HAGOP KEVORKIAN CENTER REVIEW 2014/2015 STAFF Director Helga Tawil-Souri Associate Director Greta Scharnweber Director of Graduate Studies Joanne Nucho Clinical Assistant Professor Benoit Challand Program Coordinator Arthur Starr 2014-2015 Outreach Administrator Diana Shin Administrative Aide Sallie Wade Writer-in-Residence Spring 2015 Adam Shatz Hagop Kevorkian Center New York University 50 Washington Square South, 4th Floor New York, NY 10012 http://neareaststudies.as.nyu.edu #nyuKevo The Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies at NYU is a Title VI National Resource Center (NRC) for modern Middle Eastern Studies as named by the United States Department of Education. NRC support is essential to the Center’s graduate program (area and language studies) Editor Greta Scharnweber and bolsters outreach programs to the NYU academic community, local educators, media and culture workers as well as the general public. Title VI funding, through its Foreign Language and Layout and Design Melissa Runstrom Area Studies (FLAS) fellowships, also enables important opportunities for NYU graduate students Cover Design The Goggles (Paul Shoebridge and Michael Simons) to intensively study the languages of the Middle East and South Asia (including Arabic, Hebrew, Hindi, Persian, Turkish and Urdu). Copyright 2015. All rights reserved. Letter from the Director This year the Kevorkian Center was successfully renewed as a Department With new team members and new leadership, we are taking the opportunity Contents of Education Title VI National Resource Center for contemporary Middle to integrate what have been separate components of the Center’s activities Eastern Studies and was awarded Foreign Language and Area Studies into a holistic and updated approach. Enacting this vision is an ongoing, Letter from the Director 5 Fellowships (FLAS) through 2018. Along with the support of the university, overall restructuring of faculty and administrative roles; merging students’ ac- these grants allow the Center to continue operating and support many of ademic and professional needs with our events; and putting communication Scholars our students. technology to better and broader use. Memory, Space and Vision in Bourj Hammoud, Lebanon 6 Views from the Margins: Historicizing the Shi’as of Lebanon through Archival Research 7 Our Master’s program is among the most competitive in the nation, with our For example, this past year we introduced two new programs that help raise Writing for Non-Academics: The Promise (and Perils) of Popular Writing 8 graduates going on to top doctoral programs in the social sciences and hu- the Center’s profile and provide more rigorous academic and professional manities and successful careers in journalism, non-profit organizations, edu- training for our students. This included a prestigious practitioner/scholar in Research cation, and others. This year, we graduated 16 MA students, and 23 are con- residence program launched in Spring 2015. The first holder of the residency Transnational Perspectives on the Life and Work of Sabahattin Ali 9 tinuing on to their second year. At the time of writing, we are preparing for a was Adam Shatz, author and a Contributing Editor at the London Review of What Went Wrong in Syria? 10 new incoming class of 20 students in Fall 2015. As you will notice through the Books, who led a graduate workshop titled “Writing for Non-Academics” and Moroccan Poetry in Text, Translation, and Performance 12 pages of this Review, our academic seminars, workshops, conferences, and hosted a roundtable on Syria. The second was the launch of a new research other educational programs were robust and fostered a vibrant environment methods seminar which serves to highlight the work of our many colleagues Media for students, faculty, and the general public. We continued to provide teacher across the university whose expertise is relevant to the study of the Middle #LastWords 14 training to local middle- and high- school educators and professional devel- East; feature and demystify the various “methods” of studying the region, its Jerusalem, Time Embodied 17 opment to faculty from underserved institutions through the Faculty Resource history, culture, and languages; and expand student-faculty relationships. As Jon Stewart’s Favorite King 20 Network and launched a new partnership with CUNY’s Middle East Center. both of these programs continue in the year ahead, they will be joined by new and exciting ones as well as our recognition that we increasingly live Visual Culture This year has seen some significant changes at the Kevorkian Center. Depar- and work, and teach and learn in a digital environment. Indeed, if you haven’t A Disorderly Sense of Order/A review of the documentary Cairo Drive 22 tures of team members is always a bittersweet – if inevitable – affair. We are yet, follow us on various social media and internet platforms as #NYUKevo. extremely grateful to colleagues moving on, in particular Michael Gilsenan Collaborations for his eight years of leadership as the Center’s Director, as well as to Ali Finally and as importantly, while change has been prevalent at the Center this Research Off the Record 23 Mirsepassi who served as interim Director in Fall 2014. Two long-standing past year, the continued energy, dedication, and knowledge of our Program Soundtrack of the Revolution: Music as Politics in Iran/Iranian Studies Initiative 24 members have moved on this year: our Administrative Aide, Lauren Marten, Administrator, Arthur Starr, and our Associate Director, Greta Scharnweber, The Program in Ottoman Studies 26 who was with us for nearly four years, and Clinical Assistant Professor Benoit have served as the Center’s bedrock. Whether admissions or government Challand who is taking on a tenured post in the Sociology Department at grant applications, daily finances or new programs, none would have been K-16 Outreach the New School. Our graduating student assistants were an indispensable possible without them. Both Arthur and Greta deserve utmost recognition Voices of Contemporary Islam/Faculty Resource Network 27 part of the team, and we wish them success in their next adventures: Adnan and gratitude for these successes and for ensuring that the Center continues Islam and the Americas: A Summer Institute for K-12 Teachers 28 Moussa, Brooke Fisher, Gina Hakim, Keenan Wilder, and May Darmon. to be a vibrant intellectual community that we all benefit from. Experiences Of course with departures come arrivals, and I am absolutely delighted to On a personal note, I am honored and delighted to be the Director of a Cen- Beyond the Binary: Beirut and the Dahiyeh 30 welcome a number of new members to the Center. Sallie Wade joined us ter as remarkable as NYU’s Kevorkian, and thank each and every one of you Human Rights Watch Internship Provides Insights into Palliative Care in Morocco 31 in the Fall as the Center’s Administrative Assistant and late in the Spring we for your continued support. I trust you will enjoy reading about our progress Between Theory and Practice: Six months at the UAE’s Mission to the UN 31 welcomed Diana Shin in a newly-created position of Outreach Administrator. this past year in the following pages, and hope that it will urge you to continue Both have quickly become indispensable to the workings of the Center. Jo- contributing and participating in the Center’s many facets. It hopefully goes Student News anne Nucho, who began in Fall 2014, has been a boon to the Center in her without saying that as the Middle East goes through important and confusing In Fond Memory of Falak Sufi: Scholarships and Essay Prize 32 role as the Director of Graduate Studies. She improved and streamlined the – if not sometimes disheartening – transformations as we have witnessed this MA Student News 34 Center’s advising process and students’ trajectories in thesis writing, taught past year, the passion, commitment, and curiosity of our faculty, staff, and PhD Student News 37 two new courses, contributed to the Outreach program, and has been a gra- students to better understand the region’s continuities and transformations cious and dynamic presence. In order to improve consistency, quality, and invigorates the very purpose and activities of the Center. Faculty News 39 institutional memory in our program, in Fall 2015, Joanne Nucho steps into Events Archive 48 the Clinical Assistant Professor position while remaining DGS, and we wel- come Begum Adalet as our new Faculty Fellow. —Helga Tawil-Souri, Director The Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies My ethnographic fieldwork looks at this neighborhood today to ex- plore the many historical and material layers that make up Bourj Memory, Space and Hammoud. Primarily, I ask, what are the ways in which everyday Views from the Margins experiences of the built environment and public services help shape, challenge or sometimes reinforce notions of community and Vision in Bourj belonging to a sectarian public in the context of Lebanon today? My research, in conversation with other anthropologists and urban Historicizing the Shi'as Hammoud, Lebanon scholars who study how sectarian parties dominate urban planning processes and services in Lebanon, explores the connections be- of Lebanon through By Joanne Randa Nucho, Director of Graduate Studies, tween political sectarianism and the contingent processes of mak- Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, NYU ing and remaking social networks through various infrastructures Archival Research and urban development