THE CENTER FOR MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES, NEWS HARVARD UNIVERSITY

FALL 2014

1 LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR A message from William Granara

2 NEWS AND NOTES New faculty arrivals, student news, and a Q&A with Moneera Al-Ghadeer

7 UPCOMING EVENTS Director's Series lectures and two spring conferences

8 EVENT HIGHLIGHTS Lectures, workshops, and conferences from the spring and early fall LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR

EXPANDING OUR HORIZONS

2014 CONTINUES TO BE A BUSY YEAR AT CMES. Our Arab Transformation Working Group’s History and section, judiciously guided by Professor Emeritus Roger Owen, has held several talks on the current situation in the Middle East. Its Literature and Culture section convened a highly successful conference in April, Middle East Literature in Transition: New Frontiers in the 21st Century, which focused on literary and cultural production in the 21st-century Middle East. Scholars and students from nine universities and across the Harvard campus presented works from emerging writers, poets, and artists who exemplify the most exciting and innovative trends in Turkish, Hebrew, Persian, and Arabic literary culture. The fall semester began with a workshop, Arabic Sources in the Writing of Modern North African History, attended by students from the Departments of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and History and the Committee on the Study of Religion, as well as faculty from Harvard, Boston University, Holy Cross, Tufts, and Georgetown. Other early fall events included a panel discussion on Gaza and a lecture on sectarian divisions and the changing urban landscape of Baghdad by Radcliffe Visiting Scholar Harith Al-Qarawee. As we look forward, we seek to expand our horizons to include the Arabian Peninsula at the forefront of our academic and cultural programs. In November, through the generous support of the Radcliffe Foundation, CMES will host three Saudi Arabian scholars and writers for a symposium with Harvard faculty and students titled “Emerging Women Writers in the Arabian Peninsula.” In October, HE Jamal bin Huwaireb, Managing Director of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation, United Arab Emirates, delivered a lecture in Arabic on UAE’s role in supporting culture. Finally, through the generous support of CMES alumnus Dr. Mazen Jaidah, CMES will launch a new lecture series on Arabian Peninsula Studies, to start in spring 2015.

—William Granara, CMES Director

ON THE COVER: “Afternoon in the Ziz River Valley,” by Aizhan Shorman NEWS AND NOTES

FACULTY NEWS NEW FACULTY ARRIVALS CMES welcomes three faculty members to Harvard’s Middle PhD students Akif Yerlioglu East studies community this fall. Kristen Stilt has joined the Dalia Abo-Haggar and Deniz Turker faculty of the Harvard Law School (HLS) as Professor of Law, and is the new co-director of the Islamic Legal Studies Program. (The program’s other co-director, Professor Intisar Rabb, joined the HLS faculty this past spring.) Professor Stilt, a leading expert on Islamic law and society and a graduate of CMES’s History & Middle East Studies doctoral program, was most recently the Harry R. Horrow Professor in International Law at Northwestern University School of Law and Professor of History at Northwestern University. Moneera Al-Ghadeer is in residence at CMES this fall as the 2014 Shawwaf Visiting Professor of Meagan Froemming (AM ’10), and AM students Aya Majzoub Arabic, and is teaching two courses in the Department of Near and Jennifer Quigley-Jones Eastern Languages and Civilizations. Joining the Middle East language faculty for the 2014-15 CMES welcomed new and returning faculty, students, visiting academic year is Persian Preceptor Nicholas Boylston, who is researchers, and other members of the Harvard Middle East teaching intermediate and elementary Persian. studies community at our fall reception on September 23, 2014.

Q&A WITH MONEERA AL-GHADEER Moneera Al-Ghadeer is the and oral tradition. We Ibn Raddas. He traveled Fall 2014 Shawwaf Visiting spoke with her in October about throughout the desert for a Professor, and a participant in her work and teaching. decade and collected these the November 2014 workshop on poems, but that collection Saudi Women Writers organized Your first book, Desert Voices, remained excluded from by CMES Director William was on Bedouin women’s academic and cultural studies. Granara and Professor Malika poetry. What got you After I had looked at these Zeghal. Her research focuses on interested in that topic? poems, and began studying Arabic and African American The book is based on an earlier the dialect and understanding literatures, Francophone collection of poems called the implications—the aesthetic literature and postcolonial Sh’rat Min Al-Badiyah (Poets and also cultural and socio- studies, literary theory and from the Desert), that were historical significance—I translation studies, and Arabic collected by a poet named realized that I had found this (continued on next page)

FALL 2014 | CMESNEWS 2 NEWS AND NOTES treasure that needed to be this literary production: we English literature, and then STUDENT NEWS preserved and studied and know just glimpses about I started writing in Arabic, shared. In my study of this the different countries in experimenting with the form HARVARD MIDDLE work, I wanted to first of the Arabian peninsula. The of the short story. I was a EASTERN CULTURAL all elucidate some of the students are extremely literary editor at al-Riyadh ASSOCIATION misconceptions or beliefs fascinated by these authors, newspaper when I was an The Harvard GSAS Middle about the feminine oral and are really engaged in undergrad, and that connected Eastern Cultural Association genre, and show also how discussing them. me with the literary world, (HMECA) would like to the rhetorical force of My other course is and with language, and ignited extend gracious thanks to all Bedouin women’s poetry is “Invisible Societies in the my interest in creative writing those who helped make the not only in its vernacular Contemporary Arabic Novel.” and world literature. I met a Fall Book Sale such a success, diction, meter, rhyme, all For this class, which is taught number of writers, from Saudi from faculty donations and of the poetic traces and in Arabic, I experimented Arabia and elsewhere, and staff support to each and every schemes, but also is with social media. We created also all kinds of journalists patron who supported the sale. intertwined with very a hashtag for the course, and scholars coming from the A fortnightly film screening theoretical questions about , and the students U.S. and Europe. In graduate headlined the club’s cultural politics, gender, and language. post two tweets per week in school I continued to write events this semester, featuring Arabic using this hashtag. these experimental short the international hits A What are you teaching this Social media creates this stories at different intervals. Separation, The Gatekeepers, and fall at Harvard? amazing platform to reach out Working in academia took Caramel. Interdepartmental and I'm teaching two literature to different communities— me on another path. After interdisciplinary events were courses. The first, “The some of the authors we are being a professor I stopped also held in cooperation with the Racialized Other in the reading follow critics who writing in Arabic, and writing Divinity School and Graduate Arabian Peninsula Literature retweeted us, so they know fiction was put on hold. It’s School of Design, with more to and Culture,” is in translation. what we are reading. I’ve also very interesting, when I am come in the spring. Individual It's a way of introducing the had some of the authors in tweeting in Arabic I feel like HMECA members have also literature of the Arabian Skype conversations with the I am returning to a relation spearheaded the student peninsula, because we don't students, and they enjoyed with Arabic and poetic body’s engagement with the really have in the U.S. academy that immensely. language. I feel it’s that writer wider Harvard and Cambridge any courses that exclusively who stopped, I don’t know community: Elsien van Pinxteren focus on this part of the You have been a fiction how many years ago, who’s was a panelist and member of world. Usually I say we have writer yourself—how did writing. As a writer in Arabic the planning committee for these texts “smuggled in” to you come to that and to my sentence is succinct and Harvard Arab Weekend, Nora literature courses. There is a studying literature? highly poetic, so it fits well. It’s Lessersohn opened doors for surge of new writing in the My interest in literature as if I return to a younger me participation as an organizer Arabian peninsula, especially started early in languages. I through Twitter and through of the Boston Palestine Film from Saudi Arabia. It's really studied six or so languages returning to Arabic. Festival, and Andrew Watkins noticeable, and they are when I was young, and that presented a paper to the winning literary prizes. It's opened windows to the → Read the full interview at Middle East Beyond Borders cmes.hmdc.harvard.edu very important to look at outside world. I majored in graduate student workshop.

3 CMESNEWS | FALL 2014 CONGRATULATIONS 2013–14 GRADUATES

JOINT PHD PROGRAMS ■■ Yasmine F. Alsaleh (History & MES)—Dissertation: of Art and Architecture & “Political Literacy and MES)—Dissertation: “'Licit the Politics of Eloquence: Magic': The Touch And Sight Ottoman Scribal Community Of Islamic Talismanic Scrolls” in the Seventeenth Century” ■■ Sa'ed Adel Atshan (Anthropology & MES)— AM PROGRAM Dissertation: “Dignity and ■■ Nicole Abi-Esber ■■ CMES’s 2013–14 Graduates Dependency: The Politics of Youssef Ben Ismail International Aid Provision Thesis: “The Political in Palestinian Society” Rise of Ennahdha’s Women ■■ Jennifer Thea Gordon in Tunisia” (History & MES)— ■■ Edith Chen Dissertation: “Obeying ■■ Samah Choudhury Those in Authority: The ■■ Kathleen Gillen Hidden Political Message ■■ Yichen Guan in Exegesis” ■■ Anna Haleblian ■■ Asher Orkaby (History & ■■ Sarah Moawad MES)—Dissertation: “The ■■ Bandar Shawwaf International History of the ■■ Carl-Christian Sieben Sarah Moawad and ■■ Asher Orkaby (PhD ’14) Nicole Abi-Esber (AM ’14) Yemen Civil War, 1962–68” Stephanie Sobek ■■ Ekin Emine Tusalp (History ■■ Jason Wimberly

THE CATS OF CUNDA When CMES alumna Karen for its large population of feral A Harvard-affiliated summer by some of the field’s leaders Leal (’89, AM ’94, PhD ’03) cats. IOTSS co-founders Tekin language program might not and producing many alumni packed her bags for a and Gönül Hanım, Tekin's wife, seem like the most likely place who have gone on to notable summer at the Intensive both cat lovers, did their best to to adopt a cat. However, the careers. Leal is now the Ottoman Turkish Summer care for the animals even when IOTSS is not a typical institute. managing editor of Muqarnas: School (IOTSS) in 1998, her the school was not in session. Founded in 1996, the program An Annual on the Visual instructions from the school’s When it was, the students were focuses on Ottoman and Cultures of the Islamic World. co-founder, the late Harvard expected to pitch in. By the modern Turkish and Persian The island location and professor Şinasi Tekin, included end of the summer she spent language studies, as well as rigorous program fostered a “bring cat food.” The Turkish in Cunda, Leal had grown so paleography and 19th century strong sense of community. island where the school is attached that she brought three Ottoman texts. The program “There aren’t a lot of Otto- located, Cunda, is well known cats home to the United States. is intellectually intense, run manists,” explains Barbara (continued on next page)

FALL 2014 | CMESNEWS 4 NEWS AND NOTES

CMES NEWS A NOTE FROM CASA The Center for Arabic Study Abroad (CASA) stateside offices are now up and running at their new home at CMES. CASA is a year-long intensive advanced level Arabic program. Usually held in Cairo, the program was relocated to Jordan for the current

A few of Turkey’s famous cats academic year due to recent political events in Egypt. Nevenka Korica Sullivan, senior preceptor in Arabic in the Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilizations at Harvard, is the Petzen, a former doctoral caring for these animals is program’s Director, and Sarah Stoll, former CMES Administrative student on Cunda and now often a community effort. Coordinator, has been hired as the Program Coordinator. president of the Middle East “Informal neighborhood This academic year there are twenty-three CASA Fellows Outreach Council. “We are not networks to feed alley cats undergoing intensive language study (20 hours a week of a huge field, so being able to were and are a common classroom instruction) at the Qasid Institute in Amman. An make really strong personal phenomenon,” Professor additional component of the program, “CASA Without Borders,” connections in your microfield Kafadar explains, “but there gives students opportunities to practice what they learn in the is important. Being away from were also formal endowments classroom in the real world, and immerses them in Jordanian everything else, and helping made—in Ottoman Istanbul, culture and society. Each Fellow is paired with a volunteer or each other in this intense for instance—to regularly training opportunity related to their interests at a local NGO, experience, I think really feed certain quantities of ministry, national initiative, or governmental institution. Their bonded people together.” Caring liver to the cats of a particular work includes office management, business writing in Arabic, for the cats was an additional neighborhood, or a certain translation, coordinating activities and courses for orphans or bonding experience, and a amount of grain to the birds.” refugees, working on environmental activities, and organizing counterpoint to the academic Cats have also long been social events for the organizations. intensity. “When you’re working associated with scholarship in A new Harvard CASA website is in progress; at present, with Şinasi Tekin and Gönül Turkish culture, so a Harvard basic information and program updates can be found at http:// Hanım, who were the top institute caring for street strays projects.iq.harvard.edu/casa_at_harvard. Inquires may be people in the field, it’s a little is oddly appropriate. Since directed to Sarah Stoll at [email protected]. intimidating,” says Petzen. the Safavid period (16th to

Watching them with the cats, mid-18th centuries), cats have 2013–14 CASA Fellows however, was a different story: often appeared in paintings “They [became] entirely playful of scholars, and Leal says that and disarmed,” she recalls. they are often found in Turkish Cemal Kafadar, Vehbi bookshops, wandering among Koç Professor of Turkish the shelves, wayfarers in a sea Studies, notes that cats as of books. well as dogs have been a part of street life in many Turkish → Read—By the Sabrina full article Zearott at ’09 cmes.hmdc.harvard.edu cities for centuries, and that

5 CMESNEWS | FALL 2014 STAFF CHANGES ROOM 102 The summer and fall have RENOVATIONS brought several staffing changes Our event space got a facelift to CMES. Sarah Stoll, CMES’s this summer with a fresh long-term Administrative paint job and the removal of Coordinator, is pursuing the the partial wall and pocket next phase of her career here at doors that previously divided CMES in the position of CASA rooms 102 and 101. The Program Coordinator. With an newly unified room has extra MA in Arts Administration, over seating capacity—useful at ten years of previous non-profit several recent overflowing program management experi- events—and a lighter, more ence, and an intimate working spacious atmosphere. If you knowledge of all aspects of haven’t visited us yet this fall, CMES, Stoll was the ideal stop by to see the new look! candidate for the position. Michelle Monestime, Seating capacity CMES’s Financial Associate, increased by: has taken a well-deserved opportunity in her area of expertise to become the Room 102 is open to students Senior Sponsored Research 40% as study space between events Administrator in Harvard’s Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology. Also this summer we bid CMES RECEIVES 2014–2018 FLAS FUNDING farewell to our CMES Outreach CMES is very pleased to fields. CMES-awarded business, law, diplomacy, Program colleagues Sarah announce that we have been FLAS fellowships enable journalism, and academia. Meyrick and Anna Mudd, whose awarded a Title VI Foreign Harvard students from From teaching positions roles ended in conjunction with Language and Area Studies CMES’s graduate programs at the finest American the expiration of CMES’s 2010– (FLAS) grant from the U.S. and across the university universities to careers with 2014 Department of Education Department of Education to study advanced Arabic, the U.S. Department of State, Title VI National Resource for the 2014–2018 grant Hebrew, Persian, and Turkish the New York Times, and Center grant in August. Meyrick cycle. FLAS grants provide at Harvard and at approved McKinsey and Company, and Mudd have our sincere fellowship funding to enable summer study abroad CMES FLAS recipients are thanks for all of their dedication meritorious undergraduate programs. Past FLAS award distinguished professionals and hard work over the past and graduate students to winners from Harvard have who are contributing directly several years at CMES and best pursue advanced training in achieved extraordinary to increasing knowledge, wishes for the future on behalf modern foreign languages professional success in understanding, and expertise of everyone at CMES. and research in related the fields of international about the Middle East region.

FALL 2014 | CMESNEWS 6 → A complete list of upcoming events can be found at UPCOMING EVENTS cmes.hmdc.harvard.edu

CMES DIRECTOR’S SERIES From Arab “Spring” to Arab “Chaos”: Can Gulf States Stabilize NOV So far this fall the CMES Director’s 13 the Arab World? Amine Jaoui, Fellow, Weatherhead Center Series has featured talks by for International Affairs |4:00 –6:00PM­ Nicola Carpentieri (University of Manchester) on mental disorder Toward a Comparative History of the Modern Mediterranean NOV in the Arabic commentaries on the 20 Edmund (“Terry”) Burke III, Professor Emeritus of History Hippocratic aphorisms, and by and Founder (former Director), Center for World History, Tarek El-Ariss (University of University of California, Santa Cruz | 4:00–6:00PM­ Texas at Austin) on Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq’s critique of the Orientalism and the Apocalypse Mohammed Sharafuddin, DEC Enlightenment in 1850s England. 3 Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Sana’a Three lectures are still to come. University, Yemen | 12:00–2:00PM

SPRING CONFERENCES

The Thousand and One Nights: Sources, Transformations, and Relationship with Literature, APR Organized by CMES Director William Granara, Sandra Naddaff 16-17 the Arts, and the Sciences: (Harvard University), and Aboubakr Chraïbi (INALCO, Paris), this conference will explore the dense and fluid textual networks created by the Arabian Nights and its many translations, versions, and transformations. Four panels will cover: the manuscripts of the Nights and middle Arabic literature; Antoine Galland’s translation and the 18th century; the Nights, world literature, and the arts; and the Nights, the humanities, and the sciences. The conference is sponsored by the CMES Working Group on Middle Eastern Literatures and the Departments of Comparative Literature and Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, in conjunction with Centre de Recherche Moyen-Orient Méditérranée de l’INALCO (ANR MSFIMA : Les Mille et une nuits : Sources et Fonctions dans l’Islam Médiéval Arabe).

Iranian Cities from the Arab Conquest to the Early Modern Period: Organized by Professor Roy P. MAY Mottahedeh, this conference will consider the social and economic history of Iranian cities and their 1-2 hinterlands from the 7th to the 15th centuries (excluding the Safavid and Qajar periods), and including Persianate areas beyond the borders of modern-day Iran. Topics considered will include questions of arrangement such as the placement of symbols of authority and markets, systems of water distribution, rents and land ownership, the public space available to women, patterns of trade between cities, and inhabitants’ sense of “belonging” to their city or neighborhood. The conference and a subsequent publication will be funded by CMES’s new Neekeyfar Fund for Iranian Studies, which was made possible by a generous anonymous donation to the Center.

7 CMESNEWS | FALL 2014 EVENT HIGHLIGHTS

MARCH 2014 Formations of the Areligious: The Gezi Protests and Secularism, Islamism and Dissident Visions of Turkey: Alignments of Dissent after A roundtable discussion Gezi, Emrah Yildiz, Harvard sponsored by CMES, the University; Moderator: Cemal Political Anthropology Working Kafadar, Harvard University Group, and Jadaliyya. APRIL 2014 Esty G. Hayim Yousif Hanna (’16) The Politics of Knowledge “I have no mother tongue, Production Today: Pedagogy, only my adopted language Policy, and Real Time, Bassam is my home”: A talk by Israeli Haddad, George Mason author Esty G. Hayim, who University; Constructing teaches creative writing at Politics: Infrastructure and Seminar Hakibutzim College, Public Space in Istanbul, Israel. Sponsored by the Elizabeth Angell, Columbia Center for Jewish Studies and

University; Heterogeneous the CMES Working Group Parisa Hashemean, Sheida Dayani, Daniel Rafinejad, and Chad Kia Rootedness: Gezi as a Global on Middle East Literature in Event in Contemporary Transition. Turkish Literature, Ceyhun ■■ Panel I: Arabic Literature ■■ Panel II: New Directions in Arslan, Harvard University; Middle Eastern Literatures in in Exile: Chair: Sandra Israel Literature: Chair: Irit Engendering Biographies the 21st Century: A conference Naddaff, Harvard University; Aharony, Harvard University; & Bibliographies: Women’s organized by Professor William Benjamin Smith, Harvard Daniel Behar, Harvard Movement, Critical Media Granara and the CMES University: Writing Egypt University: Mourning & Practice, and Gezi, Cihan Tekay, Working Group on Middle East from the American Urban Dancing: Mordechai Galili’s CUNY-Graduate Center; Literature in Transition. Landscape; Simon Williams, Long Poems; Sadia Agsous, Oxford University: Budrus: INALCO, Paris, France: Sayed The Graphic Novel & Kashua, a Palestinian writing Narratives of Protest in Israel- in Hebrew; Golan Moskowitz, Palestine; Claudia Esposito, Brandeis University: Queer U Mass Boston: Exilic Voices Affect & the Israeli Graphic in Contemporary Italo- Narrative of the 21st Century; Maghrebi Literatures; Yousif Danielle Drori, NYU: Hanna, Harvard College: Pseudo-biblicism, Parody,

PhD student Emrah Yildiz Hail Mary: An Iraqi Novel and Prophecy in Klil Zisapel’s and its Novelist The Zionist Comedy

FALL 2014 | CMESNEWS 8 EVENT HIGHLIGHTS

■■ Panel III: Persian Literature Chair: Olga Davidson, Ilex Foundation; Chad Kia, Harvard University: A Woman’s Voice in Contemporary Afghan Fiction; Daniel Rafinejad, Harvard University: The Unusual Short Fiction of Mitra Eliyati; Johan Mathew (PhD ’12) Bernadette Baird-Zars Sheida Dayani, NYU: Of Poetry and Its Translation; Parisa Hashemean, GSD, Harvard: Keep Out All Your Logics: Poetry and Painting of Amin Mansouri ■■ Panel IV: Turkish Literature Chair: Himmet Taskomur,

Harvard University; caption Ceyhun Arslan, Harvard Wilfrid Rollman, Sahar Bazzaz, University: Exile in the and PhD student Dzavid Dzanic Adam Shatz Past: Literary Heritage in Selim İleri’s Mel’un; Efe Murat Balikçioğlu, lawz; Khaled Al-Masri, trading practices, and its place Writers or Missionaries? Harvard University: Heves: Swarthmore College: When within the world of the Indian Reporting the Middle East: Experimental Poetry in Men Become Wolves: Hassan Ocean centered on Mumbai, as The 2014 Hilda B. Silverman Turkey; Roberta Micallef, Blasim’s Poetics of Madness well as the larger world beyond. Memorial Lecture by Adam Boston University: The and Pain; Luke Leafgren, ■■ The Gulf Past: Johan Shatz, contributing editor at the Trauma of a Political Prisoner Harvard University: Muhsin Mathew, University of London Review of Books and vis- in the Family: The Yildiz Al-Ramli: Writing Iraq Massachusetts at Amherst; iting professor at the Kevorkian Family; Hacı Osman Gündüz, in the post-Saddam Era; Roger Owen, Harvard Center for Near Eastern Studies Tufts University: İhsan Sami Alkyam, Harvard University at New York University. Oktay Anar: The Ottoman College: The Rape of the ■■ The Gulf Present: Past and Magic Realism Female Body as Allegory Bernadette Baird-Zars, Sahra Shi’riyya (An Evening ■■ Panel V: Arabic Literature for the Rape of a Nation Alarife Urban Associates, of Poetry): Arabic recitations Post 9/11: Chair: Margaret Boston; Brian Tilley, Johns (with presentations in English) Litvin, Boston University; MAY 2014 Hopkins University by graduate and undergraduate Allison Blecker, Harvard The Gulf: Past, Present, and ■■ The Gulf Future: Michael Arabic language students, University: Almond Trees & Future: A discussion of the Herb, Georgia State sponsored by the CMES Olive Groves: Eco-nostalgia history of the “Khalig” (Gulf ) in University; Pascal Menoret, Working Group on Middle East in Sa’akunu bayna al- terms of its ruling families, its NYU, Abu Dhabi Literature in Transition.

9 CMESNEWS | FALL 2014 SERIES SPOTLIGHT MIDDLE EAST SEMINAR Mahmud Qabadu: Poet of ongoing conflicts in Syria and This seminar series, co-sponsored by CMES and the Weath- the Islamic Nahda in XIXth- Gaza and instability in Egypt. erhead Center for International Affairs (WCFIA), brings century Tunisia, Youssef The audience included students ambassadors, dignitaries, journalists and scholars to lecture Ben Ismail; Archaeological and scholars from across on topics in modern Middle East politics. Begun in 1975 by Poetics: Archiving Ottoman Harvard as well as members Edward Sheehan, a WCFIA Fellow and former diplomat and History in Ahmad Shawqi’s of the local community. journalist, the series has been chaired by Richard Clarke Works, Ceyhun Arslan; Badr Cabot Professor of Social Ethics Herbert Kelman since 1977. Shakir al-Sayyab: Breaking SEPTEMBER 2014 CMES research associates Lenore Martin and Sara Roy joined the Backbone of Poetry, Workshop: Arabic Sources Professor Kelman as co-chairs in 1996. The series’ Fall 2014 Daniel Behar; Ahmad Fuad for Modern North African line-up includes talks on Gaza, Syria, and Iran: Nagm: Political Poetry in the History: CMES Director ■■ Iran: Where Do We Go from Here?, September 4, 2014 Vernacular, Sarah Moawad; William Granara convened Gary Sick, Executive Director, Gulf 2000, Adjunct Professor Humanizing the Other: A a workshop in September in of International and Public Affairs, Senior Research Scholar, Reading in Mahmud Darwish’s which faculty and graduate Columbia University Poems, Yousif Hanna students discussed and ■■ Salafism in Lebanon: From Apoliticism to Transnational evaluated the Arabic sources Jihadism, September 18, 2014 | Robert Rabil, Professor of JULY & AUGUST 2014 used in their own work on Political Science, Florida Atlantic University Two Discussions with Roger modern North . ■■ Constructing a Narrative of Reconciliation: A Owen: A.J. Meyer Professor ■■ Faculty Participants: Personal Plea for Transformation of the Israeli- of Middle East History William Granara, Harvard Palestinian Conflict, October 9, 2014 | Herbert C. Kelman, Emeritus Roger Owen led two University; Malika Zeghal, Richard Clarke Cabot Professor of Social Ethics Emeritus, discussion-based talks over the Harvard University; Harvard University summer on current events in Osami Abi-Mershed, ■■ Working Across the Turkish border in Syria: Drinking the Middle East, including the Georgetown University; from the Humanitarian Fire Hose, October 23, 2014 Sahar Bazzaz, Holy Cross; Martha Myers, Country Director, Save The Children—Syria Wilfrid Rollman, Boston Response University; Hugh Roberts, ■■ Palestinian Strategy After Kerry and the War on Gaza: Tufts University A Way Forward, October 30, 2014 | Husam Zomlot, ■■ Student Participants: Executive Deputy, Fatah International Affairs Committee & Dzavid Dzanic, Dept. of Professor of Strategic Studies, Birzeit University History; Ari Schriber, NELC; ■■ Jordan and the Politics of National Narratives: Current Youssef Ben Ismail, NELC; Challenges in Historical Perspective, October 30, 2014 Greg Halaby, NELC; Mary Laurie Brand, Robert Grandford Wright Professor of Elston, NELC; Ceyhun International Relations, Professor of Middle East Studies, Arslan, NELC; Laura University of Southern California ■■ Roger Owen Thompson, Committee What about Gaza: The War that Both Sides Lost on the Study of Religion. November 20, 2014 | Yoram Peri, Abraham S. and Jack Kay Chair in Israel Studies, Director of the Joseph B. and Alma → Video of the poetry evening and Adam Shatz's Silverman Gildenhorn Institute for Israeli Studies, University of lecture is available at cmes.hmdc.harvard.edu Maryland, College Park

FALL 2014 | CMESNEWS 3 William Granara

Meagan Froemming (AM '10), Fatima Al-Banawi (HDS), Paul Fargues (CMES AM), and Greg Halaby (NELC PhD)

Sadia Agsous

AT A GLANCE

NEW FACULTY ARRIVALS Q&A WITH MONEERA AL-GHADEER 2013–2014 GRADUATES THE CATS OF CUNDA A NOTE FROM CASA ROOM 102 RENOVATIONS CMES RECEIVES FLAS FUNDING SPRING CONFERENCES: ARABIAN NIGHTS AND IRANIAN CITIES