Events and News

Public Events

Spring 2008

January \| February \| March \| April \| May \| Fall 2008

January
29 Tu	Last Tuesday Film Series Raï Story	7pm, ILC 120
31 Th	Farzin Vejdani Public Talk Visiting candidate: History of Modern Iran Edward G. Browne in the Persian Mirror: Orientalism and Modern Iranian Nationalism	12.30pm, Optical Sciences, 410
31 Th	Book Release Celebration Co-sponsored by the UofA BookStore Encounters with the Middle East: True Stories of People and Culture that Help You Understand the Region, edited by Nesreen Khashan and Jim Bowman. Solas House, 2007. Guests are invited to share their impressions of the Middle East, and questions to the editor, Jim Bowman, are welcome. Light refreshments to be served.	4.30-6pm at UofA BookStore (SUMC)

February
06 We	Conversations Across Religious Traditions Series Apocalypse Today: The 'End' in Jewish, Christian, and Islamic Perspectives College of Humanties, co-sponsored by NES, CMES, JUS, and Religious Studies Speaker: J. Edward Wright Professor, Judaic Studies and Director of the Arizona Center for Judaic Studies	7-9pm, AME, room S-202
07 Th	Afshin Marashi Public Talk Visiting candidate: History of Modern Iran The Nation's Poet: Ferdowsi and the Iranian National Imagination	12.30pm, Koffler 216
11 Mo	Narges Erami Public Talk Visiting candidate: History of Modern Iran Objets d'Arts or Flights of Fancy: the Cultural Production of Persian Rugs	2.00pm, Modern Languages 413
12 Tu	Anna Senarslan Public Talk Research in Azerbaijan — a Report from the Field Co-sponsored by Russian & Slavic Studies Department and Near Eastern Studies Department Anna Oldfield Senarslan earned an MA from the UA department of Russian and Slavic Languages and went on to a PhD in Turkic Languages and Cultures at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a specialty in the Caucasus and Central Asia. She spent 2004-2006 as a Fulbright fellow researching folklore in Azerbaijan. Her research on women poet-minstrels led to her dissertation and forthcoming book, Singing the Past, Calling the Future: The Women Ashiqs of Azerbaijan. Recent projects include translations and liner notes for Smithsonian Folkways Music of Central Asia volumes 4 and 6, entries in the Encyclopedia of Women in Islamic Cultures, and a British Library Endangered Archive grant in collaboration with the Azerbaijan State Archive of Sound Recordings. She is currently teaching Turkish/Azeri at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.	12 noon to 2pm in Marshall* 490*
14 Th	West Bank Story Film Screening Sponsored by the Arizona Center for Judaic Studies with filmmaker Ari Sandel, UA graduate and holder of Certificate in Middle Eastern Studies West Bank Story is a musical comedy about David, an Israeli soldier, and Fatima, a Palestinian fast food cashier - an unlikely couple who fall in love amidst the animosity of their families' dueling falafel stands in the West Bank. Tensions mount when the Kosher King's new pastry machine juts onto Hummus Hut property. The Palestinians ruin the machine and the Israelis respond by building a wall between the two eating establishments. The couple professes their love for each other, triggering a chain of events that destroys both restaurants and forces all to find common ground in an effort to rebuild, planting a seed of hope.	12 noon at Gallagher Theater (Student Union) 2006 Academy Award Winner: Best Live Action Short Film

17 Su	In Perfect Harmony, Arab-Jewish Ensemble UAPresents Artistic Director Udi Bar-David, cellist for the Philadelphia Orchestra, leads a superb Arab-Jewish virtuoso ensemble: Hanna Khoury, Arab-Israeli violinist; Margo Levertt, Klezmer clarinetist; Kareem Roustom, Syrian-born oud player; Michel Mirhej Baklouk, Jerusalem born, Lebanese resident on hand drums.	6pm at Centennial Hall Tickets must be purchased in advance
19 Tu	Esra Özyürek Public Talk Turkish Christians and German Muslims: Cultural Racism, Fears of Religious Conversion, and National Security in the New Europe At the turn of the twenty-first century in two secular countries, Turkey and Germany, converts to minority religions have been officially defined as threats to national security. This talk explores the terms and conditions of this emergent fear of religious converts in two countries as a window to the shift from biological racism towards cultural racism in the post-Cold War European political discourse. Esra Özyürek is an Associate Professor of Anthropology at the UCSD. She received her PhD at the University of Michigan. She works on secularism and religion, ideologies of state and citizenship, social memory, and religious conversion. She published Nostalgia for the Modern: State Secularism and Everyday Politics in Turkey (Duke University Press, 2006) and Politics of Public Memory in Turkey (Syracuse University Press, 2006).	2pm in Marshall* 490*
19 Tu	Gershon Shafir Public Talk Learning from Torture: National Insecurity and Human Rights in Israel and its Neighbors Co-sponsored by Center for Middle Eastern Studies, AZ Center for Judaic Studies, Department of Near Eastern Studies, Hillel Dr. Shafir will discuss the post 9/11 debate in the U.S. about the appropriateness of physically pressuring terror suspects as well as policies taken by Israel, Egypt, Syria, and Jordan as a model by both those in favor and against. He will frame the discussion by reference to torture in Western legal thought since the Enlightenment and through a comparison of the legal approaches of democracies, such as the U.S. and Israel, and non-democratic countries in regard to torture. Gershon Shafir is a Professor of Sociology at UC San Diego.	6pm in Cesar Chavez Building110 (Economics Bldg)
20 We	Marc Baer Public Talk Honored by the Glory of Islam: Religious Change in the Ottoman Empire in the 17th Century Rather than explaining Ottoman Islamization in terms of the converts' motives, this talk instead concentrates on the proselytizers-in this case, none other than the sultan himself. Mehmed IV (1648-87) is remembered as an aloof ruler whose ineffectual governing led to the disastrous siege of Vienna. Through an integrated reading of Ottoman literary and archival texts, this talk reexamines Mehmed IV's failings as a ruler by underscoring the sultan's zeal for bringing converts to Islam. Marc Baer is an Assistant Professor of History at the University of California/Irvine.	2pm in Communication* 206*
25 Mo	Aboubakr Jamaï Public Lecture Democratization in the Arab World: Morocco's Failing Transition Co-sponsored by UA Departments of Journalism and Near Eastern Studies Until January 2007, Aboubakr Jamaï was the publisher of Morocco's leading weekly newspaper, Le Journal Hebdomadaire. His paper tackled tough topics such as government corruption, corporate impropriety, and other taboo political subjects in Morocco. He co-founded Le Journal and Assahifa in 1997 and 1998. In 1999 and 2000, the Moroccan government temporarily banned his newspapers. Jamaï won the Committee to Protect Journalists International Press Freedom Award in 2003. He is currently completing an MPA at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. download event flyer	12 noon, Education* 211*

26 Tu	Last Tuesday Film Series Channels of Rage	7pm, ILC 120
28 Th	Sabbagh Lecture: "Is Iraq Viable?" Kanan Makiya is an Iraqi-American academic. He is the Sylvia K. Hassenfeld Professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at Brandeis University. The Sabbagh Lecture is presented by the anthropology department at The University of Arizona through the generosity of Tucsonans Entisar and Adib Sabbagh. The Sabbaghs have sponsored the series for 15 years. Entisar (Vivi) Sabbagh has a doctoral degree from the UA anthropology department, and Dr. Adib Sabbagh is a Tucson cardiac surgeon. Each year, an expert in Arab cultures is brought to campus each year for a public lecture and a master seminar for graduate students. These lectures focus on the Arab cultures of the Middle East from an anthropological perspective and enhance the public understanding and appreciation for the complexity and diversity of Arab cultures. The lectures also serve to enrich the curriculum of the department of anthropology by bringing to it the scholarship and learning of eminent scholars.	7pm at the Arizona Historical Society Museum, 949 E. Second Street



March
01-03 Sa-Mo	2008 Western Consortium Multi-Language Workshop Recall Protocol and the Assessment of Reading & Listening Proficiency Co-sponsored by CERCLL and the National Middle East Language Resource Center Workshop is for language educators only. Preregistration is required.	For more information, click here
05 We	Gary Nabhan, author of Arab/American: Landscape, Culture, and Cuisine in Two Great Deserts Informal Meet the Author Lecture and Booksigning Co-sponsored by CMES	4.30-5.30pm, UA BookStore 7pm, UA Special Collections Library
06 Th	Liesl Riddle Public Talk Middle East Management Values: An Empirical Challenge of the Assumption of Homogeneity Co-sponsored by Eller College of Management Since the work of Hofstede (1980), scholars have traditionally envisioned the Middle East as a culturally homogeneous region. To date, minimal empirical research has attempted to confirm or reject this assumption of homogeneity. In this study, we collected cultural values data from managers and professionals in Algeria, Egypt, Pakistan, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. Research findings indicate that although regional similarities in the collectivism value exist across the region, country differences with respect to the individualism and universalism values are pervasive. Further, within-country differences for generation cohort and gender are also identified for the individualism and universalism values. Our findings reveal a clear picture of heterogeneous values across these five countries of the Middle East, as well as providing evidence of generation and gender differences within the countries.	3.30-4.30pm, location Marshall* 490*
10 Mo	Mohamed Maamouri Public Talk Language and Education in the Arab Region Co-sponsored by UA Depts of Linguistics, Near Eastern Studies, Language, Reading & Culture, and the Center for Educational Resources in Culture, Language and Literacy (CERCLL) Mohamed Maamouri, Associate Director of the International Literacy Institute (ILI) at the Graduate School of Education/University of Pennsylvania , will discuss the impact of Arabic diglossia on the quality of education in the Arab region. In his presentation, Dr. Maamouri makes the claims that (a) the low levels of literacy in the Arab region are closely connected with the diglossic situation of the Arabic language and (b) the degree of difficulty which is experienced by the learner in the acquisition and retention of reading and other language-related skills in the Arab countries have a detrimental effect on the quality of education which requires an ambitious language planning policy and urgently needed language reforms.	4pm, Marshall 490

25 Tu	Last Tuesday Film Series Sounds of Silence	7pm, ILC 120
27 Th	Taha Muhammad Ali and Peter Cole Reading Co-sponsored by the Poetry Center and The Inner Connection Taha Muhammad Ali is the author of four books of poetry in Arabic and a book of short stories. So What: New & Selected Poems, 1971–2005, translated by Peter Cole, Yahya Hijazi, and Gabriel Levin, was published in September of 2006 by Copper Canyon Press. A leading contemporary Palestinian poet, Muhammad Ali was born in 1931 in the Galilee village of Saffuriyya. During the Arab-Israeli war of 1948, he was forced to flee to Lebanon along with most of the other inhabitants of his village. A year later he slipped across the border with his family and, finding his village destroyed, settled in Nazareth, where he has lived ever since. The Saffuriyya of his childhood has served as the nexus of his work, which is grounded in everyday experience and driven by a story-teller’s vivid imagination. A self-educated poet, in his youth he spent nights studying classical Arabic poetry, as well as the works of American and European poets, while he supported himself (and still does) by selling souvenirs from his shop near Nazareth’s Church of the Annunciation. Peter Cole, born in Paterson, NJ in 1957, has published three collections of poetry, Rift (Station Hill), Hymns & Qualms (Sheep Meadow Press), and What Is Doubled: Poems 1981-1989 (Shearsman Books/UK). Cole has worked intensively on Hebrew literature, with special emphasis on medieval Hebrew poetry. Award-winning translations include Selected Poems of Shmuel HaNagid (Princeton University Press, 1996) and Selected Poems of Solomon Ibn Gabirol (Princeton University Press, 2001). Cole is the founder and co-editor of Ibis Editions, a small press devoted to the publication of Levant-related literature. He began studying Hebrew in Jerusalem in 1981, and has since divided his time between Israel and the United States.	8pm at the UA Poetry Center


28 Fr	PLO Representative, Ambassador Afif Safieh Public Lecture Negotiating the Future: A Palestinian Perspective on the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict Presented in conjunction with the Tucson Chapter of the American-Arab Anti Discrimination Committee, the UA Department of Political Science, and the Department of Near Eastern Studies Afif Safieh is a Palestinian diplomat. In 2005 Ambassador Safieh was appointed as the Head of the PLO Mission to the United States following completion of a 15-year stint as the Palestinian representative to the United Kingdom and the Vatican. Before that he served as deputy director of the PLO Observer Mission to the UN Office in Geneva . He also worked as a staff member in Yasser Arafat's office in Beirut , in charge of European Affairs and UN institutions. Safieh was a researcher at the Centre for European Studies in the Catholic University of Louvain. He served as PLO representative to the Netherlands , and was involved in the 1988 Stockholm negotiations that led to the first official and direct American-Palestinian dialogue.	7-8.30pm at Social Sciences* 100 (1145 E. South Campus Drive)*


April
02 We	Zeev Maoz Public Lecture Professor of Politic Science, Director of International Relations Program at University of California, Davis Conversations across Religious Traditions presents: The Rage of the Lambs: The American Jewish Community and the Arab-Israeli Conflict UA College of Humanities	7pm, AME Building, room S-202 1130 N. Mountain Ave.
04 Fr	Sama Alshaibi and Beth Krensky Public Talk Alshaibi is Iraqi/Palestinian and an assistant professor of art at the University of Arizona. Krensky is an assistant professor of art education at the University of Utah Conversations across Religious Traditions presents: Beyond Counterstance: Art as Dialogue UA College of Humanities	5pm, Art Building, room 312 1031 N. Olive Rd
09 We	Daniel Levy Public Lecture Senior Fellow; Director, Middle East Policy Initiative The Israel/Palestinian Conundrum	Due to changes in the speaker's schedule, the Levy event has been cancelled
15 Tu	Rumi Returning Film Screening In telling the great Muslim mystic's story, Rumi Returning weaves a tapestry of the past, present and timeless. The movie is enveloped in gorgeous cinematography shot throughout Turkey, and the mesmerizing music and sacred dance of the whirling dervishes that Rumi inspired. The rapturous images complement beautifully Rumi's unparalleled poetry of the universal heart.	7pm, ILC 120

17 Th	Mark LeVine Public Lecture Heavy Metal Islam: Rock, Religion and Rebellion among Contemporary Youth in the Muslim World 8th Annual Southwest Graduate Conference in Middle Eastern Studies, Popular Cultures of the Middle East Hosted by the Middle East and North Africa Graduate Students Association of the University of Arizona, in cooperation with the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, the Near Eastern Studies Department, and the Religious Studies Program Mark LeVine is a professor of History at UC Irvine. LeVine holds a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern Studies from NYU. His research and teaching focus on histories, theologies and political and cultural economies of the Middle East and Islam in the modern and contemporary periods, and globalization studies with a comparative focus on popular cultures and religion in Europe and the Muslim world. More recently, he has begun research projects looking at popular music in the Muslim world, the history of the Oslo peace process, and the public sphere in the Middle East and North Africa.	5pm, UA BookStore, lower level

23 We	Mohammed Fadel Public Lecture *‘Abd al-Razzaq al-Sanhuri and the Possibility* of a “Modern” Islamic Law** Presented by CMES and co-sponsored by the Near Eastern Studies Department and the Religious Studies Program Both attorney and scholar, Mohammed Fadel is an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Toronto. He holds a PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations (Chicago) and a JD from the University of Virginia. Professor Fadel has published numerous articles on Islamic legal history. The focus of his lecture is 'Abd al-Razzaq al-Sanhuri, one of the Arab world's most distinguished scholars of modern jurisprudence.	4-5pm, location TBA

29 Tu	Last Tuesday Film Series Crossing the Bridge: The Sound of Istanbul	7pm, ILC 120

May
27 Tu	Last Tuesday Film Series Between Two Notes	7pm, ILC 120