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Past Activities and Events
Sponsored and Co-sponsored Lectures
for year 2005-2006:
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May 26 & 27, 2006: "UnAmerican Acts" CVSP Forum
Workshop, co-sponsored by the Office of the
Provost
By Dr. Kathleen Cleaver and St. Clare Borne
Kathleen Cleaver, former
Communications Secretary for the Black Panther
Party, is now professor of law at Yale and Emory
Law Schools, and Co-Director of the Human Rights
Research Fund. Active in the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee (SNCC), she joined the
Black Panther Party for Self-Defense and became
the first woman member of their Central
Committee. She lived in exile with her
former-husband Eldridge Cleaver iin Algiers and
Paris for seven years. Among her many
accomplishments and years of activism for social
and economic justice including acting as a
member of the legal team that freed Geronimo
Pratt-Ji Jaga, she has also authored articles
along with editing and co-editing several books
including "Liberation, Imagination, and the
Black Panther Party" (2001) and "Target
Zero: Eldridge Cleaver, A Life in Writing"
(2006).
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St. Clair Bourne: In addition to
directing and producing many documentaries and
series for networks from PBS and NBC to HBO, he
has made several documentaries dealing with race
and class in the United States, among them,
"Paul Robeson: Here I Stand", "Langston Hughes:
The Dream Keeper", "In Motion: Amiri Baraka",
"The Making of *Do the Right Thing*" and "Half
Past Autumn: The Life and Works of Gordon Parks"
which was nominated for three Emmys. Curating
several film festivals such as the prestigious
"Full Frame Documentary Film Festival", films
have been shown at Carthage, Toronto, Sundance,
and Ouagadougou.
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May 22, 2006: Dr. Timothy
Marr, "The Cultural Roots of
American Islamicism"
Dr. Timothy
Marr is Assistant Professor of American Studies
at the University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill. He received his Ph.D. in American Studies
from Yale University in 1998. He is the
recipient of several honors and fellowships the
latest of which is the Tanner Award for
Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. He
is the author of The Cultural Roots of American
Islamicism (Cambridge University Press,
2006) and the co-
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Dr. Timothy Marr |
editor of Ungraspable
Phantom: Essays on Moby-Dick (Kent State
University Press, 2006). Dr. Marr is currently
working on two additional book projects:
Malays and Moros: Racial Orientalism in the
American Pacific, and
Muslim Masculinities and
Twentieth-Century American Manhood.
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May 18, 2006: Dr. Susanne
Wiedemann, "Picture (Im)Perfect of the
Global Family of Man: Photography,
National Narrative, and U.S. Cultural Diplomacy
in Cold War Berlin"
Susanne
Wiedemann is currently Visiting Assistant
Professor of American Studies at AUB. She
graduated from the Free University of Berlin
with an M.A. in North American Studies in 1997.
She earned an M.A. in Museum Studies (1999) and
a Ph.D. in American Civilization (2006), both
from Brown
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Dr. Susanne Wiedemann |
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University. She has taught
American Studies courses at Brown University and
Wheaton College. Dr. Wiedemann's
research interests include transnationalism,
diaspora cultures and literatures, and
comparative genocide studies. |
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May 10, 2006: Dr. Noam Chomsky, "Biolinguistic
Explorations: Design, Development, and Evolution"
Lecture Text
Noam Chomsky is a
world-renown linguist, scholar, and political
analyst. His 1957 book Syntactic Structures
outlined his theories of transformational
generative grammar and made him a prominent and
controversial figure in the field. He claimed
that linguistic theory must account for
universal similarities between all languages and
for the fact that children are able to learn
language fluently at an early age.
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Dr. Noam Chomsky |
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Dr. Chomsky has made
contributions to a number of fields from an
influential critique of behaviorism to a 2002
article in Science on
language as a natural object.
Dr.
Chomsky is also known as a political activist
suspicious of big media, big business and big
government. His books include Manufacturing
Consent (1988) and Propaganda and the
Public Mind (2001), and Fateful Triangle:
The United States, Israel & the Palestinians
(1999). His traditional definition of himself
is a anarchist, a political philosophy he
summarizes as seeking out all forms of hierarchy
and attempting to eliminate them if they are
unjustified. Edward Said wrote of Chomsky that
“there is something profoundly moving about a
mind of such noble ideals repeatedly stirred on
behalf of human suffering and injustice.” Dr.
Chomsky is Professor of Linguistics at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
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May 9, 2006: Dr. Noam Chomsky, "The Great Soul of Power"
"The Great Soul of Power" Text
Noam
Chomsky is a world-renown linguist,
scholar, and political analyst. His
1957 book Syntactic Structures
outlined his theories of
transformational generative grammar
and made him a prominent and
controversial figure in the field.
He claimed that linguistic theory
must account for universal
similarities between all languages
and for the fact that children are
able to learn language fluently at
an early age.
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Dr. Noam Chomsky |
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Dr.
Chomsky has made contributions to a number of
fields from an influential critique of
behaviorism to a 2002 article in
Science on language as a
natural object.
Dr.
Chomsky is also known as a political
activist suspicious of big media,
big business and big government. His
books include Manufacturing
Consent (1988) and Propaganda
and the Public Mind (2001), and
Fateful Triangle: The United
States, Israel & the Palestinians
(1999). His traditional definition
of himself is a anarchist, a
political philosophy he summarizes
as seeking out all forms of
hierarchy and attempting to
eliminate them if they are
unjustified. Edward Said wrote of
Chomsky that “there is something
profoundly moving about a mind of
such noble ideals repeatedly stirred
on behalf of human suffering and
injustice.” Dr. Chomsky is
Professor of Linguistics at the
Massachusetts Institute of
Technology.
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May 3, 2006: Dr. Ussama
Makdisi, "America before Anit-Americanism"
Dr. Ussama
Makdisi is an Associate Professor of History and
the first holder of the Arab-American
Educational Foundation Chair of Arab Studies at
Rice University. He completed his PhD in
history at Princeton University in 1997.
Dr. Makdisi is the author of The Culture of
Sectarianism: Community, History, and Violence
in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Lebanon
(University of California Press, 2000), as well
as numerous scholarly articles on the Ottoman
empire,
the Arab world in
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Dr. Ussama Makdisi |
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the twentieth century,
and Islam and the West. He is the organizer of
a semester-long lecture series “The Arab World:
History, Politics, and Culture” at Rice
University.
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April 26, 2006: Ms. Laura
Hanna & Ms. Martina Radwan, "Zizek!"
Zizek!
The author of works on subjects as wide-ranging
as Alfred Hitchcock, 9/11, opera, Christianity,
Lenin and David Lynch, Slovenian philosopher
Slavoj Zizek is one of the most important--and
outrageous--cultural theorists working today.
This captivating, erudite documentary explores
the eccentric personality and esoteric work of
this incomparable academic and writer who
has been called everything from "the Elvis of
cultural theory" to "a one person culture
mulcher".
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Laura Hanna:
Laura Hanna has worked in film/television in New
York City for the past five years doing
post-production editing, sound design, and
mixing as well as location recording. Her latest
projects are: Road to Paris (CBS, 2002),
Shots in the Dark (CTV, 2002),
Justifiable Homicide (2002), A Day in the
Life of Africa (2003), The Perpetual Life
of Jim Albers (Sundance, 2003), Academy Awards Open (Errol Morris, 2003),
Hollywood High (AMC, 2003, and Some
Kind of Monster (Sundance, 2004).
She
co-founded Hiddendriver pictures with Astra
Taylor in 2005. Hiddendriver |
Ms. Laura Hanna |
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is currently in
production on several socio-political
documentary films. |
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Martina Radwan:
Martina Radwan, native of Germany, started in
the film industry in 1987 as a Camera
Technician at ARRI Berlin. She worked with
cinematographers Robby Mueller, Juergen Juerges
and Sophy Mantigneux. Martina worked on the
German feature film, Game of Death, which
received the Bundes Film Preis, the German
Oscar. Martina was Director of Photography for
the documentary project Ferry Tales,
which was nominated for the 2004 Academy Award.
She is the cinematographer for Zizek! and
is currently making her own film about
immigration policies. |
Ms. Martina Radwan |
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April 18, 2006: Dr. Khadija
Fritsch El-Alaoui, "The Clash that Cashes:
Unpacking the relationships between Power,
Knowledge, and Culture in US Representations of
the Arabs"
Dr. Khadija Fritsche El-Alaoui
received her Ph.D from Technical University in
Dresden in 2005. Her current research focuses on
the politics of representations and how its
analysis reveals the messy intersections of
power, knowledge and culture. Dr. El-Alaoui's
research interests include the connectivity
among the
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Dr. Khadija Fritsch El-Alaoui |
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various struggles against the new
imperialism with(out) colonies and the history
of political dissent in the US.
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April 6, 2006: Dr. Koray
Caliskan, "What is a Global Market
Place? The Politics of Cotton Exchange and
Production in Egypt, Turkey and the US"
Koray
Caliskan is an assistant professor in the
Department of Political Science and
International Relations at Bogazici University.
His dissertation (New York University, 2005) won
the Malcolm H. Kerr award from Middle East
Studies Association of North America. Dr.
Caliskan is the author of numerous articles in
Turkish and English. His research maps the
social
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Dr. Koray Caliskan |
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universe of a global market as articulated in
different locales by following the circulation
of cotton and by attending to the voices of its
agents from options traders to Egyptian farmers,
from Kurdish workers to Tennessee cotton
dealers. He carried out field work in a Turkish
village (6 months), two Lower Egyptian villages
(6 months), Izmir and
Alexandria (6 months) and Memphis, USA (10
weeks). He also took professional training in
options, futures and spot cotton markets and
traded with international cotton merchants.
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March 28, 2006: Dr. Nikhil P.
Singh, "Race and Empire in the Logic
of US World Power"
Dr. Nikhil P. Singh is Associate
Professor of History at the University of
Washington. He received his Ph.D. from Yale
University in 1995. Dr. Singh is the author of
Black is a Country: Race and the Unfinished
Struggle for Democracy
(Harvard University
Press, 2004) and (with Andrew Jones) The
Afro-Asian Century (forthcoming, Duke
University Press).
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Dr. Nikhil Singh |
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Dr. Singh’s recent research
focuses on post-World War II fascism and modern
U.S. imperialism.
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March 20, 2006: Dr.
Edward E. Curtis, "African-American
Muslims in the Age of the Arab Cold War"
Edward Curtis is Millennium Scholar of the
Liberal Arts and Associate Professor of
Religious Studies at Indiana University-Purdue
University Indianapolis. He is author of Religion in the Nation of Islam,
1960-1975 (appearing soon from UNC Press),
Islam in Black America (SUNY Press, 2002), and editor of |
Dr. Edward Curtis |
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Looking for Islam:
Sourcebook of Muslims in the United States
(under contract with Columbia University
Press). Professor Curtis’ scholarship has also
appeared in the Journal of the American
Academy of Religion, Religion and
American Culture, and Religion. He
is a past recipient of a National Endowment for
the Humanities Fellowship at the National
Humanities Center, a U.S. Department of State
Middle East Partnership Initiative Grant, and an
Andrew Mellon Fellowship in Humanistic Studies.
Dr. Curtis is an Arab American whose maternal
great-grandparents originally immigrated from
Syria and Lebanon to Cairo, Illinois. |
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March 16, 2006: Dr.
Arlene Crewdson, "Contemporary
Urban Theatre in the U.S"
Dr. Arlene
Crewdson has been the executive director of the
Pegasus Players Theater in Chicago since 1978.
She received her PhD. from Loyola University
and has taught for more than thirty years at
several universities and colleges. Dr. Crewdson |
Dr. Arlene Crewdson |
envisioned, managed and developed the Pegasus
Players Theatre as an initiative committed to a
dual mission of artistic excellence and social
outreach. Starting as a small student-faculty
project, Dr. Crewdson succeeded in turning the
Pegasus Players Theatre into a nationally
recognized theatre with a $500,000 annual
budget. The theatre has produced 154 plays,
including 50 world premiers, and has won
numerous awards. Through these efforts, Dr.
Crewdson has been able to train, nurture, and
mentor new Chicago talent, providing many
successful directors, actors and designers their
earliest professional experience.
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October 20, 2005:
Dr. Alan Wolfe, "Religion and
Politics in the Contemporary United States"
Alan Wolfe is Professor of
Political Science and Director of the Boisi
Center for Religion and American Public Life at
Boston College. Professor Wolfe earned his Ph.D.
in Political Science from University of
Pennsylvania in 1967. He served as an advisor to
President Clinton in preparation for his 1995
State of the Union address and has lectured
widely at American and European universities.
Dr. Wolfe is not only a contributing |
Dr. Alan Wolfe |
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editor of
The New Republic and The Wilson
Quarterly, but he also writes for those
publications as well as many others such as
The New York Times and The Washington
Post. He is the author of numerous books;
among them, The Transformation of American
Religion: How We actually Practice our Faith,
(2003), and most recently, Return to
Greatness: How America Lost Its Sense of Purpose
and What it Needs to Do to Recover It (2005).
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October 13, 2005:
Dr. Joshua Landis & Mrs. Juliet Wurr, "U.S. Public
Diplomacy in the Middle East: A Conversation
with Juliet Wurr and Joshua Landis"
Note:
Mr. Walid Maalouf from USAID, who was originally
scheduled for this panel, was called away.
Juliet Wurr, the Public Affairs Officer at the
U.S. Embassy in Lebanon, has kindly agreed to
stand in. |
Mrs. Juliet Wurr |
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Juliet Wurr joined United States Information Agency in 1991
after six years of teaching high school in Latin
America.She has been posted to New Delhi,Damascus, Alexandria (Egypt) and
Beirut. She studied Arabic at the Foreign
Service Institute in Washington D.C. and in
Tunis. At the Department of State, she served as
Staff Assistant for Assistant Secretary for Near
Eastern Affairs Bill Burns, after which she was
asked to travel to Kuwait in the lead up to the
invasion of Iraq to coordinate media relations.
She joined the Office of Reconstruction and
Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA – Garner Group)
and went to Erbil in northern Iraq to be the
first civilian Public Affairs Officer with ORHA.
On her return to the Department of State, she
handled Middle Eastern Affairs in the Bureau of
International Organization United Nations
Political Affairs. Juliet has a BA from
University of California Berkeley (English
Literature), a Masters of Teaching from Reed
College, Portland OR, and a Masters in
International Affairs from the School of
International and Public Affairs, Columbia
University, New York.
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Joshua M. Landis is Assistant Professor in
History and the School of International and Area
Studies at the University of Oklahoma. He earned
his Ph.D. in Near Eastern Studies from Princeton
University in 1997. Dr. Landis is currently a
Fulbright scholar living in Damascus. He is the
recipient of the M. H. Kerr Dissertation Prize,
awarded by the Middle East Studies Association
for best dissertation in the social sciences
(1997). He is the author of Democracy in
Syria (2004).
Dr. Landis currently publishes
the
“Syria Comment,” Web Log (http://faculty-staff.ou.edu/L/Joshua.M.Landis- |
Dr. Joshua Landis |
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1/syriablog/index.html) and is the author of numerous
articles in academic journals and newspapers. |
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October 4, 2005: Dr.
Hussein Ibish, "Ten Themes of
Islamophobic Discourse in the US"
Hussein Ibish currently serves as
Vice-Chair of the US-based Progressive Muslim
Union (PMU), and Vice-President of the National
Coalition to Protect Political Freedom (NCPPF).
He is also a Senior Fellow at the American Task
Force on Palestine (ATFP). From 1998-2004, Dr. Ibish
was the Communications Director for the
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
(ADC), the nation's largest Arab-American
membership |
Dr. Hussein Ibish |
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organization. He has a Ph.D. in
Comparative Literature from the University of
Massachusetts Amherst, and is a regular
contributor to the Los Angeles Times. He has
also made over 3,000 radio and television
appearances to date. Dr. Ibish is the editor and
principal author of 2 reports on Hate Crimes and
Discrimination against Arab Americans 1998-2000
(ADC, 2001) and Sept. 11, 2001- Oct. 11, 2002
(ADC, 2002). He is also the author of several
books such as, "At the Constitution's Edge: Arab
Americans and Civil Liberties in the United
States" in the collection States of
Confinement (St. Martin's Press, 2000).
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September 28, 2005:
Dr. Brian T. Edwards, "Following
Casablanca: Disorienting America's Maghreb"
Brian Edwards is
Assistant Professor of English and Comparative
Literature at Northwestern University. Professor
Edwards earned his Ph.D. in American Studies
from Yale University in 1998. His research
focuses on American studies, transnational
cultural studies, North African culture and
politics, |
Dr. Brian E. Edwards |
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Middle
East studies, comparative literature, film and
media, anthropology, and postcolonial
studies. He is the author of Morocco
Bound: Disorienting America’s Maghreb, from
Casablanca to the Marrakech
(2005), as well as numerous
scholarly articles.
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