Newsletter FALL 2015 VOL 36 No 1
center for middle eastern studies University of California Berkeley
Table of Contents Welcome from the Chair || Sultan Scholar: David Stenner New Faculty: Christine Philliou and Jason Vivrette || Select Faculty News Visiting Scholars at the CMES || Grant Awardees Notes from the field: When Middle Eastern Geopolitics Happen to Your Plans Alumni profiles: Mona Damluji and Robert Vessels New and Continuing Programs || IAS Graduation 2015 Upcoming events
Welcome from the Chair Over the last two years, the CMES has undergone major transitions—first, the departure of former Chair Nezar AlSayyad, who ably led the Center for close to two decades. I assumed the helm as Interim Chair for the 2014-2015 academic year; this summer, I gratefully accepted the appointment to full Chair for a five-year term from the UC Berkeley Vice Chancellor for Research. In this capacity, and with the crucial support and guidance of the CMES faculty and students, I hope to implement a vision for the CMES that has developed over the thirteen years I have spent in Stephens Hall as CMES Vice Chair. Of course none of this is possible without the CMES’s stellar staff. This summer we welcomed a new Administrative Coordinator, Amber Zambelli, who previously completed two years of graduate work in the Department of Near Eastern Studies and worked for several years in the Haas School. She has already made great strides toward streamlining our operations. Former CMES manager Lydia Kiesling has stepped into the role of Outreach Director, coordinating activities mandated by our Title VI funding (and so much more). The year 2014-2015 was devoted to acknowledging past successes and evaluating future objectives; for capitalizing on strengths and looking for areas of expansion. Buoyed by the renewal of our four-year Title VI grant at the highest level of funding for Middle East Centers nationwide, the CMES entered a period of growth—growth founded upon and spurred by its many decades as a premier national and institutional resource. The semesterly newsletter, a long tradition of the CMES, took a year-long hiatus as we made decisions regarding outreach and sustainability, both financial and environmental; it resumes this year in a digital form, while our lecture poster will continue to be issued in hard copy. Please hang it on your office door!
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In these pages, you will read about new additions to the community of scholars at UC Berkeley, and learn about new programs at the CMES—including the already enormously successful Salon launched last year. This year we have exciting new initiatives in Islamic studies, graduate student professional development, and environmental issues in the Middle East. You’ll meet the members of our full roster of Visiting Scholars, and hear stories from students who had to make swift decisions regarding research and study in the face of the current geopolitical situation in the Middle East and North Africa. Every year, we begin the fall semester with a reflection on the continued relevance of Middle Eastern studies on the national and international stage. Every year we preface our programs with “Now more than ever…,” and every year it is true. So here we go again: Now more than ever, deep reserves knowledge and empathy are required to engage with the Middle East and North Africa in a meaningful way. Since its establishment the CMES has been a rich source of information and support for faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, and the general public. This year, we strive to be ever-more inclusive, to reach the broadest possible audience, and to continue to serve as a home for the robust community of Middle East scholars on campus and beyond. Professor Emily Gottreich CMES Chair
SULTAN SCHOLAR
New Faculty
David Stenner
Christine Philiou
Supported through a generous donation of the Sultan bin AbdulAziz Al-Saud Charity Foundation, the Sultan Scholar program is a semesterlong fellowship for scholars who have recently completed a Ph.D. in a field pertaining to the Arab world. After a highly competitive 20142015 application cycle. the CMES is delighted to welcome David Stenner as our 2015 Sultan Scholar. David will spend the fall semester at the CMES working on a book manuscript entitled “Networking for Independence: The Moroccan Nationalist Movement’s Global Campaign against Colonialism, 1930-58,” which examines anti-colonial propaganda activities in Morocco and well beyond during the Protectorate period. Before obtaining his Ph.D. in Modern Middle East History from UC Davis in 2015, David received a B.A. in Semitic Philology and an M.A. in Middle East Studies from Uppsala University in Sweden. David was awarded the Tessler Paper Prize by the American Institute for Maghrib Studies for an article he published in The Journal of North African Studies. He is a regular contributor to Zamane, one of the most widely circulated French-language publications in North Africa.
Christine Philliou joins the CMES community this semester as Associate Professor in the Department of History. Christine specializes in the political and social history of the Ottoman Empire and modern Turkey and Greece as parts of the post-Ottoman world. Her book, Biography of an Empire: Governing Ottomans in an Age of Revolution (University of California Press) examines the changes in Ottoman governance leading up to the Tanzimat reforms of the mid-nineteenth century. It focuses on the vantage point of Phanariots, an Orthodox Christian elite that was intimately involved in the day-to-day work of governance even though structurally excluded from the Ottoman state. Her current work turns to the political, personal and intellectual/artistic itinerary of the Turkish writer Refik Halit Karay (1888-1965). Christine’s interests and other publications deal with comparative empires across Eurasia, transitions from an “Ottoman” to a “post-Ottoman” world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and political and cultural interfaces in the eastern Mediterranean, Middle East, and Balkans in the early modern and modern eras. This fall she is teaching a seminar on the postOttoman World, and next semester a graduate seminar on comparative empires, “The Ottoman Empire and its Rivals.” We are delighted at the prospect of a revival of Ottoman Studies at UC Berkeley after a long hiatus!
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New Language Coordinator
Jason Vivrette Jason Vivrette joins the Department of Near Eastern Studies as Turkish Language Program Coordinator. In addition to teaching first-, second-, and thirdyear Turkish as a visiting lecturer at Berkeley since 2013, Jason served as Coordinator of the Arabic Language Program at San Francisco State University for five years, where he also co-directed the Middle East and Islamic Studies Program from 2012 to 2014. This summer, with the support of research grants from the CMES, the Institute of Turkish Studies, and the Institute for European Studies, Jason traveled to Istanbul to create new mobile app exercises to accelerate student vocabulary acquisition, and to research and develop new methodologies and materials to support graduate students learning Turkish at Berkeley. This fall, as he completes a new elementary Turkish textbook that draws heavily on transcultural and literacy-based teaching approaches, Jason will also be collaborating with colleagues at Çukurova University in Turkey on a distance-learning research project aiming to foster intercultural competence in learners of Turkish and English (at UC Berkeley and Çukurova, respectively) through online project-based collaboration. Jason received his M.A. in Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley in 2010 with emphases in Turkish, Arabic, and Italian.
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Faculty News
Saba Mahmood, Anthropology Saba Mahmood authored a new book, Religious Difference in a Secular Age: A Minority Report (Princeton University Press), and co-edited a volume, Politics of Religious Freedom (University of Chicago Press) during the 20142015 academic year. She was also promoted to the rank of full Professor, and initiated a new research project on the Shia-Sunni conflict in South Asia and the Middle East.
students from UCB, Queens College, Penn, Harvard, Brandeis, and Jersey City College who were given a deep immersion in the culture and politics of the region. Peter was also busy on the athletic front; this summer he completed the San Francisco marathon and swam the 5km Monte Cristo challenge off Marseille, in addition to surviving his first bikram yoga class.
former students at American University in Cairo. Finally, she sent to press a co-edited booklet on Malak Helmy’s exhibition “Lost Referents of Some Attraction.” All her remaining research time was devoted to two ongoing projects: a co-edited volume Modern Arab Art: Primary Documents (MoMA International Program, forthcoming 2017) and her monograph exploring the co-articulation of new aesthetic forms and mass political movements in Syria and the Arab East, 1930-1967.
Anneka Lenssen, History of Art
Peter Bartu, International and Area Studies Peter Bartu recently published a chapter in The Libyan Revolution & its Aftermath, as well as a monograph for the International Peace Institute on “Mediating Libya’s Transition.” In June he traveled to Jordan, Oman and the UAE as accompanying faculty on the Ibrahim Fellowship Program; the trip included
Anneka Lenssen spent a busy first year at Berkeley getting acquainted with the university and Bay Area communities. She gave a talk, “Surreality and Possession in the Modern Art of the Arab East,” at the CMES, and offered a new lecture course in History of Art of special interest to students majoring in Middle Eastern Studies— Mosque Lamps and Electric Hearts: Modern Art in the Middle East—in the spring. Anneka traveled further afield as well, attending a conference in NYU Abu Dhabi, participating in the discursive program for the Sharjah Biennial, and returning to Cairo, where she visited the graduation exhibition of her
Rita Lucarelli, Near Eastern Studies In July, Rita Lucarelli organized the International Minerva-Gentner Symposium on ancient Egyptian and Jewish Magic with Tel Aviv University, which took place at Bonn University. She recently received a Mellon Collaborative Grant awarded by the Digital Humanities at Berkeley program for a project, “Mapping Texts and Images on Ancient Egyptian Objects.”
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Keith P. Feldman, Ethnic Studies Keith has completed several publications, including a book, A Shadow over Palestine: The Imperial Life of Race in America (University of Minnesota Press); an article, “The Globality of Whiteness in Post-Racial Visual Culture” (Cultural Studies); and two chapters, “ ‘One Like Me’: The Refugee as Relational Figure,” in Ethnic Literatures and Transnationalism: Critical Imaginaries for a Global Age, (Routledge), and “#Notabugsplat: Becoming Human on the Terrain of Visual Culture,” in the Routledge Companion to Literature and Human Rights. He delivered lectures at the Garret Evangelical-Theological Union at Northwestern University, the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life, and Oklahoma State University. Keith also taught a graduate seminar through UCB’s Program in Critical Theory, paired with a senior seminar in Ethnic Studies, on “Race, War, and Culture.”
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Emily Gottreich, History and International and Area Studies In addition to her work as Interim Chair, now Chair of the CMES, Emily was busy at work on her book Morocco: A Jewish History, under contract (and perhaps a bit overdue) with I.B. Taurus press. She co-organized a conference, “The Social and Political Development of Morocco: Inclusion, Dynamism, and Empowerment,” with Lund University in Marrakech, and presented a paper, “Arab Jews, between Alterity and Belonging” at the conference “Anti-Jewish and Anti-Muslim Racisms and the Question of Palestine/Israel” at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. This summer, Emily was invited to join the Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA). On campus, Emily taught the Senior Series of the Middle Eastern Studies Major, and was awarded the 2015 Excellence in Teaching Award by Phi Beta Kappa, Northern California Association.
Mia Fuller, Italian Studies Mia Fuller completed a new bibliography, “Italian Colonial Rule,” for Oxford Bibliographies in African Studies.
Nezar AlSayyad, Architecture and City and Regional Planning Nezar AlSayyad returned from a one-year sabbatical undertaken with the support of a Guggenheim Fellowship. He spent the fall semester in Southeast Asia doing research for his book Architecture’s Poverty, and the spring semester visiting cities in the countries of the Nile basin for his book Nile: Urban Histories on the Banks of a River. During the year he was invited to deliver keynote speeches at several conferences, and lectured on his research in universities in Australia, China, Egypt, Hong Kong, Jordan, Kuwait, Northern Ireland, Malaysia, Singapore, Turkey, and various institutions in the United Kingdom and the United States.
Benjamin Brinner, Music Following five years as Chair of the Department of Music, Ben Brinner took a sabbatical year devoted to ongoing research projects in Indonesia and Israel. In addition to six weeks of research in Indonesia, which included two lectures at the performing arts academy in Surakarta, and working on a book on expert memory for music among Javanese gamelan musicians (under contract with University of Chicago Press), he took two shorter trips to Israel with support from the CMES (among several funders). In Israel he attended numerous concerts — at the Oud Festival in Jerusalem, the Piano Festival in Tel Aviv, and elsewhere — and continued long-term research associations with several prominent musicians, including Zohar Fresco, Jamal Sa’id, Yair Dalal, and Taiseer Elias, all of whom figure in his book Playing Across A Divide: Israeli Palestinian Musical Encounters (Oxford University Press, 2009). These musicians have followed divergent trajectories since the period analyzed in the book, indicative of individual differences as well as musical and socio — political trends in the area — not just hardening political divisions but widespread shifts in musical taste and
performance opportunities. He returned to Berkeley with material for several articles (yet to be written!). While in Jerusalem, he also delivered a research lecture to the Music and Globalization seminar at the Hebrew University. Ben has recently begun a three-year appointment as faculty director of the Center for Jewish Studies and returns to teaching in the Department of Music this fall.
Maria Mavroudi, History In spring 2015, Maria Mavroudi participated at the interdisciplinary conference “Mediterranean Crossings” organized at Yale University by Professor Alan Mikhail (a UCB Ph.D. alumnus). Maria’s paper was titled “Byzantine Translations from Arabic into Greek” and focused on the reception of Arabic scientific and philosophical concepts in Byzantine intellectual life. She spent the better part of the summer examining manuscripts written in the Arabic script currently in Greek collections. This fall she will teach History 3, a lower-division undergraduate lecture course comparing political and cultural developments in the Byzantine Empire and the Islamic world.
˘ Sociology Cihan Tugal, ˘ traveled to Turkey Cihan Tugal
and Tunisia on sabbatical for research on his forthcoming book, The Fall of the Turkish Model (Verso), as well as his manuscript in progress, a work on conceptions of poverty and practices of charity in Christianity and Islam. He published a coedited volume, Building Blocs: How Parties Organize Society, comprising studies on Indonesia, India, the United States, Canada, Egypt, and Turkey (Stanford University Press). He will present his work on the Turkish model at a book launch at the CMES on December 3.
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Visitors and Visiting Scholars Sherifa Zuhur
Stacy Farenthold
Sherifa Zuhur is a scholar whose work addresses contemporary Islamist movements and their impact on gender politics, wars and conflict. She has published 17 books and monographs, mostly recently Saudi Arabia (Palgrave Macmillan). She received her Ph.D. in Middle Eastern History from UCLA, and has held academic appointments at the American University in Cairo and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, among other institutions. Her current research concerns the trajectories of the Egyptian campaign in the Sinai Peninsula and the rebel groups in Syria. While at CMES she has published an article on Syria in the Contemporary Review of the Middle East and written an article with Marlyn Tadros, forthcoming in the next issue of Middle East Policy. Sherifa is also an enthusiast of Arabic music who is playing with several local ensembles, and hopes to interact with UCB students with similar interests.
Stacy Fahrenthold is a historian trained in global migration and transnational politics focusing on modern Syria and Lebanon. Her research and teaching interests include World War I in the Middle East, Ottoman and Arab diasporas, Mediterranean history, and transnational protest and philanthropic practices. She received her Ph.D. in History from Northeastern University in 2014. Before coming to Berkeley, she taught at Williams College as a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Middle Eastern History. While at Berkeley, Stacy will complete work on her first book manuscript, provisionally titled “Between the Ottomans and the Entente: The First World War in Syria’s American Diaspora.” The manuscript is a study of Ottoman, Syrian, and Lebanese political activism in the Americas from the 1908 Young Turk Revolution through the early French Mandates, and tracks the development of a transnational network of Syrians living in Brazil, Argentina, and the United States as they agitated against the Ottoman government.
Asya El-Meehy Asya El-Meehy is Governance Officer at the United NationsEconomic and Social Commission for Western Asia. She was previously an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Arizona State University (2011-2013), and has taught at Wesleyan University and UC Berkeley, where she was a Sultan Scholar. She received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of Toronto. 8
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Katlyn Quenzer Kate Quenzer is a doctoral candidate at the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Australian National University. Her research focuses on the work of Palestinian intellectuals involved in Palestinian resistance from 1967-1974. While at the CMES, she conducted research
for her dissertation, “Writing the revolution: A study of the intellectual history of Palestinians, 1967-1974.” Kate received her B.A. in English literature from Barnard College, where she also began Arabic language study (at Columbia). She received her M.A. in Middle East Studies from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), where she focused on Modern Arabic Literature.
Sofia Shwayri Sofia T. Shwayri is at work on a manuscript, “The Spaces of the Syrian War (2011-present),” a study of Syria’s military conflict and its emerging urbanism. Prior to her arrival at Berkeley, Sofia was an Associate Professor in International Planning and Development at Seoul National University in South Korea, a Visiting Fellow at Oxford University, and an Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow at the John W. Draper Interdisciplinary Master’s Program at New York University. Sofia earned both her M.S. and Ph.D. from UC Berkeley, where she was also an Instructor in Peace and Conflict Studies and the Department of City and Regional Planning. Her research on conflict, cities, and post-conflict reconstruction springs from her early life in wartime Beirut, where she witnessed more than 15 years of simultaneous destruction and reconstruction.
2014-2015 Grant Awardees CMES Undergraduate Research Grant Holly Cramer, History and Near Eastern Studies
(NES): research in the U.K., “Effects of British Occupation of Jerusalem” Emma Cunningham, Political Science: Olive Tree Initiative Travel to Israel/Palestine Samira Damvandi, Middle Eastern Studies (MES): research in Washington, D.C., “Women’s Civil Society Organizations and State-Sponsored Feminism: The Women’s Organization of Iran from 1977-1982” Blake Hughes, MES: research in Jordan, “The Rise and Appeal of Violent Islamic Fundamentalism” Taylor Kennemore, MES and Arabic: language study in Jordan, UC Education Abroad Advanced Arabic Program Rebecca Leff, MES and Political Science: research in Israel, “Health Distribution Politics in the West Bank: Centering on Jerusalem”
Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens Memorial Fund for Middle Eastern Studies 2014-2015 saw the inaugural Stevens Scholar prize competition made possible by the fund established by family and friends of the late Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, an alumnus of UCB. This prize supports travel for research and language study by graduate and undergraduate students who demonstrate a high level of distinction in Middle Eastern Studies. Holly Cramer, MES: Intensive Arabic Study, American University in Beirut Lana Salman, Ph.D. student, City and Regional Planning: “Decentering politics: peripheral urbanization and the remaking of class relations in Tunisia”
The Sultan Program in Arab Studies
Sam Metz, MES and Political Economy: research in Algeria, “Research: Political mobilization and unrest in Ghardaïa”
The Sultan Program supports teaching, research, and public outreach on topics related to the Arab and Arab-Islamic world. Grants are awarded to support Visiting Scholars, graduate and undergraduate research, and other scholarly initiatives.
Taliah Mirmalek, Rhetoric: research and language study in Jordan, “Sanctions in Legal Discourse”; AMBERGH language program
Eliana Abu-Hamdi, Ph.D. student, Architecture: “The Processes of Neoliberal Governance and Urban Transformations in Amman, Jordan”
Christine Tyler, MES and Political Science: language study in Tunisia, Centre Sidi Bou Said de Langues et D’Informatique”
Rachel Colwell, Ph.D. student, Music: “Listening Through and Against Tunisian Ma’luf”
Orel Vaknin, Political Science: Olive Tree Initiative travel to Israel/Palestine
Candace Lukasik, Ph.D. student, Anthropology: “Mobilizing Copts: Lay Politics and the Coptic Orthodox Church in post-2011 Egypt”
Robert Vessels, MES: research in Jordan, “Evolution of the Islamic State from the Al-Qaeda in Iraq insurgency to Syria’s civil war”
Ian Steele, Ph.D. student, Anthropology:
Nathan Wexler, NES: research in Lebanon, “War in the Middle East: Views from Beirut”
Julia Tierney, Ph.D. student, Anthropology: “Securing Beirut: Rewriting its Timeline”
“The Return of the Feloul in the Rural Nile Delta Province of Menoufia”
For information on the Sultan Scholar, David Stenner, please see page 3.
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The Al-Falah Program in Islamic Studies The Al-Falah Program supports dissertation research, teaching, and outreach projects that focus on building academic and cultural bridges between the United States and the Middle East and broader Islamic world. Amina Al-Kandari, Ph.D. student, Architecture: “Modernity in Service of the Nation State: Kuwait 1961-2013” Youssef Belal, Ph.D. student, Anthropology: “Islamic Law, Ethics and Self-Cultivation in Cairo” Juliana Friend, Ph.D. student, Anthropology: “Islam and Homosexuality in Senegal” Rosa Norton, Ph.D. student, Anthropology: “The Mirror Cities: Memory and History in the Aftermath of Expulsion” Milad Odabaei, Ph.D. student, Anthropology: “Giving Words: Translation and History in Modern Iran” Larisa Shaterian, M.A. student, Folklore: “Humanitarian aid work narratives of international and local workers at the Jordanian Hashimite Fund for Human Development (JOHUD) in Amman”
Afaf Kanafani Prize The Kanafani Prize is awarded to graduate and undergraduate students whose academic work focuses on women in the Arab World. Samira Damavandi, MES and Political Science: “The Imperial Feminist Project: The Women’s Organization of Iran, 1966-1979” Kelley O’Dell, MES: “Transnational Conversations: Sexual Identities across Difference in Amman, Jordan” Lana Ramadan, MES and Political Science: “Religion and Law: The Barriers to Gender Equality in the Middle East”
Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowships Allocated by the Department of Education to National Resource Centers nationwide in a competitive four-year grant cycle, FLAS fellowships are awarded by the CMES to graduate and undergraduate students for the study of Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, and Turkish.
Academic Year 2015-2016 Ashley Boots, M.A. student, City and Regional Planning, Arabic Brandi de Leuze, Ph.D. student, French Studies, Arabic Alexandra George, MA. student, Journalism and Public Health, Arabic Candace Lukasik, Ph.D. student, Anthropology, Arabic Hassan Rezakhany, Ph.D. student, Near Eastern Studies, Persian Larisa Shaterian, M.A. student, Folklore, Arabic Shaina Shealy, M.A. student, Journalism, Arabic Madeline Wyse, Ph.D. student, Near Eastern Studies, Hebrew
Summer 2015 Ghaleb Attrache, Ph.D. student, Sociology, Arabic (declined) Boian-Cristof Boianov, Ph.D. student, Anthropology, Arabic Patrick Clark, Ph.D. student, History, Arabic Holly Cramer, History, Arabic Sarah Dadouch, Political Science, Turkish Brandi de Leuze, Ph.D. student, French Studies, Arabic Candace Lukasik, Ph.D. student, Anthropology, Arabic (declined)
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Donna Honarpisheh, Ph.D. student, Near Eastern Studies, Arabic Taliah Mirmalek, Rhetoric and Political Science, Arabic Joel Pattison, Ph.D. student, History, Arabic Ricardo Rivera, Ph.D. student, Anthropology, Turkish Roz Samimi, Interdisciplinary Studies, Turkish Caitlin Scholl, Ph.D. student, Comparative Literature, Arabic Melissa Scott, Ph.D. student, Music, Arabic Maxfield Waterman, Ph.D. student, Anthropology, Persian
Jean-Michel Landry, Ph.D. student, Anthropology Candace Lukasik, Ph.D. student, Anthropology Saba Mahmood, faculty, Anthropology Maria Mavroudi, faculty, History Haitham Mohamed, faculty, Near Eastern Studies Rhea Myerscough, Ph.D. student, Political Science Benjamin Porter, faculty, Music Rizkalla, Niveen, Visiting Scholar, School of Social Work Elizabeth Saylor, Ph.D. student, Near Eastern Studies Jason Vivrette, faculty, Near Eastern Studies
Mellon Research and Travel Andrew Mellon Foundation grants cover the cost of travel for conference presentations or research.
Brandon Williams, Ph.D. student, History Uğur ur Yıldırım, Ph.D. student, Sociology
Wolfgang Alders, Ph.D. student, Anthropology Leyla Alhassen, Sultan Scholar, CMES Amina Al-Kandari, Ph.D. student, Architecture Shaikha Almubaraki, Ph.D. student, Architecture Hatem Bazian, faculty, Near Eastern Studies Youssef Belal, Ph.D. student, Anthropology Benjamin Brinner, faculty, Music Stephanie Brown, Ph.D. student, Near Eastern Studies Rachel Ceasar, Ph.D. student, Anthropology Anna Cruz, Ph.D. student, Near Eastern Studies Amin Ehteshami, Ph.D. student, Near Eastern Studies Muhammad Faruque, Ph.D. Student, Near Eastern Studies Ilaria Giglioli, Ph.D. student, Geography Jenna Kemp, Ph.D. student, Near Eastern Studies center for middle eastern studies 11
When Geopolitics Happens to your Plans The rapidly shifting political circumstances in areas of the Middle East and North Africa can make planning a summer course of research or language study challenging. Last spring, the US Department of State restricted federally-funded travel to Lebanon and Egypt, a decision that affected the plans of a number of students who had received FLAS funding from the CMES. We asked four students to tell us how they managed “Plan B” and how the change affected their studies.
Taliah Mirmalek Undergraduate, Political Science and Rhetoric Where were you originally slated to travel/study with the FLAS? I was first slated to study in Jordan, but had decided to study in Lebanon after receiving the award. When did you find out that your destination was off-limits? What was the time window? A few weeks into April. I had a week or two to research other programs elsewhere and submit an updated plan of study. How did you proceed with finding a Plan B, and what was Plan B? First I established safeties (for example, Qasid Institute in Amman, Jordan, where I had been before). Then I started to ask around about Arabic language programs in other places. Eventually, a friend of mine mentioned Morocco’s Arabic Language Institute of Fez – and there was my Plan B! Did you still use your original FLAS funding, or did you have to find a different way to fund your travel? I was able to use my original funding. 12
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How did the summer end? What did you do that you wouldn’t have done if you’d stuck to your original plan? The summer ended up being a really wonderful experience! There’s the cliché “I traveled and found myself,” and then there’s the experience of traveling, learning about your own misconceptions (often times more subconscious than not), and teaching yourself humility and respect. If I had stuck to the original course, I would have been in Jordan, in an area I was already familiar with. This new course gave me the opportunity to go to a city I had never visited before and to meet people and hear stories that would have otherwise been inaccessible to me. What did you miss out on? One thing I feel I missed out on was the possibility of pursuing my research plans on sanctions and international law in their original context. However, I was humbled and happy to learn that there were many people in Morocco with opinions on sanctions, Iran, and the United States. I didn’t get the interviews with refugees from sanctions that I had hoped for, but I did learn from a new perspective.
I would say the change in plans was a net positive. Despite the initial pandemonium, the very fact of having a program to attend, with accessible professors, and a stable place to live, is a blessing, and no matter where in the world you end up, you will stand to benefit from those aspects. How did you mentally prepare yourself for going abroad to a country that you hadn’t had much time to research? I scheduled Skype video calls, phone calls, and WhatsApp calls with people who I knew who had visited Morocco before. This way I was able to get a stronger sense of the place, and even my housing was secured through a friend of a friend.
Ghaleb Attrache Ph.D. student, Sociology Where were you originally slated to travel/study with the FLAS? The American University of Beirut in Lebanon When did you find out that your destination was off-limits? What was the time window?
Beirut, Lebanon
I found out in early May, roughly 3 weeks before I had been planning to travel to Lebanon. How did you proceed with finding a Plan B, and what was Plan B? Plan B was Arabic language study in Cairo, Egypt. All along I knew I wanted to study in a place where I could also potentially do some research. This initially meant either Lebanon or Egypt. But because the Department of Education wasn’t approving requests for language study in either of those two countries, I had to decide between keeping the FLAS and going somewhere where I didn’t have much of an interest in doing research (Morocco and Jordan), or turning down the FLAS and arranging language and research plans in Lebanon or Egypt
entirely on my own. I chose the latter because frankly I couldn’t afford, mostly in terms of time, to spend an entire summer away from a research site. And I chose Egypt because it is much more affordable than Lebanon and I would be paying out-of-pocket. Did you still use your original funding, or did you have to find a different way to fund your travel? Unfortunately, I had to turn down the FLAS. I used the summer funds my department had guaranteed me as part of the funding package I got when I was admitted to Berkeley. This wasn’t ideal, but it was sufficient for living in Egypt (it wouldn’t have been for Lebanon). I had to pay out-of-pocket for many
expenses, much more than I had originally anticipated. How did the summer end? What did you do that you wouldn’t have done if you stuck to the original course? I’ve had a very fruitful summer in terms of research. Of course I can’t say I would not have had a good research experience in Lebanon. But I am certain I wouldn’t have ended up researching the topic I will now be pursuing in the immediate future. I’ve had an unexpected, but stimulating, change of topics. What did you miss out on? I missed out on rigorous, highquality language study, which was a main goal of mine at the start of the summer. Achieving center for middle eastern studies 13
a higher level of proficiency in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) is essential for my academic career. While I still managed to improve my proficiency in MSA through my alternative plans in Egypt, it is not at the level I would have liked. So I will now have to devote much more time throughout the academic year to language study. Was the change in plans a net positive, negative, neutral? On the one hand, the change in plans has been tough to manage financially. I had to pay out-of-pocket for most of my travel expenses. And, in terms of language study, the downside is I have to factor Arabic study into my academic year plans. On the other hand, the change was positive because I accomplished a lot in terms of my research. I identified a stimulating question, established helpful contacts, and gathered rich preliminary data. It is for that reason that I am wrapping up the summer quite happy with the overall progress I have made, even if not for reasons of language study as I had initially hoped.
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Holly Cramer Undergraduate, History Where were you originally slated to travel/study with the FLAS? I was originally slated to travel to Beirut, Lebanon to study at the American University of Beirut’s (AUB) Summer Arabic program. When did you find out that your destination was off-limits? What was the time window? Because AUB’s application deadline occurred before I had confirmation of program approval from FLAS, I applied to AUB anyway assuming that it would work out. That was my mistake, but I didn’t want to miss AUB’s deadline. I found from FLAS that it wasn’t approved for study in Beirut about a month after I applied to AUB. How did you proceed with finding a Plan B, and what was Plan B? The FLAS advisor helped me identify other programs that had received approval and I went about applying to those. I selected the Qasid Arabic Institute in Amman, Jordan. Did you still use your original funding, or did you have to find a different way to fund your travel? I was able to keep my original funding.
How did the summer end? What did you do that you wouldn’t have done if you stuck to the original course? My summer in Amman [was] wonderful and Qasid is a great language center. I have become much more confident in my Arabic. What did you miss out on? This was my second time studying in Amman and I missed out on experiencing a new country, the goal I had in originally selecting Beirut. It’s unfortunate that government funding for Middle East programs is currently mostly limited to Morocco and Jordan; it will constrain the diversity of Middle East research that could come from this generation of students. There are so many cultures, histories, and language dialects that are restricted to us at this time. Was the change in plans a net positive, negative, neutral? It is always a positive experience to have the opportunity to study Arabic in an immersive environment, no matter the change in plans.
How did the summer end? What did you do that you wouldn’t have done if you stuck to the original course? My summer research went extremely well. I had the opportunity to explore new avenues for my work, but had to put Arabic as a secondary concern, which was a disappointment. Because I enrolled in tutoring sessions rather than a formal Arabic program, I traveled more for my research than I otherwise could have.
Candace Lukasik Ph.D. student, Anthropology Where were you originally slated to travel/study with the FLAS? I was originally slated to travel and study in Cairo, Egypt. When did you find out that your destination was off-limits? What was the time window? I found out at the end of April after securing my language program for the summer. This left me little time to reorganize my research and language plans.
but to deny my FLAS award. I received other grants for my predissertation fieldwork in Egypt, and therefore could not move to another approved country for the FLAS. I was hoping to combine my language-learning with summer research. Did you still use your original funding, or did you have to find a different way to fund your travel? Because I had to decline the FLAS, I had to re-budget for my travel plans and my language program, which I had to then pay for out-of-pocket.
What did you miss out on? I missed out on focusing more extensively on my specialized language needs, which would have been helpful before beginning my dissertation fieldwork during the 2016-2017 academic year. Was the change in plans a net positive, negative, neutral? The change in plans was a disappointment, but I made the best of it for my personal research and language goals for the summer.
How did you proceed with finding a Plan B, and what was Plan B? Because the security decision was announced so late in the semester, I had no choice
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Alumni Profiles The CMES is always pleased to hear news from undergraduate and graduate alumni of Berkeley Middle East related programs. Two recent alumni filled us in about their exciting professional moves post-Berkeley.
Mona Damluji
Robert Paul Vessels
Director and Associate Dean The Markaz, Stanford University
Military and Volunteer Coordinator The Sierra Club
Mona earned her Ph.D. in Architecture at UC Berkeley in 2013. During her graduate studies, she was a dedicated program curator at the CMES with a particular commitment to bringing the work of Arab women filmmakers, visual artists, and performers to campus. Thanks to her efforts, Berkeley was able to host the Baghdad Independent Film & Television College student film series, a photography exhibition of the Open Shutters Iraq project, and a screening and conversation with British-Iraqi documentary filmmaker Maysoon Pachachi. As an instructor in the Middle Eastern studies major, Mona helped develop the methods course MES 102 and organized what is now the annual undergraduate MES research symposium. During her doctoral studies, Mona received the support of the Sultan Program for her research on the cultural work of oil companies in the Middle East, as well as the Afaf Kanafani Prize for Best Paper on Women in the Arab World and a summer FLAS grant. Beginning this fall, Mona Damluji will be Stanford University’s first Director/ Associate Dean of the Markaz: Resource Center for Engagement with the Cultures and Peoples of the Muslim World. The Markaz is home to Stanford’s diverse community of students connected through Muslim identities and experiences. As director, Mona will guide the mission and initiatives of the Markaz as an open center for student activity and fresh programming that addresses underrepresented perspectives from within the Muslim community.
Robert Vessels graduated last spring with a B.A. in Middle Eastern Studies. He completed a thesis on the pragmatic currents of the Islamic State, which brought him back to the Middle East, this time as a civilian. Prior to his time at Berkeley, Robert was an infantryman in the Army from 2004-2009, and deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan. He left the service with the rank of Sergeant. Robert was recently tapped to lead the Sierra Club’s Military Outdoors program, which empowers service members, veterans, and their families by providing access to the outdoors and developing volunteer leadership skills. Until recently, Military Outdoors facilitated access to the outdoors by funding other organizations and hosting several high-profile national trips annually. One of Robert’s responsibilities is to restructure the program from a national scope to a more local, regional level, powered by self-sustaining groups run by military and veteran volunteer leaders. “One of the most exciting parts of my new position is the opportunity to stay engaged with Cal,” says Robert. “The Great Outdoors Lab, a partnership between Sierra Club and UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, is conducting robust research on the emotion of awe and the physical and mental effects of time spent outdoors. For those of us who already know how good it feels to get out of the city and into nature, this seems like a no-brainer, but there is a tremendous opportunity to revolutionize the way we view mental health as a society.” Are you an alum with news to share? Please write to
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Outreach Director, Lydia Kiesling at lydiak@berkeley.edu.
New and Continuing Programs Graduate Student Professional Development Program MENA Salon The MENA Salon is a lively forum for the discussion of current events in the Middle East and North Africa taking place each Friday afternoon in the Sultan Conference room. Candace Lukasik (Anthropology) and Kfir Cohen (Comparative Literature) have stepped down after their admirable work helming the Salon in its inaugural year. Callie Maidhof (Anthropology) and Lana Salman (City and Regional Planning) are leading the Salon this fall, with Shahrzad Shirvani (Architecture) joining in the spring. Topics and suggested readings are sent out to the mailing list and posted on the CMES website the Wednesday before each Salon. All are welcome.
Building upon the popular Junior Scholars Lunches in which graduate students present their work for friendly critique, the CMES has developed a new program in professional development for Ph.D. students working on the Middle East. Beginning with an open house for students to meet and mingle on Wednesday September 2, the CMES will thereafter host monthly development events, including panels on teaching intro courses on the Middle East, addressing sensitive topics, grant-writing, and navigating the academic and alt-academic job markets. A program of events is available on the CMES website.
Berkeley Book Launch A new series will highlight CMES faculty publications with a book talk followed by reception. The series begins this fall with talks by Laura Nader (Anthropology) on her new book What the Rest Think of the West (UC Press) and Cihan Tu ğal (Sociology) on The Fall of the Turkish Model (Verso).
Islamic TextS Circle The Islamic Texts Circle introduces the broader CMES community to important themes in the Islamic tradition via its holy scripture, the Qur’an, and via its long history of exegesis. Participants will gain exposure to the rich and variegated interpretive angles developed in the fourteen-hundred years of Islamic history, so that they may discuss relevant themes in the form of a productive dialogue. The exegeses (texts) range chronologically from the earliest centuries of Islam to the contemporary period and geographically from the Iberian Peninsula to Indonesia. The exegetes (authors) belong to the various denominations-from the various strands of the Sunni to those of the Shi’a--and their interpretive emphases are Sufi, philosophical, theological, political, legal, Salafi, etc. All texts on the theme of discussion will be provided ahead of time. No prior experience is necessary. Please join us for this unique opportunity to learn about Islam from its primary sources! The first meeting will be held on Monday, October 26 at 4:00.
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flickr/André Diogo Moecke
SESAME SESAME is a new working group for scholars, students, and community members dedicated to discussing topics of sustainability as related to their curricula, research, and personal histories. From the role of oil in the Arabian Peninsula, to innovations in green architecture in Cairo, to the effects of climate change on Iran’s agricultural systems, topics of sustainability and conservation are at the forefront of study of the contemporary Middle East and North Africa. The objectives and events of the working group will be participant-driven; the CMES seeks the input of graduate students, faculty, and visiting scholars whose work stands at the intersection of humans and environment to craft the semester’s agenda. Interested parties should contact CMES Administrative Coordinator Amber Zambelli at azambelli@berkeley.edu.
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IAS Graduation 2015 me, mortified, thinking: I’m stuck at an exit. Will I ever make it out? Walking through Sather Gate a few years later was the beginning of a new life, I was sure, but I clueless about where I was. On my first day at Berkeley back in 1984, a young woman approached a friend and me and asked, “Are you rushing?” “Oh no,” we replied; “we’re Armenian!” So, welcome to the elite. I wasn’t expecting to be here either. The CMES bids congratulations and a fond farewell to nine senior Middle Eastern Studies majors who graduated on May 17, 2015, in the International and Area Studies ceremony at Zellerbach Hall. MES alumna Sarah Leah Whitson, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division, gave the commencement address, excerpted below
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Graduates: welcome to the elite.
Some of you may be thinking, “Um… sorry, that’s not me.” But wherever you come from, whatever your parents sacrificed to get you here, however first-generation you may be in this country or in college, however long you’ve been on the outside looking in, as dim as current job prospects may look: to the rest of the world, you are now the 1%; you are part of the power, wealth, influence, and knowledge elite. I too came to Berkeley from the other side. I came from a poor family, my mother a refugee from wartorn lands in the Middle East, then a widow in the U.S., struggling to survive with her only child (while I struggled to survive my mom turning up to parentteacher meetings with eyeglasses held together by scotch tape). I’ll never forget the day—I must have been about 12—when our car, a clunky old giant Lincoln Continental, broke down on a freeway exit in Los Angeles. We sat there for about an hour, blocking traffic a mile behind us, my mother distraught at the impossibility of the repair bill, and
The bad news first: as of today, you are answerable for the sins of the elite, and the harm the American elite and elites around the world inflict on our planet. Whether or not you accept your induction, the responsibility is now yours to correct all that’s wrong. You owe your debt not only to whoever holds your student loans but also to billions of mankind. The good news is you have been gifted with extraordinary tools to get it right. I kiss the ground— because Middle Eastern expressiveness dies hard— on which we stand, for the investment in your enlightenment by the state of California and the federal government, and all those who supported you here—probably not just mom and dad but grandma and grandpa and aunt and uncle. As graduates in International and Area Studies— Development, Peace and Conflict, Latin American Studies, and Middle Eastern Studies—you have already made a commitment to engage with the world outside our comfortable borders and to grapple with some of its most complex issues. You are seekers of knowledge, perhaps even of truth, but more importantly, I hope, you are seekers of justice. Our quest for justice may be rooted in personal experiences: our family, our travels, our interactions with the experiences of others, but in our quest, we find the voice and strength to have lives that matter.
”
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Middle Eastern Studies Majors, 2015 Cormac Craigie Thesis: “Arabia Felix in Flux” Advisor: Hatem Bazian, Near Eastern Studies Samira Damavandi Thesis: “The Imperial Feminist Project: The Women’s Organization of Iran, 1966-1979” Advisor: Minoo Moallem, Gender and Women’s Studies Iman Howard Thesis: “‘I am a Christian and I Never Committed Apostasy’: Political Legitimization in Sudan and the Death Penalty Case of Mariam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag” Advisor: Saba Mahmood, Anthropology Blake Hughes Thesis: “Marketing Radical Islamic Movements” Advisor: Hesham Issa, Architecture Rebecca Leff Thesis: “Buying Time in Jerusalem: The Case of the East Jerusalem Hospital Network” Advisor: Itay Fishhendler, Geography Kelley O’Dell (Honors) Thesis: “Transnational Conversations: Sexual Identities across Difference in Amman, Jordan” Advisor: Minoo Moallem, Gender and Women’s Studies Sam Metz Thesis: “Cultural Memory and Historical Contestation: The International Section of the Black Panther Party in Algiers, 1969-1974” Advisor: Ula Taylor, African American Studies Maggie Sager Thesis: “Israeli Pinkwashing in the San Francisco Bay” Advisor: Hatem Bazian, Near Eastern Studies Robert Vessels Thesis: “Between the Wolf and the Crocodile: The Pragmatic Currents of the Islamic State” Advisor: Peter Bartu, International and Area Studies
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UPCOMING EVENTS LectureS
Book Launches
All lectures take place on Thursdays at 5:00 PM in the Sultan Conference Room, 340 Stephens Hall.
A new series highlighting recent publications by CMES faculty with a book talk and reception.
October 22 Contexts of Music-Making: The Kurdish Ahl-i Haqq of Guran Partow Hooshmandrad, California State University, Fresno November 5 “Immerse Yourself in the Past”: Baths (hammamat) in Time and Space Julie Peteet, University of Louisville
Thursday, October 29, 5:00 PM What the Rest Think of the West Laura Nader, Department of Anthropology
November 12 The R-Shief Media System: Between Technology, Art, and Scholarship Laila Shereen Sakr, UC Santa Barbara November 19 From the Dung Hill to Ariel Sharon Park: The Lives of Iraqi Jews in Israeli Transit Camps Orit Bashkin, The University of Chicago
FilmS
Thursday, December 3, 5:00 PM The Fall of the Turkish Model Cihan Tuğal, Department of Sociology
“Arab Shorts” Wednesday, October 21, 7:00 PM Exemplary narrative, documentary, and animated short films from the Arab Film Festival.
More details at cmes.berkeley.edu.
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center for middle eastern studies University of California Berkeley