THE CENTER FOR MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES NEWS HARVARD UNIVERSITY

SPRING 2019

2 LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR A message from William Granara

5 NEWS AND NOTES Remembering Roger Owen; updates from faculty, students, alumni, and visiting researchers; Mecca colloquium; new staff; student profile

24 EVENT HIGHLIGHTS Lectures and workshops; Nobel laureate Nadia Murad; Jocelyne Dakhlia on women in the early modern Maghrib LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR

SPRING 2019 HIGHLIGHTS

GREETINGS AND SALAMAAT TO ALL THE MEMBERS OF OUR CMES FAMILY! I write this letter on a sunny summer morning reflecting on CMES’s events over the past semester. As you will see in this abundantly rich and beautifully collated and edited newsletter, this past academic year has been bustling with wonderful people and activity. The spring semester began on a sad note with the passing in December of our beloved professor, mentor, advisor, colleague, and friend Roger Owen. CMES had the honor of hosting a memorial reception in February, which brought together members of Roger’s immediate and extended family, many of his former students, and colleagues and friends from across the globe. Although he has departed from us, his presence at CMES is felt every day. On a happier note, we welcomed back Jesse Howell (PhD ’17), who is now our new Academic Programs Manager and Associate Director of the CMES AM Program in Regional Studies. Jesse joins us with a doctorate in Ottoman history, first-hand experience with Harvard life, and several years of directing our Turkey winter term program for undergraduates. Among the highlights of this past spring were the H.A.R. Gibb lectures, this year delivered by eminent historian and prolific scholar Jocelyne Dakhlia, Director of Studies at the Center for Historical Research, Ecole des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris; and the colloquium Mecca: the Lived City, co-sponsored with the Graduate School of Design, which opened with a keynote address by our own Professor Rosie Bsheer. This year CMES Tunisia hosted a record fifteen Harvard students to its three-week winter term, and eight students joined our CMES winter term excusion in Istanbul. We also continued to fund research projects for an increasing number of students, many of whom conducted fieldwork throughout the Middle East. Above all, this spring we graduated our largest cohort of sixteen magnificent AM students and two joint PhD students. I conclude by sharing with you the news that I have been offered, and have accepted, a third three- year term as CMES Director. Since this upcoming year falls during my previously scheduled sabbatical leave, the Center will be directed by my very capable and esteemed colleague Cemal Kafadar, Vehbi Koç Professor of Turkish Studies, former Director of CMES, and current Director of Graduate Studies. With all my best wishes,

—William Granara, CMES Director

ON THE COVER: Roger Owen and Carol Ann Young ROGER OWEN, MY MENTOR AND MY FRIEND

It is impossible to sum up the As a graduate student was too big and would be very my dissertation, and fearful life of Professor Roger Owen in working on the history of difficult (I would like to think that being a new mother would a few paragraphs; even Roger Egypt and Sudan, I made my that both of them were right in mean no one would take me found it difficult to edit his life pilgrimage to Oxford to see their ways). When two years seriously anymore. I was not in his wonderful memoir. I will Roger and Albert Hourani later Roger joined the CMES looking to be molded—I was focus on being his student and and receive their wisdom on faculty, I worried that he would looking to be heard. And I then his friend, and how he my project. Albert enjoyed its not agree to be my advisor. I was looking for an intellectual taught me how to pass forward potential but Roger told me was also hugely pregnant with colleague to provide a home for his special brand of mentoring. in no uncertain terms that it my first son, already writing historical ideas, as my husband Photo: Kris Snibbe/Harvard University Kris Snibbe/Harvard Photo:

SPRING 2019 | CMESNEWS 3 With Ursula Owen With Susan Miller, William Graham, Thomas Mullens, and Roy P. Mottahedeh

With Edward Said With Rami Khouri and I moved far from Harvard make room for the birth of my became a ritual, and because he fusal to sleep at night, I finished for his first academic job. baby and life with a newborn. was so regular in commenting my dissertation and graduated Roger got this. In September, This was in 1994, when email and so helpful with his insights, from Harvard in May 1995. we created a chapter ­schedule was but a dream. I would send I got used to being regular in Roger got to know my so that I would be able to Roger a chapter and he would completing my chapters. Under husband and both of my graduate that May. We created a send it back, with his com- the steadiness of this relation- children, visited us, let us stay workable, realizable schedule to ments, within two weeks. This ship and despite my son’s re- with him when we came to

4 CMESNEWS | SPRING 2019 NEWS AND NOTES FACULTY NEWS students in Dececember 2018. In fall 2018, Irit Aharony, The activity allowed both Senior Preceptor in Modern designers and participants to Hebrew, and NELC teaching interact with the language in assistant Osnat Aharoni led a ways that greatly differ from program-wide project regular class time. Results were designing a Hanukkah-themed presented at the Harvard Escape Room in Modern ABCD-TIE forum in April 2019. Hebrew. In this educational Rosie Bsheer, Assistant With Khaled Fahmy, Mona Makram-Ebeid, and William Granara activity, students have one hour Professor of History, gave the to decipher puzzles, unveil talk “Countering Revolution: clues, and ultimately unlock a Saudi Arabia and the Arab Cambridge, and read drafts of or writing, or sending us books box holding the answer to the Uprisings” as part of “Teach-In my second book as well. We for comfort. Losing Roger this escape room’s major challenge. on Current Events in the Arab have a lovely memory of Roger, past December was a punch The game teaches critical World: Return to Business as singing us a song and dancing a in my gut. I miss my friend’s thinking and complex problem Usual after the Uprisings?” jig in the middle of Philadelphia voice and I always will. solving. Language study in organized by Georgetown to make the boys giggle. I have Finally, Roger taught me particular lends itself to this University and George Mason memories of Ben and Belle that one’s students are future creative learning tool, because University, November 2018. when they were little as well. colleagues, and the investment it allows one to test all four She gave the talk “Yemen’s My older son is turning 25 in their work is an investment language proficiencies. In the Forgotten Wars” in February this year. It’s a benchmark of in what can be an amazing innovative semester-long 2019 at Brown University. In so much life being lived, and and unique alliance. He was project, funded by the Harvard April, she presented the paper a signpost of my relationship so proud of the people his Foreign Language Advisory “Building the Past: The Politics to my teacher. We were never students were and who they Group and the Center for of Modernity in Saudi Arabia” not in touch, we always talked, became as scholars. He gave Jewish Studies, the third-year at Harvard’s Middle East we sometimes argued, and that to me, and I feel the Advanced class created an Beyond Borders workshop, and we built, year by year, a lovely same way about mine. Just activity in Hebrew targeted for participated in a panel friendship. As Roger got older like Roger taught, there must the lingual level of the discussion at MIT with Harvey and so bravely dealt with his de- always be a writing schedule. second-year Intermediate Molotch and Davide Ponzini, generative illness, he taught me I will not forget that as course. The Highly Advanced co-authors of The New Arab the particular grace of aging. I forge ahead on a project— Seminar course tested the Urban: Gulf Cities of Wealth, He respected the wisdom that the first ever without Roger activity, which was held in the Ambition, and Distress, and comes from illness, and when there to read it. Because, as Bok Center Learning Lab, and other discussants. In May she my husband was diagnosed he always said in ending a provided feedback that was gave the keynote “Mecca: From with the cancer that ended his conversation: “Onwards!” used to tweak the activity Revolution to Redevelopment” life, Roger was always calling, —Eve Troutt Powell, PhD ’95 before its final presentation to at the Mecca: The Lived City

SPRING 2019 | CMESNEWS 5 NEWS AND NOTES

Preceptor in Modern Turkish, was awarded a Certificate of Teaching Excellence for fall 2018. She published two short stories in Turkish in October 2018 and March 2019: “A Bicycle Made in Germany” (Yeni E) and “Yellow Heat: Vienna” (Ek). Gareth Doherty has been promoted to Associate Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Graduate School of Design. With CMES Director William Granara, he organized the colloquium Mecca: The Lived City in May 2019. Kristin Fabbe published Disciples of the State? Religion and State-Building in the Former Ottoman World (Cambridge

Sheida Dayani at the Mahindra Humanities Center University Press, 2019). With Efe Murat Balikcioglu, she wrote the chapter “Political colloquium organized by CMES World Politics,” Review of Faith and at the World Muslim Islam in Turkey,” in Alpaslan Director William Granara and and International Relations 17:1 Leaders Forum, Lambeth Özerdem and Matthew Whiting Gareth Doherty, GSD. Jocelyne (2019), and “Unexpected Palace, London, both in (eds.), The Routledge Handbook Cesari, J. Dermot Dunphy Convergences: Religious December 2018. Sheida Dayani, of Turkish Studies (Routledge, Visiting Professor of Religion, Nationalism in Israel and Preceptor in Persian, gave the forthcoming 2019); with Violence, and Peacebuilding at Turkey,” Religions 9.11 (2018). talk “Juggling Revolutionaries: Matthew Franklin Cancian, the HDS, published What Is She gave the talk “International Making History with Theatre in article “Informal Institutions Political Islam? (Lynne Rienner Policies and the Rights of Modern Iran” at the Mahindra and Survey Research in the Publishers, 2018), which Women,” at the International Humanities Center in October Kurdistan Region of Iraq,” received the 2019 Book Award Workshop on Women, Faith and 2018. This spring, the paper she Special Issue on Peer-reviewed Honorable Mention by the Culture, Italian Minister of gave at Symposia Iranica in St. Symposium, ed. Mark Tessler, Religion and International Foreign Affairs, Rome, in Andrew’s received an Honor- PS: Political Science & Politics Relations Section of the November 2018, and she gave able Mention by the conference. (forthcoming); with Chad International Studies Associa- keynote lectures at the She also organized and hosted Hazlett, and Tolga Sınmaz- tion. She published “Civilization Interreligious and Interfaith the NELC Poetry Night in April, demir, “A Persuasive Peace: as Disciplinization and the Summit, United Nation representing 16 languages in Syrian Refugees’ Attitudes Consequences for Religion and Development Program, Beirut, poetry. Meryem Demir, towards Compromise and Civil

6 CMESNEWS | SPRING 2019 Foreign Policy,” on the panel new Journal in Islamic Law, Human Rights and Hybrid created a podcast series for Regimes for the Inauguration of Islamic law on the SHARIA- the Sakıp Sabancı Center for source Portal (beta. Turkish Studies, Columbia shariasource.com), and University, May 2018; “Turkey launched new Islamic law and the Gulf: The New scholarship roundups on the Dynamic,” on the panel SHARIAsource Blog Rethinking Statecraft: Perspec- (shariasource.blog). She hosted tives from Emerging Market NBA basketball legend Democracies, International Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf for a Political Science Association fireside chat as the keynote Biannual Meeting, Brisbane, event for the 2019 Sports Law Australia, July 2018; “The Conference at Harvard Law Turkish Electorate and School at a session on Sports, Turkish–EU Relations: A Civil Rights, and the First Looming Crisis,” with Ersin Amendment. She published War Termination,” Journal of Bevilacqua, The Republic of Kalaycıoğlu, on the panel Public “The Appellate Rule of Lenity,” Peace Research 56.1 (January Arabic Letters: Islam and the Opinion and Foreign Policy, 131 Harvard L. Rev. F. (2018), 2019); and with Tolga Sınmaz- European Enlightenment American Political Science and “Digital Islamic Law: demir, “Syrian Refugees in (Harvard University Press, Association Annual Meeting, Purpose and Prospects” (with Turkey and the Politics of Post 2018), in The European Legacy, Boston, September 2018; Sharon Tai), 49 Int’l J. Mid. E. Conflict Reconciliation,” Review Journal of ISSEI, Tel Aviv “Analyzing a Tumultuous Studs. (2018). She presented the of Middle East Studies 52.2 (forthcoming 2019). He Relationship: Turkey and the paper “Judicial Independence (November 2018). She was delivered the radio podcast US in the Middle East,” Middle and Discretion as Institutional named a Hellman Faculty “ ‘Ein Gott, der sich selbst zur East Studies Association, San Dialog in Early Islamic Law” at Fellow at Harvard Business Barmherzigkeit verpflichtet’: Antonio, Texas, November 2018; the Middle East Legal Studies School this year, and, with Matt Sura 6 Vers 12” in “Koran and “Analyzing the State of Seminar hosted by Yale Law Buehler, she received a Faculty Erklärt,” Deutschlandfunk, Academic Studies of Turkish School in Tunis, Tunisia, in Research Grant from the March 2018. He was elected to Foreign Policy,” on the panel January 2019, and presented Middle East Initiative at membership in the American Studying Turkey’s Foreign “Comments on Sharī‘a Scripts” Harvard Kennedy School for Philosophical Society in April Policy: Old Habits or New as a panelist on a recent their research project “Moroc- 2018 and formally inducted in Paths? at the International publication by Brinkley Messick can Attitudes towards Migrants: Philadelphia in November. ­Studies Association Meeting, at Columbia University in New A National Level Survey.” Lenore G. Martin, CMES Toronto, March 2019. Intisar York, in December 2018. William Graham, Murray A. Associate and Professor in the Rabb, Professor of Law, HLS, Together with other faculty Albertson Professor of Middle Department of Political Science became the Faculty Director of who signed the open letter in Eastern Studies and Distin- and International Studies, the new Program in Islamic the New York Times, “The guished Service Professor Emmanuel College, gave the Law (formerly the Islamic Legal Senate Should Not Confirm Emeritus, reviewed Alexander talks “The Challenge of Turkish Studies Program), launched the Kavanaugh,” she received (continued on page 12)

SPRING 2019 | CMESNEWS 7 NEWS AND NOTES

REFLECTING ON THE MANY FACES OF MECCA, THE LIVED CITY

“Mecca is lived, experienced, demographic shifts, naturally subjective, but most City as a place to coexist and and documented differently by environmental crises, and pilgrims expect to attain a exchange ideas. The turbulence different people,” began Rosie technological revolutions. At shared bond that cuts across of the nineteenth and early Bsheer, Assistant Professor of the same time, reinventing class and national divisions. twentieth centuries made History at Harvard and author Mecca as a global space Nation building, the expansion Mecca an especially attractive of the forthcoming “Archive raises urgent concerns over of global capitalism, and destination for innovative Wars: Spectacle, Speculation, the commercialization of urbanization have undercut scholars and disruptive and the Politics of History in Islam’s most sacred spaces. the idealized vision of Hajj by thinkers. Saudi Arabia,” in her keynote Macro-solutions promise to communalism and stratifying In a separate lecture, address to the colloquium raise Mecca’s profile on the the experience of Hajj. Though Yale University’s Tyler Kynn Mecca: The Lived City, hosted world stage and ameliorate pilgrim management and elaborated on the transnational by the Center for Middle overcrowding and urban shrine maintenance has always linkages that converged in Eastern Studies in May. sprawl. Simultaneously, they represented a source of revenue Mecca in the late Ottoman Mecca is characterized threaten to sweep aside the to Mecca’s managers, the period by exploring data by plurality. In two days hybrid communities and introduction of modern notions extracted from pilgrim of lectures, speakers drew local history that define the surrounding optimization narratives written on journeys on academic, professional, character of Mecca. Balancing seeks to maximize revenue and to the Holy City. Supplemented and personal experiences local concerns with the impetus pilgrim volume at all costs— with an exploration of Ottoman to explore disparate visions to remake the city in a global including the historic Holy City. administrative records, Kynn of Mecca. The city’s social, mold takes on tremendous Mecca acquired a reputation explored the ways in which architectural, environmental, urgency in Mecca for its for cosmopolitanism as settled pilgrims contributed and political transformation significance as a pilgrimage a crossroads for Muslim to the reproduction of Mecca in the modern era reflects destination, the birthplace of intellectuals and pilgrims, as a cosmopolitan urban space changes taking place across Islam, and the site of a local many of whom chose to settle in which diverse populations the Arabian Peninsula. Yet, the history found nowhere else. there after visiting. United by a could live side by side. Scholarly particularities of modernity Each year, some fifteen common desire to reside close discourse abounded among the in the Holy City interact with million Muslims travel to to the center of the Islamic jurists and preachers who made its unique heritage to yield the Holy City as pilgrims, faith and drawn to the dynamic Mecca and its surrounding unexpected challenges for with several million arriving atmosphere of the shrine city, environs their home, and architects of modern Mecca. during the days of Hajj pilgrims from all corners of the the pilgrimage served as a The city’s physical alone. Hajj is meant to offer Muslim community regularly crossroads where intellectuals reinvention as a global a communal experience that elected to remain and build from far-flung corners of the metropolis accompanies flattens social stratification new lives for themselves in Islamic community could meet less visible revolutions in and erases boundaries the shadow of the birthplace and debate their perspectives. its spiritual character. The between believers, leaving only of Islam. Bsheer recounted Successive stewards of patterns of change in Mecca shared faith and collective the paths through which the Holy City projected their reflect global trends—the devotion to God. Individual intellectuals, activists, and legitimacy and mastery over growth of state bureaucracies, experiences of worship are rebels all converged on the Holy the city by overhauling its

8 CMESNEWS | SPRING 2019 Tyler Kynn, Hussam Dakkak, Omer Shah, William Granara, Ali Almajnooni, Drew Wensley, Rosie Bsheer, Gareth Doherty physical environs. Donating city in their early twentieth urban congestion, large-scale Meccan alley as a form of funds allowed rulers to endow century conquest of much of construction projects also “architectural vernacular” that foundations and sponsor the Arabian Peninsula. New have the effect of erasing the flattened social stratification building projects in the infrastructure allowed the prevailing architecture that and concentrated daily life in a Holy City that left their own Saud family to construct a gave the city its character. tight, shared space. Sprawling distinctive mark on its features. newly homogenous Mecca The diversity that became across the Holy City’s territory, The contemporary Saudi state comprising gleaming, uniform embedded in Mecca’s identity the Meccan alley was capable is no exception, devoting vast structures instead of the stood increasingly at odds of containing all aspects of resources to remaking the city patchwork, winding alleys with the imperatives of daily life. Although nearly in its own image. Modern urban that characterized historic centralized state management. incomprehensible to the overhaul in Mecca began in Mecca. Intended to address the Ali Almajnooni of SUNY outsider, its residents were earnest after the Saud family challenges of crowd control, Binghampton focused on conversant in its arrangements. achieved control over the pilgrim management, and the architectural form of the By contrast, the modern form of

SPRING 2019 | CMESNEWS 9 NEWS AND NOTES

Rosie Bsheer grid organization that typifies Mecca’s residents to social made asserting central optimized management over global megacities—and the sorting on an unprecedented governance all the more urgent. preservationist impulses. The Saud family’s reconstruction scale. The modernization of the Saudi effort to remake Mecca in the project—neatly and inexorably Erecting a centralized state led central administrators image of global megacities like assigns inhabitants places state apparatus in the Arabian to become increasingly New York, London, and Hong according to socioeconomic Peninsula subjected Mecca involved in the daily lives of Kong looms equally large in the status and professional to similar centralizing and Meccan subjects through the official mandate to remake the function. Premium spaces are homogenizing influences. The impersonal mechanism of city as the Saud family seeks to clustered, drawing together hybrid identities of Mecca’s bureaucratic management. establish Mecca as the heart of wealthy residents while cosmopolitan heritage clashed Practical imperatives the global Islamic community confining the remainder to with the vision of a unified reinforced the Saud family’s in a modern sense as well as a their own delineated zones. Saudi identity. The new state incentives for remaking spiritual one. By the late 1960s, Projecting the impression of needed to project unity and Mecca in the twentieth demolition initiatives had organization and efficiency, the unquestioned sovereignty century. Increasing numbers cleared away historic buildings grid system accomplishes its at home in order to acquire of pilgrims, facilitated by to make way for modern roads work by violently disrupting legitimacy on the world revolutions in transportation and residential structures. the prevailing system of social stage. State deputies needed technology, triggered feverish Most recently, the construction organization. Residents find to render Arabian Peninsula governmental initiatives to of the Abraj al-Bait complex themselves isolated from one communities, including Mecca, overhaul Mecca’s roads and has positioned structures that another, and cross-sectional legible to their system of transit systems. Preserving the tower over the Grand Mosque contact becomes increasingly management in order to claim city’s famed rugged environs and the Ka’aba. limited. Like the ritual of them as their own. Collecting was and remains a vital concern The tower complex and the pilgrimage, modern urban revenue generated in the city for architects of the new Mecca, hotels it contains purport to transformation subjects and regulating its residents but state initiatives prioritize address the overcrowding that

10 CMESNEWS | SPRING 2019 plague the pilgrimage season. Managing the growing The solutions offered for is. The architectural styles that As ever-increasing numbers of crowds transiting the Holy Mecca’s challenges remold the typify global megacities—glass pilgrims travel to the Holy City City each year facilitated city in its entirety. Although towers, concrete edifices, and each year, crowd management a shift in the way Saudi they reduce overcrowding and neighborhoods segregated by and hospitality services authorities view Mecca. As foster an image of Mecca as function—exert a homogenizing demand more resources and Columbia University’s Omer a gleaming, modern edifice, influence on Mecca by dedicated attention from Shah explored during his changes packaged as solu- sweeping aside its historical Mecca’s managers and the fieldwork at a startup near tions exert a proportionately diversity. The alleyways and Saud family. The incentives Mecca, the drive toward destructive influence on the hybrid communities of the for reshaping ­Meccan optimization grips Mecca’s city’s heritage. Viewing Mecca old Mecca become a problem infrastructure to streamline managers and influences the as a visitation site in need of to be solved in the eyes of the experience of Hajj—­ way they approach the city. efficient management centers administrators tasked with maximizing revenue, ensuring As the Kingdom seeks to its status as a shrine, but ig- ensuring the safe passage of the pilgrim safety, and promoting diversify its sources of revenue nores the rich community that city’s millions of annual visitors. Saud family prestige—are clear. by looking to develop areas grew out of the city’s historic In the name of optimization, However, the particulars of of economic activity other intellectual and commercial social and physical structures the modernization strategy than the production of oil, prominence. For those who call that are not immediately raise justified concerns that Mecca presents itself as a site Mecca home, viewing the city intelligible to bureaucratic the experience of pilgrimage for building expertise and primarily as a shrine leaves no management must be broken is becoming commercialized. testing systems for the efficient room for the everyday lives they down to make way for more Competitively priced hotel management of pilgrims. In have built for themselves there. efficient replacements. rooms and luxury package deals this way, the Holy City, its Eradicating the traditional in Some of this process is offer wealthy pilgrims a curated inhabitants, and its visitors the name of optimization rep- unavoidable. Mecca is no experience that sets them apart represent a human resource resents a threat to the organic stranger to change, and the from their poorer counterparts, to complement the natural patterns of life that animate the overhaul it has experienced enforcing the class segregation resources that enriched the Holy City as a community. in the modern era echoes its that Hajj is meant to erase. Saud family. Mecca is caught at a historical transmutations even The tower complex stands Mecca has been a tool for crossroads, torn between as it remakes the city to an as an inescapable physical generating revenue since its alternative futures. Urban unprecedentedly pervasive symbol of Mecca’s modern earliest days. Control over its development carries degree. The colloquium Mecca: transformation. Pilgrims cannot shrines allowed for the ex- tremendous promise in its The Lived City demonstrated help but throw their attention traction of access and mainte- ability to solve the problems that the scholarly community to the glittering superstructure nance fees, in addition to the of overcrowding and high- is adroitly working to explicate as they circle the Ka’aba in prestige accorded its stewards. volume pilgrim traffic. At the the complexities of Mecca’s its shadow. The Saudi state is The optimization imperative same time, top-down solutions encounter with modernity. ever-present in the ritual of reframes that revenue gener- centering on large-scale Continued study will shed pilgrimage, as is its vision for ating capacity latent within construction projects are highly light on the many Meccas that a Saudi Arabia and a Mecca Mecca as a potentially infinite disruptive to the communities make up the contemporary that is modern, globalized, and resource, constantly in need of and environmental features Holy City. optimized. maximization. that make the Holy City what it —Nicholas Norberg, AM ’19

SPRING 2019 | CMESNEWS 11 NEWS AND NOTES

Harvard Law School’s Women’s was one of two international and a review of Yuka Kadoi, ed., Director of the Animal Law and Law Association’s Shatter the chairs at the CIHA Colloquium Arthur Upham Pope and a New Policy Program and Faculty Ceiling Award for Excellence in in Japan, Toward the Future: Survey of Persian Art, Studies in Director of the Program on Law Promoting Gender Equity. Museums and Art History in Persian Cultural History vol. 10 and Society in the Muslim David J. Roxburgh, Prince East Asia, held at the Tokyo (Brill, 2016), in Bulletin of the World. She is working on a book Awaleed Bin Talal Professor of National Museum. Since its School of Oriental and African project about animal welfare Islamic Art History, returned publication, An Album of Artists’ Studies 81.2 (2018). Roxburgh is debates in the international from sabbatical leave to his role Drawings from Qajar Iran, ed. currently working on several halal industry, entitled “Halal as Chair of the Department of Roxburgh (Harvard Art articles and his long-term book Animals,” to be published by the History of Art and Architec- Museums, distributed by Yale project on artistic and literary Oxford University Press. ture. Since late spring 2018, University Press, 2017), was life in early 15th century Herat. Related to the book project, she Roxburgh co-chaired a recognized with several awards, The Arabic edition of CMES gave the talks “The Unfulfilled conference—with Jeffrey with the third given by the New Associate Sara Roy’s book The Promise of Halal” at the Hamburger and Linda Safran— England Museum Association, Gaza Strip: The Political University of California, Santa at Dumbarton Oaks, Washing- First Place (Exhibition Economy of De-development was Barbara, the University of ton, DC, on the diagram Catalogues 2018). An exhibition published in December 2018 by Illinois School of Law, McGill paradigm in Islamic, Byzantine, featuring works from the the Institute for Palestine Law School, and Harvard Law and Western Medieval permanent collection of the Studies. She also published School. Also part of the book manuscripts, and delivered Worcester Art Museum ran articles or reviews in: Post­ project, she presented the invited lectures. These included from October 2018 through colonial Studies, London Review chapter “Debates about Death” “Illustrating Epic Poetry and January 2019. Titled Preserved of Books, The Nation, and the at a workshop on the bureau- History in Persian Manuscripts Pages: Book as Art in Persia and Journal of Islamic Studies. She cratization of Islam in Southeast from the Mongols to the India, c. 1300–1800, the gave lectures at the Carolina Asia at Harvard Law School. Timurids,” Master Series exhibition was co-curated by Center for the Study of the She gave the talk “Animals and sponsored by ABBVIE and Roxburgh and Harvard Middle East and Muslim the Environment in Compara- WGBH Forum Network, graduate student Hannah Civilizations, University of tive Constitutional Law” at a Worcester Art Museum, Hyden and accompanied by a North Carolina, Chapel Hill; conference at the University of Worcester, Massachusetts, and small catalogue, Preserved Mediterranean Dialogues: Texas School of Law. She “Islamic Art as a Research Pages: Book as Art in Persia and Beyond Turmoil, A Positive presented the paper “The End Model for Doing Global Art His- India, c. 1300–1800 (Worcester Agenda, Rome, Italy; and of the Ritual Bubble,” about tory,” at the International Art Art Museum, 2018). Other Whitney and Betty MacMillan ritual slaughter in US law, at Education Conference, Central publications came to press in Center for International and Harvard Law School. Recent Academy of Fine Art, Beijing. In 2018: “Emulation in the Arts of Area Studies and the PIER publications include the November 2018, he moderated the Book: Baysunghur’s Two Summer Institute for Educators chapters “Animals” and “Hisba/ panels at the CIHA (Comité Kalīla wa Dimna Manuscripts,” program “Religious Literacy: Muhtasib” in the Oxford International d’Histoire de in The Arts of Iran in Istanbul Teaching on Religions of Africa Handbook of Islamic Law. She l’Art) Colloquium Art, Design, and Anatolia, ed. Olga Davidson and the Middle East,” Yale continues to co-convene the and Society hosted by the and Marianna Shreve Simpson University. Kristen Stilt, Middle East Beyond Borders National Museum Institute, (Harvard University Press and Professor of Law at Harvard graduate student workshop New Delhi. In March 2019, he the ILEX Foundation, 2018); Law School, is also Faculty with Malika Zeghal. •

12 CMESNEWS | SPRING 2019 AT THE CENTER JESSE HOWELL RETURNS TO CMES

In spring 2019 Jesse Howell Harvard–Sabancı University (PhD ’17) returned to CMES as Summer School program in our new Academic Programs Istanbul. Manager, with responsibilities Our community will for managing CMES’s AM and benefit from Jesse’s scholarly PhD programs, our Visiting background; he earned his PhD Researcher program, and our under the supervision of Cemal alumni outreach. As part of Kafadar, Vehbi Koç Professor of his role, Jesse will serve as Turkish Studies, he has studied Associate Director of our AM in history and Mediterranean Regional Studies program. languages (Modern Turkish Jesse has an extensive and Italian) at the University background in Middle Eastern of California, Berkeley, and he studies and his will be a received a BA and Graduate familiar name to many of you. Certificate in Theater Arts from He received his PhD from the University of California, our joint history and Middle Santa Cruz. Most recently, Jesse Eastern studies program in was a postdoctoral fellow at the 2017 with his dissertation Mahindra Humanities Center “The Ragusa Road: Mobility at Harvard, where his research and Encounter in the Ottoman continued to expand upon his Balkans (1430–1700).” He dissertation work exploring developed and served as the multi-faceted dynamics excursion leader for CMES’s of human mobility across the undergraduate winter term Balkan Peninsula. He has also excursion in Turkey in 2016, served as a Lecturer in History in English and Croatian. In look for ways to enhance their 2017, and 2019. Participants at Soka University of America. addition to his impressive understanding of their research of this acclaimed program Jesse is the author research credentials, our AM results. Jesse is an advanced combined academic studies of numerous academic and PhD students will greatly speaker of Italian, French, and with cultural immersion during publications, including the benefit from Jesse’s experience Modern Turkish and reads their three-week sessions “Balkan Caravans: Dubrovnik’s in teaching, fellowship proposal Ottoman Turkish. as they traveled throughout Overland Networks in the development, and academic Please join us in warmly Turkey, with a focus on Istanbul Ottoman Era” chapter in presentations. His expertise welcoming Jesse Howell to his and the Aegean coast. In 2014 Lazaretto in Dubrovnik in the digital humanities and new role at CMES. and 2015, Jesse also served as (2018), ed. Ante Milošević, GIS visualization tools will be —Lauren Montague, Program Coordinator for the simultaneously published helpful to our students as they CMES Executive Director

SPRING 2019 | CMESNEWS 13 NEWS AND NOTES

STUDENT NEWS the delegation met with politi- the DPhil in Politics programme Arabia’s Moment in the Sun,” cal leadership, the opposition, at the University of Oxford in for the Carnegie ­Endowment. AM STUDENTS civil society, and the Armed the fall of 2019. In the coming Oula Alrifai’s film, ­Tomorrow’s Forces to discuss topics such as academic year he will also PHD STUDENTS Children, was screened at Pakistan’s role vis-à-vis Iran and be an Adam Smith Fellow at Caroline Kahlenberg pub- Harvard in April 2019 thanks Saudi Arabia, its impact on Af- the Mercatus Center, and a lished the article “The Star of to the Middle East Initiative at ghanistan, Pakistan’s economy, Humane ­Studies Fellow at the David in a Cedar Tree: Jewish Harvard Kennedy School and and the situation of the Shi’a Institute for Humane Studies Students and Zionism at the CMES. She was interviewed and other religious minorities. in Washington, DC. Oliver American University of Beirut about the film by ­Montgomery With the support of CMES, contributed a chapter, “Govern­ (1908–1948)” in Middle Eastern Community Media (www. Oliver­ McPherson-Smith­ ment Incentives and Settler Studies in February 2018. The mymcmedia.org/­syrian- travelled to Saudi Arabia in Mortality in Colonial Algeria,” research for the article was asylees-produce-child-refugee- January 2019 to conduct field- to a forthcoming edited volume supported by CMES summer documentary/). Fridtjof work for his master’s thesis. that will published by the funding. Keye Tersmette re- Lyse Falk received funding During this time he was a Mercatus Center. With Juergen ceived CMES summer funding from CMES to join a Harvard visiting fellow at the King Faisal Braunstein, a postdoctoral and a year-long grant from the Kennedy School delegation to Center for Research and Islamic fellow at ­Harvard Kennedy Weatherhead Research Cluster Pakistan in March 2019. Visiting Studies in Riyadh. ­Oliver will School’s Belfer Center, Oliver on Comparative Inequality and Lahore, Islamabad, and Karachi, continue his research by joining co-authored an op-ed, “Saudi Inclusion.

Oula Alrifai in Armenia Oliver McPherson-Smith,Fridtjof Lyse Falk inOula Pakistan Alrifai

14 CMESNEWS | SPRING 2019 CONGRATULATIONS 2019 AM AND PHD GRADUATES! ■■ Colleen Hegarty ■■ Suzie Lahoud—Thesis: AM PROGRAM Morocco and Jordan.” à-vis Iran: How the European “Khomeini’s Philosopher ■■ Hamad Al-Hajri Advisor: Tarek Masoud Union Became Beholden to King: Examining the ■■ Oula Alrifai—Thesis: ■■ Timothy Bauler the United States’ Iran Policy.” Philosophical Origins of “The Self-Flagellation ■■ Joshua Dean—Thesis: Advisor: Payam Mohseni Vilāyat-i Faqīh.” Advisor: of a Nation: Assad, Iran, “From Oslo to Taba: Was a ■■ Mariam Ghanem—Thesis: Khaled El-Rouayheb and Regime Survival in Resolution of the Israeli– “So You Think You’re ■■ Oliver McPherson- Syria.” Advisor: Nicholas Palestinian Conflict Ever Empowering Women? A Smith—Thesis: Institutional Boylston Truly within Reach?” Critique of NGOs through Change and Continuity in ■■ Amna Al-Thani—Thesis: Advisor: Sara Roy Ethnographies of Female the Era of Mohammad bin “Women’s Head Covering in ■■ Tara Dhaliwal—Thesis: Breadwinners in Urban Salman: A Case Study of Islam and Judaism.” Advisor: “Javanmardi-e Fetyān: Cairo.” Advisor: Steve Caton the Solar Power Industry Afsaneh Najmabadi Spiritual Chivalry in Early ■■ Amber Glavine—Thesis: in Saudi Arabia.” Advisors: ■■ Sahar Amarir—Thesis: Modern Iran.” Advisor: “Homosexuality and Same- Kristin Fabbe and Meghan “Minorities and the State: Sheida Dayani Sex Union in Islam: An O’Sullivan A Comparative Study of ■■ Fridtjof Lyse Falk—Thesis: Analysis of Contemporary ■■ Nicholas Norberg—Thesis: Variations in Levels of “The Americanization of Debates.” Advisor: Nicholas “Constitutionalism in Internal Dissidence within European Foreign Policy vis- Boylston Modern Iraq, 1839–1958.” Advisor: Phillip Walker ■■ Grace O’Brien (AB/AM) ■■ Ellen Stockert ■■ Steven Wickman

JOINT PHD PROGRAMS ■■ Efe Balikcioglu— Dissertation: “A Coherence of Incoherences: Graeco- Arabic Philosophy and the Fifteenth-Century Ottoman Synthesis of Philosophy with Sharia.” Chair/advisor: Cemal Kafadar ■■ Han Hsien Liew— Dissertation: “Piety, Knowledge, and Rulership in Medieval Islam: Ibn al-Jawzī’s Ameliorative

William Granara with 2019 CMES AM and PhD graduates Politics.” Chair/advisor: Roy P. Mottahedeh

SPRING 2019 | CMESNEWS 15 NEWS AND NOTES COMMENCEMENT RECEPTION 2019

Ali Alibhai, William Granara, Han Hsien Liew

Sarah Stoll, Efe Balikcioglu Badriyyah Alsabah, Ellen Stockert

Jesse Howell, Phillip Walker

William Granara, Han Hsien Liew, and guests Ellen Stockert, Nicholas Norberg, and guests

16 CMESNEWS | SPRING 2019 Amber Glavine, Suzie Lahoud Sheida Dayani, Fridtjof Falk, Mariam Ghanem, Tara Dhaliwal, Badriyyah Alsabah, Oula Alrifai, William Granara

Khaled El-Rouayheb and guest

Mariam Ghanem and guests Afaf Mougou, Oula Alrifai, and guests

SPRING 2019 | CMESNEWS 17 NEWS AND NOTES

STUDENT PROFILE: SULTAN ALTHARI What do you like best about studying at Harvard? Sultan Althari is a first-year student in the require a potent response rooted in a The passion at Harvard has to be my AM in Middle Eastern Studies program. comprehensive and nuanced understanding favorite aspect of studying here—passion of the Middle East and its rich history. I is evident in faculty and students alike, How did you become interested in was impelled to join the CMES program and I think that passion is at times passed Middle Eastern studies? precisely to gain such knowledge and on from faculty to students. Additionally, My interest was driven initially by a insight. and more specifically, I’m an enormous fan passion to create a positive change in the of the environment at CMES—the Center Middle East. Although challenges such as What are your research interests? feels like one big family with a strong sense sectarianism, inequality, conflict, and youth My research interests have certainly of community. I’d be remiss to not mention unemployment exist on a global scale, I evolved over the past few years—this the master’s program itself, which gives always wondered why they’re especially evolution is best described as an evolution students the flexibility to cross-register pronounced in the Middle East, and what I in the lens through which I study the into various Schools within Harvard (HKS, can do to change that reality. Thus, I sought Middle East. In terms of subject matter, HLS, GSD), affording us the opportunity to deepen my knowledge of the region, its my research is focused on public policy, to broaden our perspectives and research history, current challenges, and potential political philosophy and the socio- interests. solutions. How can I create a positive, economic development of the Middle everlasting impact on Saudi public policy East. I initially approached these topics What do you like best about living in for generations to come? How can I help through a theoretical academic lens, which Cambridge? lead the Middle East more broadly in its deepened my appreciation for the richness Definitely the diversity; people in transition towards a knowledge-based and complexity of the region. Slightly Cambridge come from all over the globe, economy? How can I empower youth in frustrated with the theoretical confines, and everyone has a unique story to tell and the region with tangible solutions and I sought to analyze these topics from a ambition to fulfill. That, and the delicious substantial opportunities? It is questions policy-oriented lens. I believe pursuing food options. like these that shaped my interest in the best of both worlds will equip me with pursuing a higher degree in Middle the intellectual and professional arsenal What kinds of extracurriculars have you Eastern studies. needed to address the region’s pressing pursued at Harvard? challenges more effectively. Consumed by As a proud Saudi, I took it upon myself Why did you choose CMES? this balance between theory and practice, to establish Harvard’s first official Saudi With a highly diverse and passionate I wrote my senior thesis at Boston College Student Association, a University-wide array of students, and the flexibility about the correlation between Saudi youth group dedicated to increasing cultural to tailor a plan of study unique to my empowerment and national development. awareness about Saudi youth and the individual goals, CMES seemed like the To study this relationship, I employed both Kingdom more broadly. I believe that this perfect fit to pursue a master’s degree. The quantitative and qualitative methods in association—through workshops, public Center provided me with an unparalleled which one thousand Saudis were surveyed, lectures, student/faculty discussion opportunity to channel my passion into thereby revealing statistically significant groups, social gatherings, and cultural indispensable skills I can use to propel differences between perceptions according awareness events—will fill a gap on my career, and hopefully policy-making in to survey variables (gender, age group, campus. An organized and inclusive the region. The challenges in the region employment sector). community for Saudi students on campus

18 CMESNEWS | SPRING 2019 is, I think, a great asset to the University and I’m proud to have taken initiative as its founder.

What are your plans after finishing your degree? In the future, I plan to work in the Saudi public sector, and in the Kingdom’s emerging non-profit sector with organizations such as the MiSK foundation. I aim to transfer the values and skills I gain at Harvard to my future career, with the hope of empowering Saudi youth. With over 65 percent of the Saudi population under the age of 30, I believe youth represent the country’s most valuable asset. One of my aims is to help create an environment infused with ambition, creativity, and dynamism for young Saudis to thrive and prosper. My hope is that the experience and education I acquire from Harvard’s CMES program will assist me in fulfilling that role, and pave the road for Saudi youth who look to positively impact policies for generations to come.

What advice would you offer a prospective student? I would advise prospective students to take advantage of the opportunity to cross-register in different Schools within Harvard, and to not be afraid to step outside of their comfort zones. CMES makes it easy to do so, as it encourages students to test their boundaries within the inclusive and supportive framework it provides. For incoming students, I would advise them to simply relax, and try their best to embrace the uncertainty that comes with being a graduate student.

SPRING 2019 | CMESNEWS 19 NEWS AND NOTES

ALUMNI NEWS Revolution: The Green Uprisings, the UK about climate change. will be out later this year Hassan Damluji’s (’08) AM ALUMNI from Cambridge University first book, The Responsible Zena Agha (’17) is the US Policy Press. Hannah-Louise Clark Globalist, will be published by Fellow for Al-Shabaka, The (’03) presented her research Penguin in September 2019. Palestinian Policy Network, a “Algeria’s Other Doctors: Jewish Richard A. Johnson’s (’05) transnational think tank based Lives and Livelihoods in the latest publication, “Canoeing in New York. In addition to History of Medicine in Algeria” with Thoreau,” appears in the publishing numerous briefs on at the Association for Jewish Spring 2019 issue of The New a range of issues from aerial Studies Annual Conference in Quarterly. He recently moved photography to climate change, Boston in December 2018. In to Victoria, British Columbia, Zena’s writing has appeared in January 2019 she was appointed with his wife and their toddling Foreign Affairs and Mondoweiss. lecturer in Global Economic and son, where he’s an associate She has been featured several Social History at the University with a public-engagement times on Voice of America of Glasgow. She is piloting consulting firm that facilitates and has spoken at various fora a series of “Global History community involvement in including Columbia University, Hackathons”—Scotland’s policymaking and city planning. the Foundation for Middle first history hackathons—in Mona Ali Khalil (’88) continues In 2018, she published several East Peace, and on Capitol Hill. which students make global her efforts to uphold the rule opinion pieces including one Zena also writes fiction and stories from Glasgow’s heritage of law and human rights in about robust UN peacekeeping poetry and has performed at collections and come up with international relations through operations in the ICRC Northeastern University and fresh, creative ways to make MAK LAW and through her Humanitarian Law and the People’s Forum in New this past useable and accessible affiliation with the Harvard Policy Blog and about how to York. She has been working to people in places touched by Law School Program on overcome the veto in the face on a book project at the Asian these stories; she is keen to talk International Law and Armed of mass atrocities in Opinio American Writers Workshop to everyone about hacking. Ben Conflict. In the past year, she Juris. Scott Liddle (’12) was where she is a Margins Cuddon (’08) published the has assisted the outgoing High Regional Director for the Fellow. Pouya Alimagham novel Tehrangeles, set in and Commissioner for Human Middle East and Afghanistan (’09) is lecturer of Middle about the Iranian community in Rights to report serious for the Turquoise Mountain East history at MIT’s history Los Angeles. He is British and violations of international Trust, a British charity working department. In the spring of after graduating from Harvard humanitarian and human in heritage preservation and 2019, Alimagham received the had a one-year work visa to stay rights law in Myanmar, Syria, economic development. After Levitan Teaching Award in the in the US. He moved to LA for and Yemen as well in Israel three years in Kabul, last year School of Humanities, Arts, and a year to research the book and and Palestine. She has also he launched a new project Social Sciences. The award is finally finished it last year. Any contributed to Yazidi and for the NGO, working with the result of student-initiated royalties from the sale of the Darfur women’s efforts to Syrian artisans and refugee process in which students book are being used to support promote criminal accountability communities in Jordan. He write letters in support of their a nonprofit he set up called for those responsible for recently returned to London nomination. His forthcoming Climate Ed (www.climateed. genocide and sexual violence to take a new job with the book, Contesting the Iranian net) which teaches children in in Iraq and Sudan respectively. British government working

20 CMESNEWS | SPRING 2019 on Brexit negotiations. Aaron of 1948. The articles in the PHD ALUMNI last been published: Enlight- Magid (’15) published the special issue emerged from the Arbella Bet-Shlimon’s (’12) ening Europe on Islam and the article “Jordan Can’t Keep Up fifth annual New Directions in new book, City of Black Gold, Ottomans: Mouradgea d’Ohsson Its Double Game” in Foreign Palestinian Studies workshop, is now available from Stan- and His Masterpiece (Brill, Policy (August 2018). The Arab which he co-organized with ford University Press. She 2019). Mouradgea d’Ohsson’s Center Washingon DC think Beshara Doumani, and which will be promoted to Associate Tableau général de l’Empire tank invited Aaron to speak on was convened at Brown Professor with tenure at the othoman offered the Enlight- a panel about the summer 2018 University in March 2018. He University of Washington enment Republic of ­Letters Jordanian protests. Al-Jazeera also co-organized the sixth in September 2019. Alireza its most authoritative work on TV invited him to speak on the annual NDPS workshop, Doostdar’s (’12) book The Islam and the Ottomans, also Jordanian protests. He now “Palestinian Homes and Iranian Metaphysicals won a practical reference work for works as an Iraq analyst for Houses: Subjectivities and the Albert Hourani Book kings and statesmen. Profusely Tesla Government. George Materialities,” held at Brown Award from MESA. Aykan illustrated and opening deep Somi (’12) graduated with a JD in March 2019. He co- Erdemir (’04) was appointed insights into illustrated book from Brooklyn Law School in edited with Roberto Mazza in November 2018 as one of the production in this period, this May. Caroline Williams (’65) a special issue of Jerusalem eight members of the Anti-­ is also the century’s richest col- and her husband have moved Quarterly (Autumn 2018) on Defamation League’s Task lection of visual documentation from Williamsburg, Virginia, to policing, imprisonment, and Force on Middle East Minori- on the Ottomans. Shaped by the Baltimore. It was an eviscerating securitization in Palestine. John ties and spoke at the task force’s author’s personal ­struggles, the affair, but many of the things Zavage (’13), an Army colonel, inaugural event, “Vulnerable work yet commands recog- they collected in Egypt over recently completed a year in Minorities, Illiberal Ideologies nition in its own totality as a a sixty year period are now Saudi Arabia as the Senior and Governments,” held at the monument to intercultural at the Aga Khan Museum in Defense Official and Defense Brookings Institution. In April understanding. In form one of Toronto, the Oriental Museum Attache for the US Diplomatic 2019, he published “Scapegoats the great taxonomic works of in Durham, England, the Mission to Yemen, which had of Wrath, Subjects of Benev- Enlightenment thought, this is American Research Center evacuated from Yemen to olence: Turkey’s Minorities a work of advocacy in the cause in Egypt office in Alexandria, Saudi Arabia in 2015. John’s Under Erdoğan,” in Current of reform and amity among Virginia, the Special Collections year on the Yemen Mission Trends in Islamist Ideology, and France, Sweden, and the Ot- at the College of William saw improvement in the US– discussed the transformation of toman Empire. Richard Foltz and Mary, and the Aga Khan Yemeni military and diplomatic demographics, technology, and (’96) is Professor in the Depart- Documentation Center at relationship. Following that, governance in Turkey at the ment of Religions and Cultures, MIT. Alex Winder (’09) John took an assignment as the Hoover Institution’s Stanford Concordia University, Mon- co-authored with Beshara Foreign Area Officer Chair at University panel “The ­Middle tréal. He has published a new Doumani an introduction, the Naval Postgraduate School East in an Emerging World.” book, A History of the Tajiks: titled “1948 and Its Shadows,” in Monterey, California, where Carter V. Findley (’69) is Iranians of the East, the first to a special issue of the Journal he serves on NPS’s National Humanities Distinguished Pro- book on this subject to be pub- of Palestine Studies (Autumn Security Affairs faculty. John is fessor Emeritus at Ohio State lished in any Western language. 2018) focused on the politics of currently teaching a graduate- University. He is delighted to Rustam Shukurov of Moscow commemoration seven decades level course in US government inform Harvard’s CMES com- State University calls the book after the Palestinian Nakba Security Sector Assistance. munity that his new book has at “an outstanding achievement.”

SPRING 2019 | CMESNEWS 21 NEWS AND NOTES

Program. Zahra N. Jamal (’08) December 2018 and received served as a delegate to the G-20 the Central Square Theater’s Interfaith Summit in Argentina, Inaugural Legacy Award in faculty at Global Encounters April 2019 in Cambridge. David Kenya, and as a panelist for Lesch (’91, AM ’86) published the US Department of Justice two books in 2019: The Arab– Community Relations Service’s Israeli Conflict: A History Securing Houses of Worship (Oxford) and Syria: A Modern and curriculum reviewer for History (Polity Press). He is their Engaging American Mus- currently the Ewing Halsell lim training for civic leaders. Distinguished Professor of She published a chapter in The History at Trinity University Meaning of My Neighbor’s Faith: in San Antonio, Texas. Han Interreligious Reflections on Hsien Liew (’18) defended his Immigration (Fortress Aca- dissertation, “Piety, Knowledge, demic, 2018), and pieces in the and Rulership in Medieval New York Times, The Hill, and Islam: Ibn al-Jawzī’s Amelio- In conjunction with the book’s eries of medieval Christian sites LeadersIn; delivered keynote rative Politics,” and obtained publication, Foltz lectured at a in southern Kazakhstan, which addresses at MD Anderson his PhD in History and Middle number of European universi- demonstrate a much greater Cancer Center, Houston’s City Eastern Studies in November ties throughout May, including presence of Christianity along Hall, Junior League of Dallas, 2018. He will begin teaching as Naples, London, Cambridge, the Silk Road than was previ- Developments in Literacy Gala, an Assistant Professor of Arts Oxford, Exeter, and Moscow. ously thought. Jesse Howell and HEB Diversity Summit; and Humanities at the Minerva Foltz has also published an (’17) returned to Cambridge and won the Hudspeth Award Schools at Keck Graduate English translation of Jean last fall as a postdoctoral fellow and DIL Excellence Award. Institute in fall 2019. Paul J. Kellens’ critical survey of at the Mahindra Humanities She addressed hate crimes and Magnarella (’71) now serves as Avestan studies in the West, Center. He gave papers at promoted the contributions of Adjunct Professor of Law at the entitled The Fourth Incarnation the Mediterranean Seminar religious minorities to America University of Florida College of Zarathushtra. Kellens held conference “Margins of the through programs and local, of Law. Avi Rubin (’06), is the Chair of Indo-Iranian at Mediterranean” and at the AHA state, and federal policies via Associate Professor and Chair, the Collège de France until his annual meeting. In addition, her work with the Boniuk Department of Middle East retirement. In June Foltz will he contributed a chapter to a Institute, Muslim Jewish Studies, at Ben-Gurion Univer- lecture at Nazarbayev Univer- collected volume on the Lazaret Advisory Council, Houston sity of the Negev. He published sity in Astana, Kazakhstan, after (quarantine facility) of Du- Coalition Against Hate, and Ottoman Rule of Law and the which he will present a paper brovnik (Croatia), published by others. Philip S. Khoury (’80) Modern Political Trial: The at the 6th Salzburg Conference the Institute for the Restoration remains Associate Provost and Yildiz Case (Syracuse, 2018); he on Nestorian Christianity in of Dubrovnik. As of April 2019, Ford Inter­national Professor published “Was There a Rule of Almaty. The conference is Jesse is back at CMES as Aca- of History at MIT. He joined Law in the Ottoman Empire?” dedicated to presenting and demic Programs Manager and the Board of Trustees of British Journal of Middle East- discussing exciting new discov- Associate Director of the AM Underwriters Laboratories in ern Studies (2018). •

22 CMESNEWS | SPRING 2019 VISITING Workshop in November. He par- coming) with Dandan Zhang. Model?” for the CMES/WCFIA RESEARCHER NEWS ticipated in a range of seminars, He publish the articles “Outside Middle East Seminar Series in forums, and workshops outside Powers’ Military Deployment January 2019; “China’s Seaport Visiting Postdoctoral Fellow CMES, including Middle East in the Eastern Africa: Postures Diplomacy in the ­Middle East: Ohannes Kilicdagi published Science, Religion, and Culture and Implications,” Journal of Implications to the US,” at the “From Failed Recovery to Mu- and Religion and the Practice Contemporary International Re- panel discussion “China and tation: Armenian Women and of Peace at HDS; the Program lations 45.12 (December 2018), the Middle East in the 21st Community in Post-­Genocide in Islamic Law at HLS; and the with Zhiqiang Zou; “Pains and Century”, at CMES in April; and Turkey” in Diaspora 20:2 Middle East Initiative, Inter- Dreams on the Silk Road,” The “Hard Forces for Soft Targets: (Spring 2019). He presented a national Security Program, and Cairo Review of Global Affairs China’s ‘Prudent Power’ and the paper at the conference “Bor- ­Project on Managing the Atom 31 (December 2018); “NATO Legitimization of Its Military ders, Identities, and Refugees: at Belfer Center for Science and vs. SCO: A Comparative Study Base in Djibouti,” at the 34th The Kurdish Experience in International Affairs at HKS. of Outside Powers’ Military Annual Middle Eastern History the Middle East International Visiting Fellow Carol Solomon Presence in Central Asia and the and Theory Conference at Conference,” organized by contributed the essay “Post- Gulf,” Asian Journal of Middle the University of Chicago, in the Kurdish Political Studies memory and the Disappeared” Eastern and Islamic Studies May. Visiting Scholar Özgün Program in Orlando; gave the to the exhibition catalogue De 12.4 (December 2018), with Yoldaşlar gave the presen- talk “Subjects or Citizens? Liens et et d’Exils (Brussels: Hend Elmahly; and “Functional tation “Reading the Ottoman Christians and Jews from the Boghossian Foundation—Villa ­Alliance: The New Posture of Religio-Legal Dynamics of the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish Empain, 2018) and published the Middle East Alliance Politics Seventeenth Century through a Republic,” at Bates College; “Recuperating the Past: Mem- since the ‘Arab Spring,’ ” Journal Religious Debate: Minkarizade and a talk on a similar topic, ory, Postmemory, and the Visual of World Economics and Politics Yahya’s Rebuttal to Kürd Molla’s “Burning Pot Society: Turkish Archive in the Works of Wiame Forum 34.2 (March 2019), with Commentary” at the 15th Great Model of Minority Politics,” at Haddad,” in Enquête d’archives/ Shuai Zhang. He gave the talk Lakes Ottomanist Workshop, the Islamic Civilizations and In Search of Archives: Contem- “China’s Participation in Middle at the University of Vermont Societies Program of Boston porary Approaches to the Past East Security Affairs: A New in April. • College, all in March 2019. He (Archive Books, forthcoming). presented the paper “Time and She gave the talk “The Disap- Space Problematics in Studying peared, the Silenced, and the Genocides: The Armenian Case” Invisible: Art and the Transfor- at a conference in Thessa- mation of Society in Morocco,” loniki in May. Visiting Fellow at CMES in March 2019. Visiting Mansour ­Salsabili presented a Scholar Degang Sun published dissertation chapter titled “Re- The Middle Eastern Develop- ligiosity and Violence: Secular ment Report, 2017–2018 (Beijing: Educational Innovations and World Affairs, 2019), ed. with Traditional Establishments’ Zhongmin Liu; Marriage Responses prior to the Iranian without License: The Origins of

Constitutional Revolution” at Quasi-alliance Diplomacy in the Degang Sun the Middle East Beyond Borders Middle East (Gerlach, forth-

SPRING 2019 | CMESNEWS 23 EVENT HIGHLIGHTS

JANUARY 2018 with Afşin Yurdakul, Robert The Written Word under Long Fellow, Nieman Pressure: Namık Kemal (1840– Foundation for Journalism, 1888) and the Beginnings of Harvard; News Anchor Modern Turkish Prose. A and correspondent for talk with Emrah Pelvanoglu, Habertürk News Network, Department of Turkish Lan- Turkey. Co-sponsored with guage and Literature Teaching, the Weatherhead Center Yeditepe University, Istanbul. for International Affairs.

Michael R. Fischbach China’s Participation in Memorial Service for Middle East Security Affairs: Professor Roger Owen. A A New Model? A talk with memorial service honoring Degang Sun, Visiting Scholar, the life of E. Roger Owen, CMES, Professor and Deputy A.J. Meyer Professor of Director, Middle East Institute, Middle Eastern History Shanghai International Studies Emeritus, at the Memorial University. Discussant Bruce Church, followed by a Rutherford, Associate Professor reception at CMES. of Political Science, Colgate Uni- versity, and Visiting Research Ambiguity and Notation: Fellow, Middle East Initiative, Jewish Law and Legal BCSIA, HKS. Co-sponsored­ Pluralism. A talk in the with the Weatherhead Center Harvard Law and Religion for International Affairs. Lecture Series with Adam B. Afşin Yurdakul, Lenore Martin Seligman, Professor of Religion FEBRUARY 2019 and Research Associate at the Black Power and Palestine: Institute on Culture, Religion, MARCH 2019 Relations Department, Kadir Transnational Countries of and World Affairs, Boston Just Don’t Know What to Has University, Istanbul. Co- Color. A talk with Michael R. University. Co-sponsored Do with Turkish–American sponsored with the Özyeğin Fischbach, Professor of History, with the Committee on the Relations. A talk with Soli Forum on Modern Turkey, Randolph-Macon College. Study of Religion, the Julis- Özel, Tom and Andi Bernstein Minda de Gunzburg Center Rabinowitz Program on Jewish Human Rights Fellow, Schell for European Studies; Middle Covering the Syrian Refugee and Israeli Law at HLS, and the Center, Yale Law School; East Initiative, BCSIA, HKS; Crisis: Analyzing from a Program on Law and Society Lecturer, Political Science and the Weatherhead Center Turkish Perspective. A talk in the Muslim World at HLS. Department and International for International Affairs.

24 CMESNEWS | SPRING 2019 Rethinking Recruited Children: Body Politics of the Devshirme System in the Ottoman Empire. A talk with Gulay Yilmaz, Visiting Fellow, CMES; Associate Professor of Ottoman History, Department of History, Akdeniz University.

The Transformation of Saudi Arabia and the Geopolitics of the Middle East. A talk with Bernard Haykel, Professor of Near Eastern Studies and Director of the Institute for Transregional Studies Christina Maranci, Marie-Aude Baronian, David Zakarian, Sylvia Alajaji, William Granara and the Program in Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University. Co-sponsored with the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.

The Disappeared, the Silenced, and the Invisible: Art and the Transformation of Society in Morocco. A talk with Carol Solomon,

Visiting Scholar, CMES. Gulay Yilmaz Carol Solomon Roy P. Mottahedeh

City and Countryside as Understood in Medieval Order in Turmoil: US Ambassador to Saudi Armenian studies presented Arabic–Persian Dictionaries. Kaleidoscopic Change in Arabia. Co-sponsored with by the Hrant Dink Memorial An Alwaleed Bin Talal Seminar the Middle East. A talk with the Weatherhead Center CMES Fund and featuring in Islamic Studies presentation Ambassador Chas Freeman, for International Affairs. Christina Maranci, Tufts by Roy P. Mottahedeh, Senior Fellow, Watson University; David Zakarian, Gurney Research Professor Institute for International Ahead of Time: Exploring the Oxford University; Marie-Aude of History, Harvard. Co- and Public Affairs, Brown Relationship Between An- Baronian, University of Michi- sponsored with the Alwaleed University; former US Assistant cient and Modern Armenian gan; Sylvia Alajaji, Franklin and Islamic Studies Program. Secretary of Defense; former Studies. A panel discussion on Marshall College. Moderated by

SPRING 2019 | CMESNEWS 25 EVENT HIGHLIGHTS

Betül Ekşi Tuna Şare Ağtürk, Cemal Kafadar

Lisa Gulesserian, Lecturer on Senior Fellow, International H.A.R. Gibb Arabic and Islamic with the Weatherhead Armenian Language and Cul- Security Program, BCSIA, Studies Lecture Series. Center for International ture, NELC, Harvard; and Julia HKS; Former Deputy National Affairs, and the Middle East Hintlian, PhD candidate, Com- Security Advisor, Israel. Flowers, Tough Guys, and Initiative, BCSIA, HKS. mittee on the Study of Religion, TOMAs: Police Masculinities Harvard. Co-sponsored with Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Political Transition Urban Archaeology and the National Association for Ar- Nadia Murad in Conversation in Turkey. A talk with Classical Heritage in Turkey: menian Studies and Research. with Jennifer Leaning. Betül Ekşi, Robert G. James Uncovering the Lost Roman The Samuel L. and Elizabeth Fellow, Radcliffe Institute for Capital City of Nicomedia. APRIL 2019 Jodidi Lecture featuring 2018 Advanced Study; Postdoctoral A talk with Tuna Şare Ağtürk, The Sultanic Harem in Move- Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Research Associate, Global Hilles Bush Fellow, Radcliffe ment: State Logic and Fem- Nadia Murad. Co-sponsored Resilience Institute, Institute of Advanced Study, inine Mobility in Morocco with the Weatherhead Center Northeastern University. Harvard; Associate Professor, (1500–1800). Jocelyne Dakhlia, for International Affairs. Classical Archaeology and Art Director of Studies, Center Palestine in the Era of History, Çanakkale Onsekiz for Historical Research, Ecole Undesired Bodies: Figures of Trump: A New Strategy for Mart University, Turkey. des hautes études en sciences Continuity and Discontinuity Political Change. A talk with ­sociales, delivers the first talk in in the Mediterranean of Ambassador Husam S. Zomlot, China and the Middle East the 2019 H.A.R. Gibb Arabic and Lady Montagu. Jocelyne Head of the Palestinian Mission in the 21st Century. A panel Islamic Studies Lecture Series. Dakhlia, Director of Studies, to the United Kingdom; discussion on China and the Center for Historical Research, Strategic Affairs Advisor to the Middle East, with Ezra F. Vogel, The Two-State Solution: Ecole des hautes études en President of the Palestinian Harvard; Robert S. Ross, Boston The Only Viable Option. sciences sociales, delivers National Authority and State College; Bruce Rutherford, A talk with Chuck Freilich, the second talk in the 2019 of Palestine. Co-sponsored Colgate University; Degang

26 CMESNEWS | SPRING 2019 Lenore Martin, Degang Sun, Robert Ross, Ezra F. Vogel, Bruce Rutherford Rosie Bsheer, Hiba Bou Akar, William Granara

Anver Emon Sara Roy, Alexandra Senfft

Sun, Shanghai International Islamic Legalities across the Institute of Islamic Studies, Germany and Israel: Studies University. Longue Durée: A Preliminary University of Toronto Faculty Changing Dynamics of a Historical Epistemology of Law. Co-sponsored with Complex Relationship. For the War Yet to Come: of Islamic Law. A talk in the the Committee on the Study of A talk with Alexandra Planning Beirut’s Frontiers. Harvard Law and Religion Religion at Harvard University, Senfft, an award-winning A book talk with author Hiba Lecture Series with Anver the Julis-Rabinowitz Program German journalist and Bou Akar, Assistant Professor, Emon, Professor of Law and on Jewish and Israeli Law author specializing in the Graduate School of Architec- History, Canada Research Chair at HLS, and the Program Israeli–Palestinian conflict ture, Planning, and Preserva- in Religion, Pluralism, and on Law and Society in the and the aftermath of the tion, Columbia University. the Rule of Law, and Director, Muslim World at HLS. Holocaust in Germany. (continued on page 32)

SPRING 2019 | CMESNEWS 27 EVENT HIGHLIGHTS

PRACTICES OF MOBILITY, REGIMES OF VISIBILITY Jocelyne Dakhlia on Women in the Early Modern Maghrib

Jocelyne Dakhlia, Director of tasks, such as serving water lecture, entitled “The Sultanic Sultan’s harem mirrored the Studies, Center for Historical to the soldiers and healing Harem in Movement: State expansion and centralization Research, Ecole des hautes the wounded among them. Logic and Feminine Mobility in of the Moroccan state. In the études en sciences sociales, was Vermeyen’s vivid depiction of Morocco (1500–1800),” Dakhlia late seventeenth century, the the distinguished speaker this North African women’s active focused on the Moroccan heyday of the Alawite Dynasty, year for the H.A.R. Gibb Arabic role in battle stands in stark harem’s continuous movement European observers ascribed and Islamic Studies Lecture contrast with the commonplace outside the walls of the Sultan’s up to eight thousand women to Series, established in 1964 in notion that they were confined palace. One could be tempted Mawlay Ismail’s harem. As the honor of Sir Hamilton A.R. Gibb, to an isolated and sedentary to ascribe this movement to state established its rule over who was a director of CMES as lifestyle in the early modern moments of political crisis: in increasingly vast territorial well as University Professor and Maghrib. What are we to make the early seventeenth century, domains, urban elites and tribal James Richard Jewett Professor of Vermeyen’s women on the forced to contend with an leaders gifted their women of Arabic at Harvard. Youssef battlefield? How does this increasingly threatening to the Sultan as a symbol of Ben Ismail, PhD candidate in square with the traditional view political climate, Mawlay political alliance or a sign of Muslim Societies and Cultures in of women’s quarantined harem Zidân chartered a French ship renewed allegiance. During the Department of Near Eastern life? In her two Gibb lectures to send two hundred of his this period, virtually any travel Languages and Civilizations, at Harvard, Jocelyne Dakhlia harem’s women away to safety of the Sultan outside of his covered the lectures for CMES. provided important answers (another ship was loaded with palace resulted in more women to these questions, as she set thousands of manuscripts joining the harem. The travel In the summer of 1535, Charles out to trace the social practices from his personal library). from their village to the palace V sailed to Tunis to drive and political stakes of female Yet what makes Dakhlia’s was hardly the last trip the Ottoman troops out of the mobility and visibility in early approach most compelling new recruits would take. The Hafsid Kingdom. Dutch painter modern North Africa. is that she does not see the Alawite state conceived of itself Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen A widely acclaimed historian movement of the sultanic as a gazi warrior state. When accompanied the emperor of the Mediterranean, Dakhlia harem as a contingent outcome the Sultan was not at war, he led on his expedition. Based on has dedicated much of her of political events. Instead, she his mahalla to the countryside his observations, Vermeyen scholarly career to the cultural proposes that it be considered to ascertain his rule. Like the produced a series of tapestries history of political life on its a structural characteristic of rest of the state apparatus, the portraying the fighting with a southern shore. Particularly the ever-expanding Moroccan Moroccan harem was thus a quasi-ethnographic attention insightful in this regard is her Sultanate, for Dakhlia locates traveling one. Abroad, women to detail. One of the most brilliant book Lingua Franca, the extra muros life of the often accompanied the Sultan striking elements of Vermeyen’s which examines the history of harem’s women at the heart as part of his official retinue. depiction of The Conquest the eponymous “pidgin” that of the state’s techniques of In the late eighteenth century, of Tunis is the ubiquitous served as a shared language of government. Mawlay Yazid travelled presence of women on the politics and diplomacy on the In her first lecture, Dakhlia to Tripolitania with seven battlefield. They are portrayed two shores of the early modern began by showing how the women. There, he abducted performing many crucial Mediterranean. In her first accumulation of women in the and married the daughter of a

28 CMESNEWS | SPRING 2019 powerful tribal shaykh before returning to his kingdom. But it is within Morocco that these women’s contribution to the inherent workings of the state was most visible. Dakhlia’s lecture was most compelling when she described how the mobility of these women played into the Sultan’s strategy of what we may call—somewhat anachronistically—governance: on a trip to Marrakesh, the ruler made sure to take with him women who originally hailed from the region. This way, they could meet with their families, express public support for the Sultan, and

defend his interests. As a result, Martha Stewart Photo: the women of the harem came to constitute a system of local first placed with prominent a harem in flux pushes back allowed outside of the palace. representation that could be families in the city of Fez. The against the historiographical But, Dakhlia shows, this was wielded by the increasingly notables were responsible for emphasis on its static nature, not true of all the harem’s centralized Moroccan state women’s education and security secluded from social dynamics women: European travelers in order to further enshrine but also for their honor. This and political life. Through such as Nicolas de Nicolay or its legitimacy on the ground. system created a direct link her frequent recourse to local Count Potocki noted the free There were other examples of between the state and urban chronicles and European circulation of female slaves what Dakhlia called the moving elites which, in turn, formed travelogues, she presented and servants outside the harem’s “political capillarity.” complex relations of solidarity these women as both power palace walls in the eighteenth Many of the Sultan’s newly and surveillance vis-à-vis brokers and social mediators. century. British diplomat John acquired women were sent to potentially rebellious families. The political role of the harem’s Braithwaite wrote that he was the houses of urban notables As it were, this practice turned women urges us to call into surprised when one of these for education and training. on its head the pre-existing question the idée reçue of a women, unveiled and covered This was for instance the case tradition of gifting women to strict separation between in jewelry, approached him during the reign of Mawlay the Sultanic harem in order to masculine and feminine to offer her mediation. In the Ismail, who instituted a group secure influence in the palace. worlds. Admittedly, some of 1760s, Princess Fatma travelled of black female servants within Of concern to Dakhlia, the the women—often those of the alone from Marrakesh to Fez in his palace, many of whom were effort to paint the picture of highest social rank—were not order to visit various pilgrimage

SPRING 2019 | CMESNEWS 29 EVENT HIGHLIGHTS sites. She made the trip on European perception of oriental understand the immense gap initiating them to same-sex horseback accompanied by women before this explosion between the penetrating charm love. By the eighteenth century, a large escort of a thousand of orientalist discourse? For of Turkish women and the such accounts had given rise men. Following these women’s her second lecture, Dakhlia repulsive ugliness of Tunisian in Europe to a cultural bundle ventures outside of the palace, proposed to examine other women in her account? associated with North African one is forced to dismiss as modalities of otherization (“the Dakhlia offered several women: oversized sexes, illusory “the utopia of honor other leg of racism”), namely possible explanations to this masculine behavior (mirroring and virtue” that is the closed the cast of the other’s body, not puzzle. It could be the result of the feminity of men), repulsive harem. It appears instead as as desirable and erotic, but as a form of aristocratic contempt tattoos. Their bodies came a porous space composed of undesirable and de-sexualized. vis-à-vis the women of Tunis. under the same level of scrutiny highly visible women. In 1718, Lady Montagu, After all, the British aristocrat as did Ottoman ones, but with It is to this question the famed wife of the British could identify with high-class the additional dimension of of visibility that Dakhlia ambassador to the Ottoman Turkish ladies in a way that unattractiveness. turned for her second Gibb Empire, made a stop in Tunis was certainly impossible with Returning to Lady ­Montagu, lecture, entitled “Undesired during her Mediterranean lower-class Tunisian women. her views regarding the repul- Bodies: Figures of Continuity travels. Lady Montagu’s But something else seems to siveness of tattooed women and Discontinuity in the “Turkish letters” are well underlie Lady Montagu’s views is particularly striking. Her Mediterranean of Lady known for their eroticized as suggested by the use of the position on the matter was Montagu.” As the accounts depiction of Ottoman harems. terms “baboon” and “monkey.” shared by many other foreign of Nicolay, Potocki, and Her enthusiastic descriptions At the heart of her judgment observers in the eighteenth Braithwaite suggest, North of female naked bodies in the lies a rejection of a specifically century Maghrib, such as African women did not go hammams of Sofia earned her African alterity. Other common Elizabeth Broughton in Algiers unnoticed in the accounts the nickname “Sappho” among European tropes may also and Miss Tully in Tripoli- of European travelers. As is some of her British readers. be at play: the fundamental tania. The tattoos harbored well studied in the secondary She had come to represent distinction between “Turkish” by bedouin women had been literature, “oriental” women something of an early feminist and “Moorish” territories and praised as an important feature in European sight have who praised women-only populations, lament for the of their beauty in the writings frequently been portrayed in an spaces of the East as spaces of degradation of ancient ruins (in of Maghribi men of letters such eroticized and hypersexualized freedom and harmony. But in this case Carthage) at the hands Ibn Khatib and Ibn Khaldun. manner. This orientalist her writings on the women of of “uncivilized societies.” As a The latter even quoted a hijazi portrayal was especially Tunis, she did not display any cultural historian, Dakhlia is poem on the beauty of bedouin prevalent in the nineteenth of the feminine solidarity that interested in the roots of these women with their tattooed century, a time when colonial she had expressed towards the motifs of disgust. Often times, arms. But as Dakhlia observed, projects flourished on the women of the Ottoman east. classist and racial dynamics Lady Montagu was blind to this southern and eastern shores of Under the Lady Montagu’s appear to be at play together. poetic beauty. In fact, what is Mediterranean. That orientalist pen, Tunisian women appear In his Description of Africa, Leo striking in her account, and in discourse and colonial as frightful and masculine, Africanus described the sahaqat those of her contemporaries, is endeavors went hand in hand deformed and ugly, at times of Fez, a lesbian sisterhood the totally de-eroticized charac- is, by now, a well established even compared to “baboons” cast who led honorable women ter of women’s bodies. For any fact. But what can be said of the and “monkeys.” How are we to astray from marital duty by student of European discourse

30 CMESNEWS | SPRING 2019 William Granara, Jocelyne Dakhlia, Baber Johansen, Cemal Kafadar, William Graham Photo: Martha Stewart Photo: on women of the Orient, this is At least since Fernand a continuous world is not may arise in the process. Both a remarkable absence. Dakhlia’s Braudel, historians of the necessarily a homogeneous aspects are equally precious to careful reading of these sources early modern Mediterranean world: the histories of our understanding of the early forces us to readjust our under- have defined the region as a circulation and encounters modern Mediterranean. Seen standing of the nexus between space of social contact and should not foreclose those under this light, Dakhlia’s Gibb otherization and sexualization cultural exchange. Jocelyne of violence and othering. In lectures appear as an insightful and pay further attention to Dakhlia goes even further: the this context, the task of the complement to Lingua Franca. the plurality of ways in which Mediterranean is a continuous historian is to carefully excavate Early modernists and historians the alterity of oriental women space, composed of societies continuities without flattening of the Mediterranean historians was expressed in early modern that are coextensive rather out the various points of alike should look forward to her Europe. than merely connected. But contention and resistance that next book with enthusiasm. •

SPRING 2019 | CMESNEWS 31 EVENT HIGHLIGHTS

Film Screening and Gareth Doherty, Director of the Discussion with Director Master of Landscape Archi- Anahita Ghazvinizadeh. A tecture Program and Associate Q&A with filmmaker Anahita Professor of Landscape Archi- Ghazvinizadeh, Assistant tecture, GSD. Keynote address Professor of Cinematic Arts, by Rosie Bsheer, Assistant Pro- University of Iowa, and first fessor of History, Harvard. With prize winner at 2013 Cannes Tyler Kynn, Yale University; Ali Film Festival, with a screening Almajnooni, SUNY Binghamton; of two short films, “When the Omer Shah, Columbia Univer- Kid Was a Kid” and “Needle.” sity; Drew Wensley, Moriyama and Teshima Planners, Toronto; Patrimonial Empire-Building and Hussam Dakkak, Studio Anahita Ghazvinizadeh and the Case of Authoritarian Bound, London. Turkey. A discussion with Soli Özel, Professor of International Art, Minorities, and Social Relations, Kadir Has University, Change Art Exhibition Recep- Istanbul, and columnist for tion and Film Screening. An Habertürk daily newspaper; event to open the Art, Minori- and Ayşen Candaş, Rice ties, and Social Change exhibi- Faculty Fellow and Visiting tion of work by young Iranian Associate Professor, Yale artists on view in CGIS South MacMillan Center, Council Concourse May 3–August 27. on Middle Eastern Studies, Yale University, and Associate Persecution and Persistence: Professor of Political Science, 75th Anniversary of the Ayşen Candaş Soli Özel Boğaziçi University, Istanbul. Deportation of the Crimean Tatars in Historical Context. MAY 2019 A discussion in the Crimean Mecca: The Lived City. A Tatar Studies Lecture Series colloquium examining the ways with Brian Glyn Williams, in which the city of Mecca is University of Massachusetts, imagined, remembered, repre- Dartmouth; Huseyin Oylupinar, sented, and visualized from the Turkish-Ukrainian-Crimean perspectives of history, litera- Tatar Studies Fellow, CMES; and ture, landscape architecture, and Hanna Abakunova, Mihaychuk urban planning. Organized by Research Fellow, Harvard William Granara, CMES Direc- Ukrainian Research Institute. tor and Gordon Gray Professor Followed by a screening of the of the Practice of Arabic; and docudrama Haytarma (2013).

32 CMESNEWS | SPRING 2019 NADIA MURAD: THE MAKING OF AN ACTIVIST In Harvard visit, Nobelist and ISIS survivor focuses on the need to persevere

Nadia Murad came to Harvard as a survivor of genocide under ISIS, an advocate for victims of sexual violence, and the first Iraqi citizen to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Her talk at the Memorial Church, as part of the Weatherhead Center’s Samuel L. and Elizabeth Jodidi Lecture Series, focused on her personal journey and how her ordeal turned her into an activist. As moderator Jennifer Leaning, Professor of the Practice of Health and Human Rights at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, explained at the outset, the talk didn’t deal with the details of Murad’s imprisonment. (Her book, The Last Girl: My Story of Captivity, and My Fight against the Islamic State, describes the rape and torture she endured as a prisoner.) ­Rather, Nadia Murad, Shahnaz Osso, Jennifer Leaning

she examined the events leading up to her Martha Stewart Photo: capture in the ISIS attacks of 2014, and how they shaped her actions afterward. we would love to have experienced it just a her escape. That, Murad said, was actually Murad grew up in Iraq’s Sinjar District. little bit longer.” relatively easy: The hard part was staying She and her family were Yazidis, an ethnic The night before her capture began alive afterward. and religious minority targeted by ISIS. peacefully. She recalled sleeping with her “Many people had escaped through Speaking through interpreter Shahnaz sisters in the yard, because her brothers doors and windows, but once you found Osso, she said that her life centered on her were keeping them awake talking about a family to take you in, they would return family’s farm, where they raised wheat and ISIS’ approach on their cellphones. But you to ISIS,” she said. Today, she added, sheep, digging 75-foot wells to find water in as the night went on, the family began more than 350,000 Yazidis remain in the desert. thinking about an escape route. “The refugee camps. “When this is your way of life, you go mountain was the only place to go, but Murad survived by finding a family she to any ends to make it work,” she said. “I we lived so far from the mountain that we could trust, through what she said was a thought the best thing was to relax with didn’t think we’d be able to make it. We mix of intuition and luck. my family at the end of a work day; I didn’t had heard of people getting caught, and our “Everybody knew what had happened know there was anything better or worse village was very quick to be surrounded. We to the Yazidis. I knocked on a door and all in the world. People wouldn’t think that a had run out of options by that point.” I could say was, ‘I have escaped, can you farm in the desert would be a great life. But She decided to fast-forward through help me?’ I saw old homes and thought that it was our life, it was peaceful to us, and her capture and abuse to focus instead on if these people are similar to my family in

SPRING 2019 | CMESNEWS 33 EVENT HIGHLIGHTS their morals and values, they will recognize “Actions should have consequences. As Northern Iraq, Osso speaks both Kurdish someone like them and maybe take me in.” a child I thought the worst thing was to and English fluently. She and her family Though Murad spoke quietly, there have your hard work go to waste. I didn’t came to Nebraska in 1998. were hints of how much she had endured. know there was something as horrible as The Jodidi Lecture is among the most “Women saw the roughest part of what a mother’s work being wasted, raising 11 prominent lecture series of the Weather- ISIS was doing. The men were often killed, children and having them be killed.” The head Center for International Affairs and is but they made sure that women saw the word genocide, she said, didn’t occur to her among one of the most distinguished at the most heartache and suffering. I have talked at the time. “We referred to it by a Kurdish University. The event was co-sponsored by to many Yazidi women who would say they word, which means ‘the end.’ ” the Weatherhead Center and the Center for wish they had been killed like . . . the men.” “I think we can understand how difficult Middle Eastern Studies. Thus, Murad’s activism, including the the road ahead of you is going to be,” Leaning 2016 formation of the nonprofit support said. “But we can also see how crucial it is.” This story, by Harvard Correspondent Brett group Nadia’s Initiative, was born of a Murad’s talk was interpreted by Shahnaz Milano, originally appeared in the Harvard desire to see justice. Osso of Lincoln, Nebraska. Originally from Gazette, April 4, 2019.

William Granara, Michèle Lamont, Patricia Bellinger, Lawrence Bacow, Nadia Murad Photo: Martha Stewart Photo:

34 CMESNEWS | SPRING 2019 END PAPER

UNDERGRADUATE PHOTOGRAPHY FROM THE REGION mobile and legal.” The second photo was taken in Al-Hussein CMES awarded a first prize CMES’s A.J. Meyer fellowship, my camera. The first of these Sports City. and two honorable mentions in who studied Arabic at the Qasid photos features Gaith Jann, a Mollecular and Cellular the 2018–19 Harvard College Arabic Institute in Amman, Madaba bookseller. The police Biology concentrator Julia International Photo Contest Jordan, in summer 2018. “On told him he didn’t have the Canick (’17–’19) took this photo for photos taken in the Middle weekends, I took a break from license required to sell books on on a Harvard Hillel–organized East region. First place and an a seemingly endless sea of the sidewalk, so he instead piles Birthright trip in January 2018 honorable mention went to flashcards by exploring Amman books on top of his car, turning on a hike in the Negev Desert Wyatt Hurt (’21), recipient of and rural areas of Jordan with it into a bookstore that is both in Israel.

Wyatt Hurt, Jordan Wyatt Hurt, Jordan

Julia Canick, Israel

SPRING 2019 | CMESNEWS 35 Himmet Taskomur, Said Hannouchi

Winter term in Tunisia

Carol Ann Young

AT A GLANCE

REMEMBERING ROGER OWEN FACULTY NEWS MECCA COLLOQUIUM STUDENT NEWS ALUMNI NEWS VISITING RESEARCHER NEWS EVENT HIGHLIGHTS WOMEN IN THE EARLY MODERN MAGHRIB NADIA MOURAD