MAAS News (Student News)

In Memoriam

Visiting Scholar

Mabrouk to the MAAS Class of 2023!

In May, we celebrated the graduation of 35 students from the Master of Arts in Arab Studies program. All of us at CCAS extend our congratulations to the graduates. We look forward to seeing what you all will achieve!

Thank you to our summer interns!

The CCAS community was deeply saddened to learn of the recent passing of Dr. Halim Barakat, a renowned Arab sociologist and novelist, and a professor at CCAS for 27 years. Dr. Barakat, born to a Syrian family and raised in Beirut, received both his undergraduate and master’s degrees from the American University of Beirut. His doctoral studies in social psychology took him to the University of Michigan, where he earned his PhD in 1966. Dr. Barakat joined the CCAS faculty in 1976. The Center had been founded at Georgetown only a year earlier, and Dr. Barakat pioneered numerous sociology courses and became instrumental in shaping the identity, activities, and curriculum of CCAS during its formative years.

CCAS Senior Director of Programs Honored for Staff Excellence

CCAS is pleased to congratulate our Senior Director of Programs Dana Al Dairani on receiving the 2023 School of Foreign Service Staff Excellence Award recognizing her outstanding work and many contributions to the Center and the School! The award honors SFS staff members who go above and beyond the duties of their positions and whose work has a lasting impact on the school. Dana, who joined CCAS in 2018, received the SFS Staff Excellence Award for her leadership and innovation at CCAS, as well as her role in shepherding the school through a major and successful Department of Education grant application. “Dana is an incredible worker who combines initiative, hard work, and a long-term vision of what the center does or needs to do,” said outgoing CCAS Director Joseph Sassoon. “This recognition is absolutely well deserved.”

Board Member Profile

Dispatches تايقرب

Each summer, CCAS partners with the National Council on US-Arab Relations and Bethlehem University to bring undergraduate student interns to campus to work with CCAS faculty and staff. This summer, CCAS had the privilege of hosting Suhair Mohammad Ali and Leen Altamimi (Bethlehem University), Matthew Audi (Bowdoin College) and Aydin Henderson (Wheaton College).

Dr. Barakat was a prolific scholar, publishing seventeen academic volumes, plus numerous essays and articles during his career. Much of his work focused on contemporary challenges facing the region such as alienation, exile, and crises of civil society. His path-breaking book, The Arab World: Society, Culture, and State (University of California Press, 1993), is considered a classic in the field of Arab studies. Beyond his influence as a social scientist, Dr. Barakat was also an award-winning novelist and short story writer whose creative works served as a bridge between the literary and academic communities. Two of his best-known novels were translated into English. Sitat Ayam (Six Days), published in 1961, has often been called “prophetically named for a real war yet to come in 1967” and served as a prelude for ‘Awdat al-Ta’ir ila al-Bahr (Days of Dust) about the June War of 1967.

The passing of Dr. Barakat is a tremendous loss to the academic community, and CCAS extends our sincere condolences to the Barakat family. You can read a longer biography, as well as remembrances of Professor Barakat written by colleagues and students on the CCAS website