are studying a topic that is this opportunity to extend my to Early 20th Century.” This the West in Tunisian eyes and relatively new for most of them, sincere thanks and gratitude to project was inspired by the the extent to which Tunisian I feel that they go out of their them all. Thank you for making resurrection of the Tunisian reformers were influenced way to understand everything. I this cold city a very warm place identity that became prominent by the image of the West. We am very intrigued by the ethnic, and less overwhelming. after the Tunisian revolution are reading selected texts of linguistic, religious, cultural, (2011), both within the Tunisian Tunisian travel writers such and academic backgrounds of How have you enjoyed living elites and in social media. To as Ibn Abi Diyaf, Ithāf ’ahl students and how enriching in Cambridge? be more specific, I investigate az-zamān (The History of they are for the class discussion. I am from a small city in Tunisia the politics and the religious, the Rulers of Tunis and the called Beni Khalled, which is linguistic, geographical, Fundamental Pact), Ali Ben What do you like best about famous for its orange orchards. and cultural discourse of Salem Al-Wardeni, al-Rih. lah al- being at Harvard? I grew up in my family’s orange redefining Tunisia after Ben Andalūsīyah (The Andalusian As a research-oriented person orchard, so you can imagine Ali. In understanding today’s Journey), Muh. ammad al- by nature, from my first week how much I like nature. Due tense relationship between Miqdād Wartānī, al-Burnus fī at Harvard I fell in love with to this, I found Cambridge the Islamic and Western Bārīs: rih. lat¨ ilá Faransā wa- Widener Library. It is my a very beautiful place. I like worlds, one must revisit the Suwīsrā (The Journey to France favorite place at Harvard. how quiet and green the city East–West encounter discourse and Switzerland), Ali Douagi, And not only for me but is. I like its public parks. I 4 CMESNEWS | SPRING 2018 also like how organized the very well, because I can assure public transportation is. One them that the 10 months will thing that stands out about pass by very fast. Therefore, NEWS AND NOTES Cambridge, the city, is how it they should take advantage of FACULTY NEWS above all, he survived his sixth lends itself to a multicultural the library’s resources and the Rodrigo Adem, Visiting consecutive year of living apart diversity. This diversity is rich scholarly environment Lecturer on History, published from his beloved ones: his wife, reflected in its food, music, that Harvard offers them. “Ibn Taymiyya as Avicennan? Reem, and his beautiful cultures, and events. As such, Above all, I would like to say, Fourteenth-Century Cosmo- bi lingual daughter, Uswah.
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