No. 29 The University of Texas at Austin Fall2002jSpring 2003

Center Awarded Large Department of Education Grants

I n the recent national competition

for u.s. Department of Education

grants to support area studies pro­

grams, the Center for Middle Eastern

Studies won a high level of funding

for the next three years. Our award

totals $599,000 a year, an amount con­

siderably higher than any of our pre­

vious federal grants. (The specific al­

location for the second and third years

of the grant may change based on

congressional appropriations.) The

award includes an NRC (National

Resource Centers) grant to promote

our academic and outreach activities,

and FLAS (Foreign Language and

Area Studies) Fellowship money to

support our graduate students, pri­

marily in their study of Middle East­

ern languages.

To support its work as an NRC,

the Center was awarded $282,000 a

year, the highest grant given to any of

the seventeen Middle East programs

that won funding in this catego;:-y.

This money will help hmd the Center's

operations and a host of new initia­

tives. In the next three years, a large

number of new courses in all major

disciplines will be added to the cur­

riculum. Language faculty plan to

enhance their training with new

courses and computer-assisted instruc­

tional programs. We will host major

conferences on a broad range of top­

ics, all of them to be organized in coop­

eration with other programs on cam­

pus. The Middle East library collec­

tion will continue to receive generous

contributions from the Center for ac­

quisitions and staff assistance to help

maintain its stature as a leading na­

tional resource in the field. Funding

for the Center's outreach program will

support a wide range of new educa­

tional and cultural activities aimed at

the K-12 level and the public more

broadly.

For FLAS fellowships the Center

received $317,000 a year, more than

double the level of funding available

in the last three-year cycle. Awards for

the academic year and the summer

will cover the costs of tuition and fees,

and also include a stipend-$14,OOO

for academic year awards and $2,400

for summer awards. The Center may

be able to award as many as 15 aca­

demic year and 7summer fellowships

in next year's fellowship competition.

(The recipients of FLAS awards for

summer 2003 and academic year 2003­

04 are recognized below.)

Department of Education fund­

ing is awarded in a national competi­

tion held every three years based on

the evaluation of elaborate grant pro­

posals. Preparation of the proposal

represents a major effort. In addition

to a thirty-five page narrative replete

with charts and other data on all as­

pects of the program, the proposal

required a proposed budget and

timeline for activities during the com­

ing three-year grant cycle. Also re­

quired were a short curriculum vita

from all 145 faculty on campus teach­

ing courses with Middle Eastern con­

tent and a listing of all 318 courses

offered at UT with 25% or more

Middle Eastern content during the

three-year period 2001-2004. We thank

the faculty and staff who contributed

to the preparation of our successful

proposal.

Letter from the Director

This has been my eighth and last year as Center Director. OnAugust 31, I step down as Director and Department Chair and

take a year of leave to work on a hook and other projects. After that,I will return to regular teaching and research duties.

I am grateful for the opportunity given to me to serve, especiallyduring a period of dramatic growth in the program and its resources.Our course offerings, degree options, student enrollments, facultynumbers, fellowship support, outreach impact, and outside fundingare today at an all-time high. But an academic program, even anestablished one like ours, is a work in progress. Much will certainly be

I done in the coming years to strengthen it and take it to new heights.And the opportunities are there. The events of September 11 and theiraftermath have excited unusual public interest in our region and fieldof study. They have also exposed common misunderstandings of theMiddle East and its complexities, underscoring the importance ofcultivating informed knowledge. Such knowledge can come in theend only from solid, broad, in-depth education, one that resists thedaily temptations to become preoccupied with the dramas of the hour.In these interesting times, it is our academic and intellectual challengeto maintain a steady focus on the ingredients of serious training andthinking, and to make them available to our students and the widercommunity.

Many colleagues and friends helped make my tenure pleasant andrewarding. I want to thank them all for their support and the invalu­able contributions they made to the program. The dedicated staffmembers of the Center and the Department are one of our chief assets;I thank them for bearing patiently with me and for doing the program'sdaily work with such loyalty and good cheer. The university admin­istration has supported many of our needs over the years; lowespecial thanks to Dean Richard Lariviere, Provost Sheldon Ekland­Olson, and the staff in the Dean's office for their help on countlessoccasions. Through all the administrative business that occupied medaily, our students were a constant source of inspiration and a usefulreminder of why we are here.

My good colleague Ian Manners is taking over the task of heading theCenter and the Department. The experience, commitment, and goodjudgment he brings will serve us well. I am pleased that the programwill be in his capable hands, and I wish him all the best.

Thank you.

Abraham Marcus

Program Reorganized forGreater Cohesion

D uring the past academic year theMiddle Eastern Studies program

underwent a reorganization designedto create a more cohesive and stream­lined structure. For many years theprogram was made up institutionallyof two complementary units: the Cen­ter for Middle Eastern Studies and theDepartment of Middle Eastern Lan­guages and Cultures (MELC). TheDepartment's faculty were core mem­bers of the program and took part in itsactivities alongside dozens of core andaffiliated faculty in departments andcolleges across the university. In aninitiative that began last year, we car­ried out a plan approved by the Deanof Liberal Arts to create greater insti­tutional integration of the Center andthe Department. While the two unitsfulfill different functions requiring thatthey remain institutionally distinct, therestructuring has opened the way formerging many of their administrativeand academic functions and achiev­ing greater programmatic cohesion.

As part of the reorganiza tion theCenter Director, Abraham Marcus, be­came also Chair of MELe. The facultyof MELC was expanded to incorpo­rate the core faculty of the Center on azero-time basis, and MELC changedits name to the Department of MiddleEastern Studies (DMES) to reflect thebroadened multi-disciplinary scope ofits faculty. The two units now sharethe same head and core faculty, whichprovides for greater cohesion bothadministratively and academically.Course offerings, web sites, brochures,committee work, and other aspects ofthe program have been streamlined,and the staff members of the two 1I nitswork in close cooperation. In th is moreintegrated setting the Center and De­partment continue to offer their re­spective undergraduate and gr<ld uateprograms, and facul ty ad visers in bothunits are available to assist studentswith their academic plans.

Publications

Ibrihal Salen:l

rr'll1slnred from th~ Ar"bithI' Mnnl)TI 11o",h

The Center has issued a new fictiontranslation from Arabic, Children

of the Waters by Ibtihal Salem, trans­lated by Marilyn Booth. Salem livesand works in Cairo, where she haspublished for the last thirty yearsworks lauded for their social mes­sages. Booth, one of the best transla­tors of Arabic fiction working today,deals in her introduction to this col­lection with its unusual experimentalform by examining Salem's craft aswell as the contextual history sur­rounding the pieces. Salem's collec­tion consists of stories, vignettes, andpoetry. The pieces both record andevoke a literary ferment occurring inEgypt today. Children of the Waters isthe thirty-second book in the ModernMiddle East Literatures in Transla­tion Series, published by the Centerand the University of Texas Press.

Planning the Family in Egypt: NewBodies, New Selves by Kamran AsdarAli came out in the Center's ModernMiddle East Series last year. The bookdeals with development initiatives ingeneral and family planning in par­ticular, in order to shed light on socialplanning in countries where Western

institutions guide local policies. Theauthorbuilds a complex picture, basedon ethnographic research, of a gov­ernment having to respond to its citi­zenry, international developmentagencies, Western feminist groups,and conservative Islamists. KamranAli is Assistant Professor of Anthro­pology at the University of Texas.

The Center will bring out nextSeptember a collection of stories byIranian author Goli Taraghi. The En­glish translation by Faridoun Farrokhis entitled A Mansion in the Sky andOther Short Stories. Taraghi poignantlydescribes her childhood in pre-Revo­lution Tehran and portrays the expe­rience of later exile in France. Farrokhprovides the collection with contextand critical insight in his introduc­tion.

In addition to the two series men­tioned above, the Center publishesthe Middle East Monograph Series.All books are distributed through theUniversity of Texas Press atwww.utexas.edu/utpress.

North African Studies atUT

A lthough few people realize it, UThas more scholars specializing in

the study of contemporary North Af­rica than any other institution in theUnited States: Mounira Maya Charrad(Sociology), DianaDavies (Geography),Clement Henry (Government),Deborah Kapchan (Anthropology),Helene Tissieres (French and Italian),and Keith Walters (Linguistics). Asnoted elsewhere in this issue in thearticle on conferences organized at UTthis past spring, these scholars joinedtogether for the first time to presenttheir work at a two-day conference inApril. (Professor Kapchan, who was onleave for the semester and not in resi­dence, was unable to participate.) Theywerejoinedby ProfessorMichelCamau,a North Africanist currently at Aix-en­Provence, and Professor JamesHousefield, who teaches at SouthwestTexas University.

Fostering greater cooperationamong these faculty has been the UT­France Center for InterdisciplinaryStudies (www.utexas.edu/cola/france-uti), one of eighteen such cen­ters at American universities. Spon­sored by the Cultural Services of theFrench Embassy in Washington, theConsulate General of France in Hous­ton, and the University of Texas, theCenter is devoted to encouragingschol­ars to collaborate across disciplinaryand geographic boundaries in their re­search. In the humanities and socialsciences, such efforts often include re­search on a subject of interest to bothFrench and American scholars. TheFrench presence in Algeria, Morocco,and Tunisia during the nineteenth andtwentieth centuries and its continuinginfluence there is a common threadrunning through the work of all the UTprofessors whose research focuses onone of more of the North African COlffi­

tries-the Maghreb as it is known inFrench-language research and theMaghrib as it is increasingly called inEnglish-language work on the area.

Samer M. Ali (Arabic Studies,Comparative Literature) was ar­

tistic director for two Austin-area pro­ductions of stories from the ArabianNights intended to promote an un­derstanding of the Arabic heritage.The first, held on October 25 at theHideout Theatre, presented"Ali Babaand the Forty Thieves" to a sold-outaudience of 85. The performanceraised funds for the Capital Area FoodBank of Texas. The second produc­tion, during Explore UT (March 1),was a double performance ofselectedstories. Ali is conducting archival re­search in Morocco this summer withthe support of an American Institutefor Maghrib Studies grant.

Beverly Benham, who is in her sec­ond year as Senior Office Assistant inthe Department of Middle EasternStudies, received the College of Lib­eral Arts Award for Outstanding Ser­vice by a Staff Member this pastspring. The recipient of this annualaward receives a certificate and a sti­pend.

Catherine Boone (Government) re­ceived a Fulbright Scholar grant toteach and carry out research at BeijingForeign Studies University in China.

Mounira Maya Charrad (Sociology)has received a number of awards forher book, States and Women's Rights:The Making ofPostcolonial Tunisia, Al­geria, and Morocco. As well as winningthe Hamilton Award at The Univer­sity of Texas, she received the Distin­guished Contribution to ScholarshipAward for the Outstanding Book inPolitical Sociology, American Socio­logical Association, 2002; the Award(co-winner) for the Best Book in theField of History from the Phi AlphaTheta International Honor Society inHistory, 2002; and Honorable Men­tion for the Best Book in SociologyKomarovsky Award, Eastern Socio­logical Society, 2003. Her other recentpublications include "From State Ac­tion to Women's Agency: Gender De-

Faculty and Staff News

bates in Tunisia," in Women's Move­ments and Gender Debates in the MiddleEast and North Africa, H. Hoodfar, ed.,forthcoming; and "Continuity orChange: Family Law and Family Struc­turein Tunisia," with Allyson Goeken,in African Families at the Turn of theTwenty-First Century, ed. by Y.Oheneba-Sakyi and B. K. Takyi, forth­coming. Charrad presented an invitedpaper, "Nation-building, Islam, andWomen's Rights: Perspectives fromthe Maghrib," at the annual meetingof the American Political Science As­sociation; and a paper, "Nation-States,Kin-Based Formations, and Gender inthe Maghrib," at MESA.

Diana Davis (Geography) delivered alecture, "Brutes, Beasts and Empire: AComparative Study of the British andFrench Experience," at the British Stud­ies Seminar in January. It examinedthe role and influence of veterinariansin Frenchcolonial North Africa (mainlyAlgeria) and in British India. She alsogave a paper at UCLA on "DesertWastes of the Maghreb: Desertifica­tion Narratives and Colonialism inNorth Africa." Davis received a Na­tional Endowment for the Humanities(NEH) summer research fellowship tosupport her book project "DesertWastes of the Maghreb: (Re)WritingFrench Colonial Environmental His­tory of North Africa." She will con­duct research this summer in theFrench colonial archives of North Af­rica in France.

Ytlduay Erdener (Turkish Studies)published Turkish through Songs, is­sued by Indiana University TurkishStudies. The book is the first work touse music as an aid in teaching theTurkish language. Erdener attendedthe 2003 Western Consortium Multi­Language Conference: Theory andPractice, held at the University of Ari­zona on April 4-6.

Elizabeth Fernea (English) wasawarded the Pro Bene Meritis Awardby the College of Liberal Arts on April

4. The award honors individuals whoare committed to the liberal arts, whohave made outstanding contributionsin professional or philanthropic pur­suits, or who have participated in ser­vice related to the College. Ferneataught in the Department of Englishand the Center for Middle EasternStudies for over thirty years and isnow an emeritus scholar. She contin­ues to serve the university in manycapacities, to make films and writebooks about the Middle East, and toact as an advisor to the Center's Pub­lications Program. A scholarship forstudents of Comparative Literatureand Middle Eastern Studies has beenestablished through the College ofLiberal Arts in Fernea's name.

Kate Gillespie (Marketing Adminis­tration) chaired a panel at MESA onPerspectives on Today's Middle EastTextile Industry. With Liesle Riddle(George Washington University), sheco-presented apaper on "Firmographicand Demographic Changes in the Turk­ish Textile Industry in the 20 th Cen-tury."

Clement Henry (Government) gavea talk at St. Antony's, Oxford, on "TheClash of Globalizations in the MiddleEast" on December 6, and delivered apaper, "Algeria's Agonies: Oil RentEffects in a Bunker State," to a confer­ence on Algeria at the University ofMichigan in September. He attendeda conference on interna tional terror­ism in Algiers inOctoberand returnedfor a longer period in January-Febru­ary. With UT support and an Ameri­can Institute for Maghrib Studiesgrant, he spent five weeks lecturingand interviewing in Algiers,Constantine, and Oran.

Michael Hillmann (Persian Studies)published Persian Vocabulary Acquisi­tion: An Intermediate Reader and Guideto Word Forms and the Arabic Elementsin Persian, Second Edition (2003); Read­ing Iran Reading Iranians, Second Edi­tion (2003); Tajiki Textbook and Reader,

Second Edition (2003); and Basic TajikiWord List (2003). Hillmann conductedtwo week-long seminars for govern­ment Persian experts and advanceduniversity students of Persian at theUniversity of Baltimore in May andAugust.

Roger Louis (History) received fromthe University Co-operative Societythe Career Research ExcellenceAward, which carries a $10,000 sti­pend. The award was given for Lewis'srecord of publications, continuing re­search, efforts to encourage the re­search of younger scholars throughBritish Studies on campus, and direc­tion of the National Endowment forthe Humanities summer seminars.

Ian Manners (Geography) was hostedby the American Geographic SocietyLibrary (AGSL) in October, as its sec­ond Helen and John S. Best ResearchFellow for 2002. Manners visited theAGSL to study historic maps and at­lases for his current research projecttracing how the West's mapping ofthe Middle East in the nineteenth cen­tury influenced the modern-day po­litical map.

Abraham Marcus (History) has ac­cepted an invitation to serve as one ofthe editors of the Encyclopaedia of Is­lam, 3'd edition, which is now beinglaunched. The new 16-volume edi­tion will differ markedly from its pre­decessors by incorporating new meth­odological approaches and makingthe reference work broader in scopeand more readily accessible to a wideraudience.

Annes McCann-Baker (CMES) pre­sented a paper entitled "Responsibili­ties of U.S. Translators and Publish­ers" at the annual meeting of theAmerican Literary Translators Asso­ciation in Chicago. Her article, "TheInternational Reception of Sitt Marie­Rose," was published in Etel Adnan:Critical Essays on the Arab-AmericanWriter and Artist.

Faculty and Staff News

Esther Raizen (Hebrew Studies) gaveinvited presentations on technologyin the Hebrew classroom at three con­ferences held in the spring and sum­mer: the Western Consortium lan­guage workshop at the University ofArizona, a Middle Eastern languagesworkshop at Emory University, and aHebrew teachers' workshop atBrandeis University. She also pre­sented a paper on her work on a He­brew speech synthesizer at the Na­tional Association of Professors ofHebrew conference held in the sum­mer. Raizen was promoted to the rankof Associate Professor with tenurebeginning September 1,2003.

Geoffrey Schad (History) published"Toward an Analysis of Class Forma­tion in Syria: Aleppo's Textile Indus­trialists and Workers during the Man­date" in France, Syrie et Liban: Lesambiguites et les dynamiques de la rela­tion mandataire. He has accepted a ten­ure-track position at ShippensburgUniversity of Pennsylvania.

Denise Schmandt-Besserat (Art His­tory) has a fellowship for 2003-04 atthe Stanford Humanities Center,Stanford University, to study the in­terface between writing and art.

Abazar Sepehri (Library) traveled toTurkey and Azerbaijan last summerto acquire new titles for the MiddleEast Collection. The University's col­lection of Azerbaijani materials is con­sidered to be the strongest in theUnited States.

Yaron Shemer (Hebrew Studies) or­ganized "A Showcase of Israeli Cin­ema: the Films ofJudd Ne'eman" (de­scribed later in this issue). He waspromoted to the rank of Senior Lec­turer beginning September I, 2003.

Denise Spellberg (History) presenteda paper at the conference on Islam andMuslims in America: History, Devel­opment, and Future Prospects, spon­sored by the University of California

at Berkeley. Her paper was entitled"Islam in Early American Thought: AForgotten History." During the year,she has had a Faculty Research As­signment Award to work on her bookproject, "Islam and the Founding ofAmerican Religious and Political Ide­als, 1598-1848," and a Research Grantfrom the Office of the Vice-Presidentfor the study of 'A'isha bint Abi Bakrand the Prophet's wives in contempo­rary controversies. Spellberg receivedthe Dad's Centennial Teaching Fel­lowship for Excellence inUndergradu­ate Instruction and the Department ofHistory Teaching award for 2002-03.

Keith Walters (Linguistics) has givenseveral papers this year based on hisresearch, which considers questionsof language and identity in North Af­rica. Last fall, he presented "How andWhy Media Language Has InfluencedLinguistic Variation in the ArabWorld" at the thirtieth annual NewWays of Analyzing Variation confer­ence at Stanford. In March, his paper"Literacy and the Lives of TunisianWomen" was part of a roundtable on"New Directions in Research on Gen­der and Literacy" at the annual meet­ing of the Conference on College Com­position and Communication in NewYork City. In early April, he was amongthe speakers invited to a Berkeley con­ference on Language, Identity, andChange in the Modern Arab World,where he presented "Gender, Nation­alism, and Language Ideology: TheTunisian Case."

Karin Wilkins and John Downing(Radio-Television-Film) published"Mediating Terrorism: Text and Pro­test in Interpreta tions of The Siege" inCritical Studies in Media Communica­tion (2002).

Conferences

Neil Smith, City University of New York

Ozyurek (University of Pittsburgh),Selim Eyuboglu (Bilgi University,Istanbul), AY$e Oncu (SabanCl Uni­versity,Istanbul), Fatih Ozgtlven (BilgiUniversity, Istanbul), Asuman Suner(Bilkent University, Ankara), GonulErtem (independent scholar), NilgunUygun (Duke University), and FundaOdemi§ (Pan-Film Production,Istanbul). The organizers of the con­ference were graduate students FaikGur, Ozlem Okur, and Halide Velioglufrom the Anatolian Cultural StudiesAssociation at UT.

French Legacies and National Tra­jectories in the Maghreb: Politics andCulture

On April24 and 25, the Center andthe France-UT Institute for In­

terdisciplinary Studies presented aconference on the legacies of Frenchpresence in Algeria, Morocco, and Tu­nisia. The invited speaker was MichelCamau from the Institut de Rechercheset d'Etudes sur Ie Monde Arabe etMusulman (IREMAM) in Aix-en­Provence,France, whose presentationwas entitled "Le projet maghrebin:Occident arabe, Afrique du Nordfran<;:aise et region Mediterraneene."Five UT professors presented papersbased on their research in North Af­rica: Mounira Maya Charrad (Sociol­ogy), Diana Davis (Geography), Clem­ent Henry (Government), HeleneTissieres (French and Italian), andKeith Walters (Linguistics). JamesHousefield (Art and Design, South­west Texas State) also presented at theconference. (See related article onNorth African Studies at UT.)

Visions of Modernity: Cinema andVisual Culture in Turkey

sity of Kentucky). The conference wascosponsored by the College of LiberalArts, the Graduate School, and theDepartment of Geography.

The Center hosted a multi-disci­plinary panel series and festival

on Turkish film on March 28-29.Twelve films were shown in conjunc­tion with the presentations. CenterDirector Abraham Marcus (History)welcomed the international group ofparticipants. The speakers includedNezih Erdogan (Bah<;:e~ehir Univer­sity, Istanbul), Duygu Koksal(Bogazi<;:i University, Istanbul), Esra

Middle East Geographies in the Twenty-First Century

On April 4-5, geographers fromaround the United States,

Canada, and England came to theUniversity for a conference organizedby Ian Manners (Geography). Themeeting was motivated by the rela­tive neglect of the Middle East bygeographers, and particularly Ameri­can geographers, in recent years. Itsought to demonstrate the ways inwhich geographers are integratingarea studies and social science researchin new ways in the light of September11,2001, and to respond to the emerg­ing geopolitical cartographies of thetwenty-first century.

The keynote speaker was NeilSmith (City University of New York),who lectured on "Geography of theAmerican Empire: The Middle East asEndgame of Globalization." Otherspeakers were Mark Blumler (StateUniversity ofNew York, Binghamton),Karl Butzer (University of Texas),Diana Davis (UniversityofTexas),KayEbel (Ohio Wesleyan University),Derek Gregory (University of BritishColumbia), Joseph Hobbs (Universityof Missouri), Paul Kaldjian (Univer­sity of Wisconsin at Eau Claire), GwynRowley (University of Sheffield inEngland), and Anna Secor (Univer-

Concerts

Bengi Baglama Trio

Simon Shaheen

musicians, all accomplished perform­ers on the Turkish long-necked folk lute(baglama), presented their rich reper­tory with the musical creativity that haswon them widespread reCOgnition inTurkey and beyond. Fail< Gill helpedwith the event.

"An Evening of Arab Music" withSimon Shaheen and h.is Near EasternMusic Ensemble, May 10. The programfea tured a repertory of traditional songsand pieces as well as modern composi­tions. Singer Youssef Kassab was ac­companied by Simon Shalleen (ud andviolin), Michel Merhej (percussion),Najib Shaheen (ud), and Bassam Saba(flute).

"Folk Music of Turkey" with the BengiBaglamaTriofromAnkara(MuratOkanOzti.irk, Ozay Onal, and MehmetGi.i<;er), April 26. The program featuredtraditional songs and instrumentalpieces representative of different re­gional styles of Anatolia. The three

"Asmar" with Yair Dalal and his en­semble from Israel, April 20. The con­cert, organized by Esther Raizen (He­brewStudies), presentedDalal's uniquerepertory of Judeo-Arab songs and in­strumental pieces, both traditional andmodem, from Iraq and other parts ofthe Middle East.

Yair Dalal

A n Algerian Gala on November 16featured "Sounds from the Sa­

hara" performed by Sidi Barhoom andMohamed Firoozi; "Andalusian Mu­sic" performed by an ensemble led byYahia Ghoul; "Contemporary Rai Mu­sic" performed by Zakaria KouloughH;"Traditional Alawi Dance" led byCheikh Mohammed Liani; and "BerberDance" led by Barhoom Bouzidi. Theevent was organized by the Center incollaborationwith the Algerian-Ameri­can Association of Texas.

Yahia Ghoul

"From AnatoHa to Andalusia: Sufi andTraditional Music ofTurkey and NorthAfrica," February 8. Tills special two­part program, organized by Abral"tamMarcus, featured Sufi devotional songsand traditional pieces from the reperto­ries of Turkey in the eastern part of theMediterranean and Morocco and Alge­ria in the west. Theperformers includedLatif Bolat and Ensemble (Erin Foster,Chris Henke, and Abraham Marcus)and Yahia Ghoul and Ensemble (ErinFoster and Zakaria Kouloughli). Theconcert concluded with a song and im­provisations performed together by thetwo ensembles.

A Showcase of Israeli Cinema: The Films ofJudd N e'eman TeacherVVorkshop

Arabic Circle

H emispheres, which is composedof au treach programs in the four

Title VI area studies centers on cam­pus, presented a workshop for K-12teachers of social studies and worldliterature entitled "Folklore and My­thology Around the World" on No­vember 2.

Receptions

A braham and Rina Marcus hosteda dessert reception on October 6

in their home for the students, staff,and faculty of the Center of MiddleEastern Studies and the Departmentof Middle Eastern Studies.

In early January, the Centerhosteda farewell reception for Dr. FatihaHamitouche, visiting FulbrightScholar, who was returning to hernative Algeria.

On May 9, the Center hosted areception to honor students graduat­ing from its M.A. program.

cinema and television. He presented alecture entitled "The Combat Woundin Israeli Cinema" on AprilS. Two ofhis films-Paratroopers and Streets ofYesterday-were shown in conj unctionwith the lecture, and he was availableto answer questions after each show­ing. Professor Yaron Shemer (HebrewStudies) organized the event.

discussing them afterward. Meetingsof the Circle are co-sponsored by theCenter for Middle Eastern Studies andthe Department of Middle EasternStudies. Speakers this past year haveincluded Abri HOUl"ani in Decemberand Abdul Majid Shihadeh in Januaryand again in February.

A n innovation in the teaching ofArabic at UT this year has been

the institution of the Arabic Circle,which meets irregularly and offersstudents a chance to use their lan­guage skills by listening to lectures inArabic by local members of the Araband Arab American community and

Judd Ne'eman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Film

and Television at Tel-Aviv Univer­sity, and a producer and director offeature films and documentaries for

Taieb Belghazi

The Center organized or helped toco-sponsor a number of lectures

and presentations.

"The Mediterranean as 'Barzakh': Per­spectives from Morocco," by TaiebBelghazi, Professor of Cultural Stud­ies at Mohammed V University, Rabat,Morocco, September 30.

"Sufi Imagery in Song-Texts of Popu­lar Music," by Shemeem Abbas, lec­turer in the Department of English,October 17.

"TransActions: Tourism in the South­ern Mediterranean," by KamranAsdar Ali, Assistant Professor in theDepartment of Anthropology. Octo­ber 21.

"King-Sized Panegyric Odes Deliv­ered at Tiny Hamdanid Courts," bySamer Ali, Assistant Professor in theDepartment of Middle Eastern Stud­ies, October 30.

"Manufacturing Independence: TheSyrian Bourgeoisie during the French

Lectures

Mandate," by Geoffrey Schad, a lec­turer in the Department of History,November 4.

"Milk and Meat: The Interaction ofEconomics and Gender amongBaggara Pastoralists of the Sudan, "by Barbara Michael, Assistant Profes­sor of Anthropology at Stephen F.Austin State University inNacogdoches, November 8.

"Geographies: Transnational, Linguis­tic and Urban," by Afra al-Mussawir,M.A. student in Anthropology, basedon a year of field research amongyoung Arab women living and study­ing in Amman, Jordan, November 14.

"The Questions of Democracy in Tur­key: Islam and Modernity," by HaldunGiilalp, Professor of Sociology atBogazi<;i University in Istanbul, No­vember 20.

"Understanding the Public Face ofPiety: Building Portals in SeljukAnatolia," by Professor E. Sara Wolperof the University of New Hampshire,March 4.

"Postmodern Humanism from theSources of Judaism," by Paul Mendes­Flohr, Professor of Modern JewishThought at the University of Chicago,March 6.

"Wonder and Its Images in MedievalIslamic Culture," by Persis Berlekamp,PhD candidate in the history of artand architecture at Harvard Univer­sity, March 19.

"Kafka's Canon: Hebrew, Yiddish, andthe Comedy of Language in The Trialand Amerika," by David Suchoff, Profes­sorofLiteratureatColbyCollege,March27.

"Forgiveness and Time's Arrow: TheCase of Monsieur Adolf Paul-

Damascus" (April 3) and "Commen­surating the Incommensurate:American Slavery and the Holocaust"(April 4), by Laurence MordekaiThomas, Professor of Philosophy andPoliticalScienceatSyracuse University.

"The Iraq War in Historical Perspec­tive," by Avi Shlaim, Professor of In­ternational Relations at Oxford Uni­versity, April 10.

"The Many Faces of Yiddish Poetry: AReading with Commentary," byAbraham Brumberg, author and Edi­tor-in-Chief of the journal Problems ofCommunism, April 10.

"Democratizing the Arab World: Fan­tasies, Realities, and Possibilities," byMichael Hudson, Professor of Politi­cal Science at Georgetown University,April 18.

"Hegemony: Speaking Truth toPower," by Fadwa EI Guindi, AdjunctProfessor of Anthropology at the Uni­versity of Southern California, April24.

"The Kurds: APeoplewithouta COlm­try," by Ardeshir BagherpoUI, Ph.D.,partner and chair of Qual MedicalManagement, April 25. Dr.BagherpoUI hails from a Kurdish re­gion in Iran.

Dr. Fatiha Hamitouche

Dr. Byung-Ock Chang

During fall 2003 the Center will hostDr. Roberto Marin-Guzman, Profes­sor of Middle Eastern History at theUniversity of Costa Rica. He is a vis­iting Fulbright Scholar currentlyworking on a book about the dynam­ics of interfaith dialogue. He has pub­lished a number of books and articleson medieval and modern MiddleEastern history.

Dr. Fatiha Hamitouche, whospent the 2002 calendar at the Centeras a visiting Fulbright Scholar, re­turned in January 2003 to the Univer­sity of Algiers, where she teachesEnglish and linguistics.

Visiting Scholars

During the 2003 calendar year theCenter is hosting Dr. Byung-Ock

Chang from Hankuk University inSeoul, South Korea. Dr. Chang is aspecialist in Iranian studies and iscurrently an Associate Professor ofForeign Studies and Chairman of thePersian Department at Hankuk Uni­verSity, where he received his Ph.D.in International Relations. He is work­ing on a book about Islamic politicsand the rule of the ulama. His publi­cations inelude works on Iranian poli­tics and foreign policy, the role of theUnited States in the Persian Gulf, andthe Persian language.

Student and Alumni News

Ann Grabhorn Friday Scholarship-Aja Bonsu, M.A. Middle Eastern Studies

Turkish Studies Scholarship-J. Patrick Reidy, Middle Eastern Studies/LawIranian Studies Scholarship-Mehmet DarakclOglu, Middle Eastern Shldies/

Public Affairs

"Public Memory as a Power Currency:The Intention of Public Address" atthe University of Chicago's annualconference on Middle Eastern historyand theory this summer.

Alissa Perkins, an M.A. studentin Anthropology, has received aFulbright award for the coming year.She will be researching gender andpoetics in Morocco.

American University of CairoUniversity of Utah, Summer InstituteBogazi<;i University, IstanbulUniversity of Utah, Summer InstituteArabic Language Institute, MoroccoUniversity of Utah, Summer InstituteUniversity of Utah, Summer InstituteUniversity of Utah, Summer InstituteUniversity of Utah, Summer InstituteUniversity of Utah, Summer InstituteUniversity of Utah, Summer InstituteBogazi<;i University, IstanbulUniversity of Utah, Summer InstituteAmerican University of CairoArabic Language Institute, Morocco

SummerFLASArabicAl"abicTurkishArabicArabicArabicArabicPersianArabicHebrewPersianTurkishArabicArabicArabic

Center Awards and ScholarshipsAcademic Year FLASArabic M.A. Middle Eastern StudiesArabic M.A. Middle Eastern StudiesArabic M.A. GeographyArabic Ph.D. AnthropologyArabic PhD. AnthropologyPersian M.A. Middle Eastern StudiesTurkish M.A. MES/CommunicationArabic M.A. Middle Eastern StudiesPersian M.A. Public Affairs/MESArabic M.A. Middle Eastern StudiesArabic Ph.D. AnthropologyArabic M.A. Hebrew /Medieval StudiesArabic Ph.D. AnthropologyArabic M.A. Middle Eastern Studies

Alden, HeatherEtheridge, JamieFitzgerald, HopeGilman, Daniel J.Gould, Miriam R.Hammad, HananHungerford, MarkJoudi, SteveKamrani, MarjonSzanto, EdithWagner, laurenWalker, R. DavidWestmoreland, MarkWiddifield, Jonathan

Israel on "ethnic music" under theauspices of a Fulbright Fellowship.

Daniel Micallef, a student in theCenter's M.A. program, presented apaper, "The Portrayal of the IslamicCommunity in the West," attheAMSSconference in Washington, DC lastfall. Tarlan Useynov, a doctoral stu­dent in the Department of MiddleEastern Studies, and Daniel presen ted

Alden, HeatherBonsu, AjaDaraiseh, NidalEtheridge, JamieGould, Miriam R.Holland, LeslieJoudi, SteveKamrani, MarjonMcCormack, JenniferMcCullough, MarkMoretz, JeffreyReidy, J. PatrickSaenz, IsraelTurpin, AndreaWagner, Lauren

Bill Edmonds, Ariane Marion,Elisabeth Sheiffer, and Suzanne

Yountchi graduated from the Center'sM.A. program in Middle Eastern Stud­ies this past spring, and Gina Ander­son will graduate at the end of the fall.Sheiffer and Yountchi have acceptedjobs with the U.s. government, andAnderson will be returning to the U.5.Army, where she is part of the ForeignArea Officers program. Ryan Osbornegraduated from the dual degree pro­gram in Middle Eastern Studies andLaw.

Hiilya YIldiz won the first Eliza­beth Fernea Scholarship in the LiberalArts. Yildiz, a graduate student inComparative Literature, is focusingon nineteenth-century Ottoman nov­els.

Sahar Aziz (dual program inMiddle Eastern Studies and Law) wasthe recipient of a Continuing Univer­sity Fellowship for this past academicyear. For the coming year, HananHammad has received a ContinuingUniversity Fellowship and EdithSzanto has been awarded a BrutonFellowship. Both are students in theM.A. program in Middle Eastern Stud­ies. Pre-emptive fellowships wereawarded to incoming M.A. studentEmily Hunter and Ohad Meyer.

Kamran Bokhari, a student in theCenter's M.A. program, has published"A Divided Epistemic Communityand Political Islam" in The AmericanJournal of Islamic Social Sciences; "TheSocial and Ideological Roots ofJihadism: A Constructivist Under­standing of Non-State Actors" inMiddle East Affairs Journal; a book re­view; and several op-ed pieces. Hepresented papers at six conferencesthis past year. In the fall, he will bebeginning a doctoral program atCatholic University in Washington,DC.

Galeet Dardashti, a doctoral can­didate in Anthropology, is currentlyconducting dissertation research in

The University of Texas at AustinCenter for Middle Eastern Studies1 University Station F9400Austin, Texas 78712-0527 USA

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