CCAS Newsletter Summer 2010

Summer 2010

CCAS NewS Media Matters: Annual Symposium Explores Information Evolution in the Arab World Mimi Kirk

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ith an exciting and cutting edge event in mind, CCAS faculty and staff agreed last spring on the perfect topic for the Center’s 2010 symposium: the ever-changing landscape of Arab media. CCAS public affairs coordinator Maggie Daher, a Master’s student in Georgetown University’s Communication, Culture & Technology Program, brought special expertise and joined forces with CCAS director Dr. Michael Hudson, CCAS adjunct instructor Dr. Adel Iskandar, Dr. Jon Anderson of Catholic University, and Dr. Leila Hudson of the University of Arizona to pull off one of CCAS’s most ambitious symposia yet. “Information Evolution in the Arab World,” which featured some of the most respected scholars and practitioners in

Dr. Dina Matar of the University of London kicked off the discussed the importance of examining the role of the authoritarian state in cultural production, with Syria as her case study. “This doesn’t mean that there aren’t changes on the ground,” she said, “but we need to stretch media and communications research to Gräf, a Ph.D. candidate from Germany, then spoke about media fatwas, concentrating on their recycling and readaptation in the media and the popularization of Islamic law through them.

Dr. Mohamed Zayani of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar rounded out the panel, arguing for the need to study Arab media as a terrain for civic engagement, rather than focusing on its impact on democratization and society. three speakers. Dr. Joe Khalil of Southern Illinois University spoke about how place and media interact in the Arab media Mr. Jawad Abbassi of the Arab Advisors Group then presented an overview of the Arab telecom and broadband markets, showing which countries in the region have the most access to technology such as the Internet and cellular telephones. Finally, Dr. Naomi

I C N 1-8 Annual Symposium Explores "Information Evolution in the Arab World" 8 Interns Join CCAS for the Summer 9 Dr. Michael Hudson Ends Three-Year Stint as Director

O N 10 Faculty Workshop Addresses the Cultural Politics of Translating Turkish and Arabic Novels

P E 10-11 Spring Public Events

A N 11 MAAS Alum Tod Robberson Wins Pulitzer Prize

She concluded that their competition is also linked to political competition within the hierarchy of Saudi princes.

Center for Contemporary Arab Studies

Georgetown University

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202 687 5793

Center News Dr. Philip Seib of the University of panel, “Message Control and Civil Society.” He asserted that the U.S. model of public diplomacy in the Arab world needs to reach audiences and speak to their needs and wants, rather than “selling” the United States. It also must be accompanied, he said, by real policy rather than simply by beautiful words, as with the case of Obama’s speech in Cairo last year.

Dr. Lina Khatib of Stanford University spoke on the Digital Outreach Group, a State Department group that explains U.S. foreign policy and challenges misinformation on Arabic, Persian, and Urdu language websites. She discussed the positives and negatives of the group, pointing out that while its members engage with those in the Arab world and beyond, they sometimes answer too rationally or frame their responses to focus on the poster rather than the issue at hand. Dr. Kai Hafez of the University of Erfurt in Germany addressed the liberalization of Arab media systems, and used Daniel Hallin and Paolo Mancini’s model of European and North American media to outline this change.

Despite the value he sees in employing this Western model, he asserted that “we have to start discussing Arab media systems with more intelligent intellectual tools.” The fourth speaker, Dr. Annabelle Sreberny of the University of London, took the Middle East, tracing its history as well

as analyzing its current rhetoric, processes, and intended audiences.

“Media Wars,” the fourth panel of the

of satellite television to wage a “war of words,” and how Algerians fought back via video blogs and print newspapers.

of Washington State University. Dr. Pintak examined the relationship between Western and Arab media. While he argued that each media system has its own worldview, there are changes afoot—such as ownership patterns—that in the long term will bring the two systems together.

Mr. Ayman Mohyeldine, a journalist with Al Jazeera English, spoke about the lack of Western media coverage of Israel’s offensive in Gaza in December 2008 and January 2009, due to Israel banning journalists from the Strip but also because of the absence of Western media organizations there before the offensive.

“What gets lost in a media frenzy when you don’t have a presence on the ground is the human side of the story,” he said.

Dr. Mohammed el-Nawawy of Queens University of Charlotte, North Carolina, then discussed his study of Al Jazeera English, concluding that the channel is a media anomaly. “Al Jazeera English is less likely to cater to any particular partisan

four presenters on “Youth and Media: Identity, Expression, and Activism.”

any particular region or country, but rather by its global audiences,” he argued. Lastly, Mr. Hafez al-Mirazi from the American University in Cairo outlined the media war between Egypt and Algeria during the qualifying soccer matches for the World Cup last year. He described Egypt’s use

subject, with the second taking place on from Georgetown University discussed the tradition of poetry and oral storytelling in the Arab world and its importance with regard to shaping mores, ethics, and identities in the region to the present day.

Dr. Nitin Sawhney of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) spoke which he co-founded and which seeks to empower Palestinian youth through creative expression in the form of digital storytelling and new media. Mr. Wael el Attili, co-founder and head of creative development at Kharabeesh Creative Content in Jordan, talked about and showed some of the humorous and clever cartoons his company produces. Finally, Georgetown University’s Laurie King shared her experiences of and methods for teaching graduate students about Arab media, and she showed some of her The second day of the conference opened with the panel, “Entertainment and Popular Culture.” Dr. Leila Hudson of the University of Arizona discussed the popularity of Turkish soap operas in the Middle East, noting that they provide their largely female audience with representations of alternate modes of being that are simultaneously “modern” and Muslim. The City College of New York’s Dr. Christa Salamandra then turned to Syrian television social dramas that depict urban poverty. She argued that these dramas critique the state for not “living up to its social welfare rhetoric;” however, she added, “power is exposed and resisted, but ultimately not overcome, as in Arab daily life.” Dr. Tarik Sabry of panel with a talk on the phenomenon of for rendezvous and to proclaim their love

Wadah Khanfar, Director General of Al Jazeera, delivers the keynote address.

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kind of public space, a private/public space, an in-between space, a hyperreal space?” he asked.

CCAS News

Summer 2010

Center News Expression, and Activism” panel.

He spoke about his company, which features popular and amusing Arabic sayings on its shirts and enjoys a following. “Arabs don’t need to create culture at the moment,” al Masri Dean of SFS Dr. Carol Lancaster gives the opening remarks. said. “We need to mainstream the rich Director General of Al Jazeera culture we already have.” Mr. Yassin Mr. Wadah Khanfar then gave the Alsalman, aka The Narcicyst, an Iraqisymposium’s keynote address to a Canadian hip hop artist, discussed the packed auditorium, addressing such way he uses music to express connection issues as the need to remedy a lack of and distance from culture as an Arab context and history as well as follow-up in the diaspora. Mr. Ahmed abu Haiba, in reporting the news, the importance executive director for 4shbab TV, the of journalists being citizens or at least first Islamic television music channel, very knowledgeable of the language talked about the channel’s aim to “deliver and culture of the country from which a moderate message of Islam for youth.” they report, and the task of guarding Dr. Helga Tawil Souri of New York the newsroom and journalists against University concluded the panel with a talk about how Palestinian activism has Jazeera has sought to do. appeared via modern technology, such American University Ph.D. candidate as through text messages. “The more we rely on technology,” she said, “the panel, “Social Networking and the Arab more spaces of alternative or counter uses begin to emerge.”

Three speakers presented on the blogosphere in Egypt. She explored next panel, “New Media Literacies and the generational, gender, and other Audiences.” Dr. Vit Sisler of Charles University in Prague discussed Islamic a tension between the individuality of educational video games in the Arab world, commenting on how they communicate community, created through practices of religious and moral values to young blogging,” she said. Dr. Sahar Khamis of players, as well as help them develop a the University of Maryland then addressed deeper understanding of history. Dr. Yves the effects and paradoxes that have Gonzalez-Quijano of Université Lyon 2 in emerged from the increase of new media France looked at how the Arabic language in rural Egypt. Harvard University’s Mr. is being used and transformed by today’s information technologies, study of the Arabic blogosphere, such as e s p e c i a l l y b y t h e A r a b the fact that YouTube is the most popular blogosphere. He brought up link and that Palestine is an issue that the example of Arabizi/Easy unites the entire blogosphere. Finally, Arabic, in which, for example, Dr. Jon Anderson of Catholic University discussed the means by which network “ain.” Tel Aviv University’s creates a space that is participatory but not necessarily democratic.

Mr. Tamer al Masri, founder of Jordan’s the second “Youth and Media: Identity, CCAS News

Summer 2010

was entitled “The State of Arab Media Studies.” Dr. Noha Mellor of Kingston University talked about Arab journalism as an academic discipline, and argued that scholars should conduct more qualitative studies regarding Arab journalism. Dr. Walter Armbrust of Oxford University studies needs to be more engaged with history. He argued that “mass media does not necessarily cause dramatic change, for the simple reason that change is more of a gradual process…Consequently, history is important because without it we… constantly overemphasize the novelty of the effects of the new media we are looking at.” The last speaker of the conference, Dr. Adel Iskandar of Georgetown University, spoke about the prevailing notion that the media systems from the West are on a headon collision with the Arab world. The ideas stemming from this belief, Dr. Iskandar said, are helping us to critically examine with Arab media. He then mapped out for a resistance to disciplinism and a turn to a space of hybridity and ambiguity.

Many presenters remarked that the symposium was a rare and welcome opportunity to be in the same space with their fellow Arab media specialists.

CCAS was pleased to provide a forum for dialogue and debate about this very timely subject for a group of such distinguished speakers. Dr. Adel Iskandar, Dr. Leila Hudson, and Ms. Mimi Kirk, Multimedia and Publications Editor for the Center, are pleased to continue the conversation through an edited volume based on the symposium’s proceedings, to be published in the near future.

the Arab satellite television watching habits of the Arab some of his findings from interviews with 50 families.

An audience member poses a question.

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Center News

2010 CCAS Symposium Panelists

"With a substantial portion of broadband internet users in the Arab world, the global players have paid attention to the fact that this is a growth market, where online advertising has major potential. That is why Google has moved into the

"Kharabeesh, [of which I am a cooriginal cartoon and animation content. This content should be based on our Islamic and Arabic culture.

We have to save this culture, and we are focusing on new media to do so."

and Egypt."

Jawad Abbassi

Wael el Attili "I'm part of a generation of young Arabs who grew up in North America or Europe and tried to discover who they were and what their culture was. Yet, due to our upbringing, going back to our roots made us feel detached...Hip hop was something we could relate to—that diaspora, that loss of space and place."

Yassin Alsalman

"Despite all the talk about television channels, radio stations, and other media in the Middle East,...they are not the main catalyst of the escalating anger in the region. The messages that these media forms deliver would be delivered even if these media outlets didn't exist."

Tamim al-Barghouti

"We need to look beyond blogging as media and beyond framing the value of information for political action in terms of improved decision-making, and focus instead on how information is formed and how it acquires authority,

my study of the Arabic language language Web 2.0 sites are actually public diplomacy...the U.S. is not the dominant topic of discussion, but rather domestic issues."

network communication."

Jon Anderson

Bruce Etling "We still don't seem to regard the presentism of Arab media studies as being a problem‌[In other that new media must be seen as the harbinger of dramatic change. We are suffering from an unexamined technological determinism."

Walter Armbrust 4

"One of the main characteristics of the Arab blogosphere is the fact that the more it grows, the more it encompasses different social strata.

This blogosphere is increasingly inventing its proper language by creating new words, combinations of sounds and pictures, meanings, and symbolic codes."

Yves Gonzalez-Quijano CCAS News

Summer 2010

Center News "Due to their potential for uncomplicated digital reproduction, media fatwas lose their character as texts that are relevant to a topical

"I hope that Arab media studies, instead of becoming obsessed with taxonomic categorization and the comfortable space of the erratic, vibrant, unpredictable, multi-sited, diffuse, and deterroritorialized. With

place, a person. They become transformed into statements that claim universality."

strength and can move forward."

Bettina Gräf

Adel Iskandar "Arab media systems are liberalizing, while Western democratic media systems are experiencing a 'deliberalization.' My feeling is that the two systems are getting closer to each other. However, media systems around the world are not as clearcut as they used to be, so we need to

Kai Hafez

"Examining media cities helps direct our attention away from an emphasis on comparative national systems because media cities allow for supranational media to geographies."

Joe Khalil "We musical television channel in the world...We are delivering a moderate message of Islam for youth through a bright, attractive, and innovative media channel."

have

very

poor

media

village on the one hand, and new communication tools on the other hand. In other words, [in rural development and penetration and a slow pace of infrastructural development."

Ahmed Abu Haiba "Turkish dramas say something about the distributors, namely and they are clearly part and parcel of creating a brand and competitive advantage within the Middle Eastern transnational satellite market‌They the liberalization of the media."

Leila Hudson CCAS News

Summer 2010

Sahar Khamis "News should have a mission, but it should not be directed towards supporting a particular ideology, party, or group. It should be directed towards empowering the human being, liberating him, reducing chains on his movement and way of thinking, giving him proper knowledge to make the right decision."

Wadah Khanfar 5

Center News "No matter how good the work of the Digital Outreach Team [a State Department group that explains U.S. foreign policy and challenges misinformation on Arabic, Persian,

"We need to analyze journalism as a it is easily accessible or not. If not, then what are the obstacles? We must look at journalists as intermediaries of culture."

being undermined by the trajectory of U.S. foreign policy towards the Middle East."

Lina Khatib

Noha Mellor "U.S. policymakers and pundits often look to Egyptian bloggers and Iranian Twitterers for new forms of activism that are capable of tyrannical regimes. So, theoretically, mass media—plus pop and youth culture—equals a new Middle East."

Laurie King "One of our inherent problems as Arabs is that we take ourselves too seriously, sometimes about the

"While Israel has its fair share of blame for not allowing journalists in [to the Gaza Strip during the

have stirred healthy debates and they provide a deep understanding of our society...They also provide a good laugh."

me the real blame is on the media organizations who chose to ignore the Gaza story prior to the offensive."

"I think the state continues to matter, and it has to be taken into account when discussing the politics of the everyday. The key debate is: How do we conceptualize the state?

This question is imperative to any understanding of the role of the state in cultural production."

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the media, and the main winners of it were the media. Advertisement revenue streamed in, and many people cashed in. I don't think politics ultimately had a lot to do with it."

Hafez al-Mirazi

Tamer al-Masri

Dina Matar

"The soccer war [between Algeria

Ayman Mohyeldine "Al Jazeera English is an anomaly in the sense that it is not dominated by geopolitical or commercial to have the resources, journalistic capacity, and identity to challenge the existing paradigms that guide international news broadcasters."

Mohammed el-Nawawy CCAS News

Summer 2010

Center News "Competition for the largest Saudiowned media conglomerates is not a matter of autonomous decision making. It is linked to political competition within the hierarchy of princes and is situated whereby media conglomerates, business security, and

"The fact that there is a growing use of Arab journalists by Western news organizations and that media systems and ownership patterns are changing means that there is a convergence of the two. That will in the long term affect the worldview of journalists."

Lawrence Pintak

Naomi Sakr

their commitment to safeguarding the political status quo."

"Many Syrian television creators cling to Arab socialist ideals. Social dramas often take the state to task, usually gingerly, sometimes openly, for not living up to its social welfare rhetoric."

evolved as a community and carved a space for themselves within the larger Egyptian blogosphere and, like that larger blogosphere, three evolutionary stages: core experimentation, activism, and

Courtney Radsch

Christa Salamandra "There is a continuing enterprise of locking Palestinians into enclaves, not unlike South Africa. Part of

"The most important thing for television content to help educate their children as to how they can act as Muslims, preserve the values of Islam, and carry themselves as Islamic people in Europe."

[an initiative to conduct digital video and storytelling workshops confront that physical occupation through creative expression."

Khalil Rinnawi

Nitin Sawhney

"What I encountered on the Qasr Nile with the theses I had heard and read on cultural change in contemporary Egyptian society, especially those that spoke of increased levels of conservatism, religiosity, and radicalization."

Tarik Sabry CCAS News

Philip Seib Summer 2010

"Public diplomacy must deal with virtual states. There is a virtual Arab community and an even larger virtual Muslim community that is connected not just by shared interests but by interactive media. The people who were previously isolated now share common satellite channels, talk to each other on cell phones, read the same blogs, and look at the same websites."

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Center News "Most of the Islamic educational videogames try to promote positive or family values, thereby distinguishing themselves from mainstream game production, which is oftentimes perceived and labeled as morally corrupt or violent."

Summer Interns Aid in Center’s Programming and Publications Teo Molin

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Vit Sisler "As Israeli forms of control become more technologized and stronger in terms of the relationship between the military and communication technologies, those become the very spaces in which resistance is played out by Palestinians, and certainly in the Gaza Strip."

Helga Tawil Souri Service is directly affective in terms of foreign policy initiatives is less to it for news—even if that is only in comparison with other channels."

nterns Kammi Sheeler and Teo Molin came to us

Summer Internship Program. While at CCAS, they worked on projects related to outreach, publications, and events, among other tasks.

Kammi is from Seattle, Washington, and is pursuing a degree in comparative politics at the University of Puget Sound. She spent the fall of 2009 in Morocco, where she studied the Moroccan dialect—darija—as well as regional migration issues, on which she conducted independent research. This fall Kammi will again travel overseas for an internship with the State Department in a U.S. embassy. In the future, she hopes to work for the government in an international context or for an international organization. She also intends to pursue a Ph.D. in political science.

Teo is a rising senior at Amherst College, majoring in history and political science. He is studying Arabic and pursuing a certificate in Middle East studies. Teo has served as editor-in-chief of Amherst’s magazine, The Indicator, worked as a research assistant for a professor of Asian languages and civilizations, and helped bring guest speakers to campus as a member of the Colloquium on the American Founding. He was born in New York City and lives in northern New Jersey.

Annabelle Sreberny of the media changes in the Arab world, or attempt to measure their impact, I propose to map out more subtle dynamics induced by the Arab terrain for civic engagement which

Teo Molin and Kammi Sheeler, CCAS Interns.

Mohamed Zayani 8

CCAS News

Summer 2010

Center News

Dr. Michael Hudson Ends Three-Year Stint as Director Mimi Kirk

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n May 18, faculty, staff, students, and board members gathered to honor Dr. Michael Hudson’s past three years of service to CCAS as its director. However, this recent directorial turn is only the proverbial tip of the iceberg in terms of his involvement in the Center. Dr. Hudson helped found CCAS in 1975, many years of dedicated leadership, we are grateful.

In the upcoming year, Dr. Hudson will continue his duties as a director, but at the National University of Singapore’s Middle East Institute.

Several members of the CCAS community spoke at the event, serving up both lighthearted has also been an extraordinary force behind the Center for many years, and who will take on the directorship in 2010-2011, said, “Under Mike, there were years of success, expansion, innovation, high visibility, and internal harmony.

Dr. Hudson, in his new Georgetown baseball cap, enjoys his farewell gathering.

want him to remember that his roots are here— and dress accordingly.” Dr. Stowasser then presented Dr. Hudson with a baseball cap with the Georgetown University logo and a picture of Jack the GU bulldog. “You should wear this all around Singapore,” she told him.

Dr. Stowasser also read this missive from former Dean of Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service Dr. Peter Krogh: “Mike’s signature is indelibly inscribed on the pages of the Center’s long and distinguished history. It is a proud and noble signature which commands the respect of the entire Middle East studies community and which is owed the gratitude of the entire Georgetown University community.”

Dr. Clovis Maksoud, Director of the Center for the Global South at American University and a valued board member, wrote the following: “Professor Hudson will always be an inspiration to Arab studies students and professionals and to the institution that he has nourished from the start.”

Others have since weighed in about their experience associate director, said, “Working for and with Mike has been an incomparable experience. He has guided the Center with vision, honesty, fearlessness, and humor—always keenly focused on the Center’s best interests. He has shaped my view of what an excellent leader can be.” Maggie Daher, CCAS’s public affairs coordinator, said, “I have admired all of CCAS’s public events. He also always pushed for us to be on top of the news, even if it meant putting together an event in a matter of days. Despite the stress of last minute CCAS News

Summer 2010

planning, it always paid off. I feel immensely lucky to have worked under a leader like Mike.”

Some voiced opinions of Mike’s upstanding, yet fun, character. Dr. Samer Shehata, assistant professor at CCAS, said, “Mike is a true gentlemen; he is always exceedingly polite, warm, and gracious. And despite the formal wear and impeccable etiquette, he is loads of fun at academic conferences. Of course, he studiously attends the dry academic panels during the day and then can sometimes be seen at the hotel bar in the evening with friends, colleagues, and former students enjoying himself and regaling others professor at CCAS, added, “Walking the corridors of CCAS, it was sometimes hard to navigate through the waves of building.”

Zeina Azzam Seikaly, Director of Educational Outreach for the Center, who has worked with Dr. Hudson since 1980, summed it up: “Without Mike’s vision and leadership, we would not have had the institutional building blocks at CCAS that we have enjoyed for many years, like the annual symposium, the visiting scholar program, research and publications, and the teacher outreach program. He has always been ahead of the curve in terms of steering the Center toward innovation, growth, and excellence. Mike has also been a friend to all of us, always supporting the work of staff, faculty, and students. We have known him as a serious scholar as well as a warm and fun colleague.”

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Outreach News

Faculty Workshop Addresses the Cultural Politics of Translating Turkish and Arabic Novels Sylvia Önder

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Middle East, funded by a Title VI grant from the U.S. Department of Education, sponsored a faculty

Organized by Dr. Sylvia Önder, Visiting Assistant Professor of Turkish Language and Culture at Georgetown University, the workshop brought together faculty and students from area universities for an afternoon of intense discussion led by three experts on various aspects of the topic. The workshop, “Competing Imperatives of Cultural Translatability: Turkish and Arabic Novels in European Languages,” examined the

Collaboration and Competition: The Tango of Tr a n s l a t i o n , ” gave workshop participants a rare glimpse into the process of having one’s own novel translated.

For the purpose of this workshop,

between the Middle East and the West.

of Turkish descent. Her most recent book, Tales of Crossed Destinies: The Modern Turkish Novel in a Comparative Context, was published by the Modern Language Association in 2008. Dr. Seyhan placed the success of Nobel Prize-winning Turkish novelist its reception into European literary circles. Her analysis, under the title “Western Destinations of the Modern Turkish Novel: a window into a cultural “other.” Dr. Seyhan then answered participants’ questions about Orhan Pamuk, about the place of various authors in the modern history of Turkish literature, and about media attention surrounding Turkish authors in Germany. at Georgetown University and author of several award-winning Arabic novels, addressed the topic of translation from the perspective

Public Events A Concert and Discussion with Salman Ahmad April 8, 2010 CCAS co-sponsored a cross-cultural dialogue featuring Pakistani artist Salman Ahmad. Ahmad, one of South Asia’s most

translated into English as The Pistachio Seller (Syracuse University Press, 2009), won the Arkansas Arabic Translation Award in 2009.

Discussion involved the complexity and occasional impossibility of translating cultural concepts from one language into another.

The afternoon was rounded out by Dr. Natalie Khazaal’s presentation, “When Translator and Author Go Separate Ways: The Mohamed Choukri Controversy.” Dr. Khazaal is Visiting Assistant Professor of Arabic Language and Literature at Georgetown University. Using slides putting Moroccan novelist Mohamed Choukri’s original Arabic text side by side with various translations into English, French, and German, Dr. Khazaal presented some revealing examples of the power dynamics of translation—from the intimate level of metaphorical domination and the re-writing struggles involving colonialism and resistance.

With a Turkish lunch of pide—Turkish pizza—and an enthusiastic Friday afternoon audience representing diverse backgrounds, ages, and language expertise, the workshop was a valuable effort to compare the artistic and political dynamics of

The Impact of Climate Change on Arab Countries April 14, 2010 Dr. Mohamed el-Ashry, Senior Fellow with the UN Foundation and Facilitator of the Global Leadership for Climate

physician, and United Nations goodwill ambassador. With his band Junoon, Ahmad popularized a blend of Western rock music and Eastern/Islamic music, cultural bridge within South Asia and between the East and West.

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Dr. Mohamed el-Ashry talks about climate change.

Action (GLCA), shared the results of the Arab Forum for Environment and Development report on the impact of climate change on the Arab world.

The Palestine Poster Archives Project – The 2,300th Poster: Exploring Art and Politics April 22, 2010 Project curator (and MAAS student) Dan Walsh described the evolution of his Palestine Poster Project from its inception posters from and about Palestine when he was a Peace Corps volunteer in Morocco in the mid-1970s. The project is part of his CCAS News

Summer 2010

Academic News master’s thesis. Walsh’s objectives are to: 1) enrich the curricula on the history of the

Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee - DC Chapter.

high schools via the use of the Palestine poster as a classroom resource; 2) promote a civic conversation on the origins of

The Man Who Guarded the Bomb April 29, 2010 CCAS adjunct instructor and author Gregory Orfalea celebrated the release The Man Who Guarded the Bomb (Syracuse University Press). Orfalea previously directed the writing program at Pitzer College of the Claremont Colleges.

The author of two acclaimed histories, The Arab Americans: A History (Olive Messengers of the Lost Battalion (Free Press, 1997), he published in 2009 a collection of memoirs and personal essays, Angeleno Days (University of Arizona Press). He divides his time between Washington, D.C. and Los Angeles.

mainstream discourses in the United States the Palestine poster genre as an element of contemporary Palestinian culture.

DAM Performance April 28, 2010 As featured in Jackie Salloum’s 2008 documentary, Slingshot Hip Hop, DAM hop crew, featuring music that combines Arabic percussion rhythms, Middle Eastern melodies, and urban hip hop.

DAM’s lyrics are influenced by the

One of Dan Walsh's Palestine posters.

Palestinian struggle for freedom and equality, as well as by issues such as terrorism, drugs, and women’s rights.

All three members of DAM were born and grew up in the slums of Lod, a mixed town of Arabs and Jews 20 kilometers from Jerusalem. Co-sponsors included the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University Students for Justice in Palestine, and the American-

Academic News

MAAS Alum Robberson Wins Pulitzer Prize Marina Krikorian

"I

’m still absorbing it,” says 1989 MAAS graduate

with two colleagues at the Dallas Morning News for a project that examines a longstanding problem in Dallas: the disparity between the northern (largely prosperous and white) and southern (largely poor and minority) halves of the former foreign correspondent, explains how his international

“When I covered the Muslim world, I knew our readers had misconceptions and biases,” he says. “I tried to set aside a little space in every article to dispel myths…I set out to do the same thing with southern Dallas.” studying journalism at the University of Texas and later Texas Tech, and he eventually interned with the Saudi publishers of Arab News and Asharq al-Awsat. He moved to Lebanon’s Daily Star for which he covered Syria and the Iran-Iraq war. While still completing his MAAS degree in 1988, he took a full-time position at the Washington Post, where he worked for 10 years before moving to the Dallas Morning News.

“I’ve probably used my MAAS degree in some big or small way every single day of my career,” he says. “There were times when I could say certain things or bring up little details that made it clear that I wasn’t just some dumb American reporter thrown in to cover the war. People sensed that I had really done CCAS News

Summer 2010

my homework.”

He describes one such occasion in early 1991, when he arranged an interview with the speaker of Iraq’s parliament under Saddam Hussein. to speak Arabic impressed the speaker, who asked the translator to leave. “I insisted that the translator stay because I was by no means prepared to do an entire 40-minute story out of it, absolutely blowing away the New York Times.” he continues to cover foreign affairs. He writes editorials and columns about Israel-Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan on a fairly regular basis. “Foreign affairs, particularly the Middle East, is where my heart is,” he says.

“I hope I never have to give it up.”

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C C A S P re s e n t s t h e MAAS Class of 2010

U.S. POSTAGE PAID WASHINGTON, DC o

Kelli Harris

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he Center is delighted to announce that 24 students have completed the requirements necessary for a Master of Arts in Arab Studies degree. These graduates will go on to Ph.D. programs, the Foreign Service, think tanks, law schools, and further Arabic study at prestigious programs such as the Middlebury Arabic School and the Center for Arabic Study Abroad in Cairo and Damascus (CASA). Alf mabrouk!

Theses: *: “Unpacking the Modern, National Self: The Diary of al-Sakakini” Samuel Dolbee*: Cassandra Filer: “Development Discourses of HIV/AIDS in Yemen” Anders Gulbrandsen* Shay Hazkani*: “‘Arab Mothers Also Cry’: Conformity and 1957” Ava Leone (graduating summer 2010): “International Assistance and the Effects on Palestinian Community Mobilization” Ania Nikonorow (graduating summer 2010): “State Formation Structure?”

Elizabeth Nugent*: “Hizbullah in Lebanese Domestic Politics: Islamism, Nationalism, and Parliamentary Opposition” Comprehensive Exams: Christopher Alkhoury

Michelle Paison*

Haley Cook

Deena Shakir Omar Shakir Andrea Wegner* Adrien Zakar*

Colin Durkin David Greenhalgh* Julian Hadas* Cory Julie* Fahad Malaikah Ilyana Ovshieva

*Denotes distinction on comprehensive exams or thesis.

PHOTO CREDITS Symposium photos, pp. 1-8: Zain Shah Robberson, p. 11: Courtesy of Tod Robberson All other photos taken by Mimi Kirk Design by Teo Molin

CCAS NEWS CCAS News is published three times a year by the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, a component of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University.

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