Happening @ Michigan https://events.umich.edu/list/rss RSS Feed for Happening @ Michigan Events at the University of Michigan. Near Eastern Studies Info Session (March 24, 2017 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/39539 39539-8118454@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, March 24, 2017 12:00pm
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Department of Middle East Studies

Why should you study the Middle East?

Current undergraduate students are invited to an information session on the Department of Near Eastern Studies' major, minors, and language programs. Students will have the opportunity to speak with an advisor and ask questions specific to them.

The Department of Near Eastern Studies teaches the diverse histories, religions, languages and literatures that originated in a vast region of the world extending from the Nile to the Oxus Rivers, and from the Mediterranean Sea to the Indian Ocean. Coursework in the department takes an interdisciplinary and comparative approach to societies, beginning with the emergence of cities and writing in Sumer and Ancient Egypt, to the rise of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and onwards to the Modern Middle East, extending to its transnational and diasporic communities.

The languages taught by the department include Arabic, Armenian, Hebrew, Persian, Turkish, and several ancient Near Eastern languages.

Please RSVP at http://lsa.umich.edu/neareast/undergraduates/info-sessions-and-campus-visits.html. Lunch will be provided. We hope to see you there!

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Other Thu, 09 Mar 2017 14:50:55 -0500 2017-03-24T12:00:00-04:00 2017-03-24T13:00:00-04:00 202 S. Thayer Department of Middle East Studies Other Flyer
Near Eastern Studies Lecture Series (March 27, 2017 4:10pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/36516 36516-5639332@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, March 27, 2017 4:10pm
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Department of Middle East Studies

This talk is an exploration into the inception and development of the tradition of lamentations devoted to fallen cities, while at the same time a reflection into the ways in which the contested nature of the city of Jerusalem in the crusader period resurfaces through a recursive form of the literary genre of city lamentations. Examining representations of Jerusalem in the medieval narratives of the English, French, Latin, Arabic, and Armenian literary traditions, this talk exposes the intersections between Western Europe and a number of ethno-religious cultures of the “east,” arguing for shared modes of representing the loss of the city of Jerusalem in their narratives, and exposing the extensive cross-cultural exchange and acculturation of various cultures in the medieval Mediterranean world.

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 07 Feb 2017 11:45:11 -0500 2017-03-27T16:10:00-04:00 2017-03-27T17:30:00-04:00 202 S. Thayer Department of Middle East Studies Lecture / Discussion Boyadjian Poster
Two Tongues, One Culture: A Series of Literary Conversations (March 30, 2017 5:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/38003 38003-6840664@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, March 30, 2017 5:30pm
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Department of Middle East Studies

During the Abbasid period, Arabic literature became deeply imbricated with other
Near Eastern languages, including Greek, Syriac, and in particular Persian, resulting
in a number of literary works that demonstrate the joint aspect of this creative
process. Hojjat Rasouli, Professor of Arabic Literature at Shahid Beheshti
University, Tehran, will present some of these works from a comparative Persian-
Arabic perspective, followed by open discussion. The language of conversation will
be in Arabic, and students of all levels are welcome!

Jan 26 – Kalila and Dimna
Feb 9 – Layla and Majnun
Mar 9 – 1001 Nights
Mar 30 – Nowruz

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 21 Feb 2017 11:30:21 -0500 2017-03-30T17:30:00-04:00 2017-03-30T18:30:00-04:00 202 S. Thayer Department of Middle East Studies Lecture / Discussion Two tongues
CMENAS Graduate Student Symposium. Enriching Perspectives on Middle East and North Africa (April 4, 2017 8:30am) https://events.umich.edu/event/39904 39904-8405604@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, April 4, 2017 8:30am
Location: Michigan Union
Organized By: Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies

The Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies Graduate Student Symposium is a student-led initiative that aims to engage graduate students across the University of Michigan and beyond in intellectual exchanges that support their scholarly research. Papers will be presented to an audience of primarily graduate students, but also undergraduate students and faculty at the University of Michigan, in an effort to further open the floor for diverse and constructive academic discourse concerning the MENA region.

(9:00 am) Introductions by Symposium Committee and Welcome Remarks by HAKEM-AL RUSTOM, Alex Manoogian Professor of Modern Armenian History, University of Michigan

(9:30 am) Panel 1: Politics in the Middle-East and North Africa

ABED KANAANEH, Tel Aviv University » Muqawamah and Jihad: Two Competing Political Theologies

WILLIAM BOOSALIS, Boston College » Diverging Interests, Alliance Management, and Arms Control: Reacting to Allies Activities caused by Adversarial Arms Control Agreements

ERIN COLLINS, University of Michigan » Justifications for the Political Approach to Human Dignity: A Case Study of the Tunisian Constitution

** 10-minute break **

(10:40 am) Panel 2: Art, Music, and Education

MOHAMAD KHALIL HARB, Harvard University » Imagining a Nation: Discourses of Nationalism in Fairuz’s Music 1950s

MOHAMMAD AL-ANSARI, University of Michigan » Education in Qatar a Research Design: The Qatari Youth and the Future

MINA TALAEE, Alzahra University » Iranian Post-revolutionary Figurative Sculpture with a Genealogical Approach

(12:30 pm) Break for Lunch – for panel presenters, discussants, and invited CMENAS MA students only

(1:35 pm) Panel 3: Gender and Space

DAN WARD and ALISSA FROMKIN, The George Washington University » Rarely Intersectional: Experiences of Queer Palestinians in Israel

STARLING CARTER and MADELAINE ASSI, The George Washington University » Horsh Beirut and the Politics of Public Space

SASA TANG, American University » Street Harassment and Political Participation in Morocco

** 10-minute break **

(3:10 pm) Panel 4: The Islamic State and Religion

EMILY DITTMAR, University of Michigan » ISIL, Culture, History, and Violence: A Working Title

BYRON MAXEY, University of Michigan » Roots, Returns, and a Revival of Religion: Classical Roots of Indigenized Islam in the Black Atlantic

(4:30 pm) Closing Remarks by JUAN COLE, Director for the Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies and Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History

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Conference / Symposium Wed, 22 Mar 2017 14:45:07 -0400 2017-04-04T08:30:00-04:00 2017-04-04T17:00:00-04:00 Michigan Union Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies Conference / Symposium 2017GradSymposium
International Institute Headline Lecture: Enduring U.S. Interests in the Near East (April 5, 2017 3:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/39396 39396-8044722@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, April 5, 2017 3:00pm
Location: Weill Hall (Ford School)
Organized By: International Institute

Deborah K. Jones is a career member of the Senior Foreign Service and served as the U.S. Ambassador to Libya from May 2013-November 2015. She also served as the U.S. Ambassador to the State of Kuwait from 2008-2011 and the Principal Officer at the U.S. Consulate General in Istanbul, Turkey, from 2005-2007, with additional posts in South America, the Middle East, and Africa.

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Lecture / Discussion Mon, 03 Apr 2017 11:42:31 -0400 2017-04-05T15:00:00-04:00 2017-04-05T16:30:00-04:00 Weill Hall (Ford School) International Institute Lecture / Discussion logo
Relief after Hardship: The Ottoman Turkish Model for The Thousand and One Days (April 6, 2017 4:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/39183 39183-7763690@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, April 6, 2017 4:30pm
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Department of Middle East Studies

The French Orientalist scholar François Pétis de la Croix, author of the Thousand and One Days (Les Mille et un Jours; 1710–12), presented his work as a translation from a Persian manuscript titled Hezār va yek ruz (A Thousand and One Days). Research has meanwhile proved beyond reasonable doubt that s allegation constitutes a wilful mystification. The direct source Pétis de la Croix exploited for the majority of tales was not Persian but rather an anonymous Ottoman Turkish manuscript titled Ferec baʿd eş-şidde (Relief after Hardship). The work, first mentioned in Antoine Galland’s Istanbul diaries, has been compiled before the end of the fourteenth century and undoubtedly constitutes a translation of one or several Persian works. Scholars of Persian and Ottoman studies, such as Fritz Meier and Andreas Tietze, have proposed a detailed discussion of the sources of Ferec baʿd eş-şidde since long, but the detailed commentary Tietze intended to prepare on the work was never published.
My presentation will discuss the complicated relation between the early eighteenth-century French Mille et un Jours, the fourteenth-century Ottoman Ferec baʿd eş-şidde, and a genre of Persian literature that is known as Jāmeʿ al-ḥekāyāt (Compilation of Tales). Until recently, the oldest representatives of the latter genre were known from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The recent discovery of a Jāmeʿ al-ḥekāyāt dating to the twelfth century opens up new perspectives on the relation of Pétis de la Croix’s text to the Ottoman Turkish and Persian texts.

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 07 Mar 2017 10:05:15 -0500 2017-04-06T16:30:00-04:00 2017-04-06T18:00:00-04:00 202 S. Thayer Department of Middle East Studies Lecture / Discussion Marzolph Lecture
Arab Folk-Dance Workshop with Karim Naji (April 6, 2017 7:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/39876 39876-8397035@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, April 6, 2017 7:30pm
Location: Michigan League
Organized By: Department of Middle East Studies

**No Experience Necessary! (But experience is welcome!)**

As part of the campus community's ongoing celebration of Arab Heritage Month, you are invited to join the circle of Arab folk-dancing in this one-of-a-kind workshop with Egyptian dancer, percussionist, musician, DJ and composer Karim Nagi!

**Thursday, April 6 @ 7:30 pm**
**Michigan League, Room 4**

Come stomp, hop and kick to the dabke, and join in to move together with others in the lines and circles of traditional Arab folk-dancing under the lively and masterful guidance of Karim Nagi.

Karim Nagi has performed extensively and taught Arab percussion, multiple forms of traditional Arab folk-dance and music through instructional DVDs and workshops in the United States, Asia, Europe and Cairo and at all major Arab Culture festivals in the USA, and directed the Sharq Arabic Music Ensemble, Zaitoun Dabke Troupe, Turbo Tabla and the Pan Eastern Ensemble.

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Performance Wed, 22 Mar 2017 16:44:01 -0400 2017-04-06T19:30:00-04:00 2017-04-06T21:00:00-04:00 Michigan League Department of Middle East Studies Performance Flyer
CMENAS Town Hall (April 11, 2017 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/40226 40226-8525061@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, April 11, 2017 4:00pm
Location: School of Social Work Building
Organized By: Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies

A meeting to discuss the Trump Administration's budget proposal, its impact on International Education, and how to support colleagues at other universities whose funding may also be compromised. All affiliated faculty, students, staff, and community members are welcome to join.

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Meeting Wed, 05 Apr 2017 09:58:38 -0400 2017-04-11T16:00:00-04:00 2017-04-11T18:00:00-04:00 School of Social Work Building Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies Meeting School of Social Work Building
The Art of Calligraphy (April 11, 2017 6:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/40205 40205-8518715@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, April 11, 2017 6:00pm
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Department of Middle East Studies

Learn the basics of Arabic calligraphy and have your name written by a world-renowned calligrapher.

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Presentation Tue, 04 Apr 2017 14:19:16 -0400 2017-04-11T18:00:00-04:00 2017-04-11T19:30:00-04:00 202 S. Thayer Department of Middle East Studies Presentation Calligraphy
Exploring Armenian, Bangladeshi and Vietnamese Communities (May 2, 2017 8:15am) https://events.umich.edu/event/33366 33366-4731264@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, May 2, 2017 8:15am
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (50+)

Join OLLI and Feet on the Street as we explore some unique communities in Metro Detroit. Our tour begins at the St. John Armenian Church and the Manoogian Mansion in Southfield, MI, where we will learn about the history and culture of the local Armenian community. Information about the Armenian genocide will be included. Then we will travel to Hamtramck for lunch at the Aladdin Café for a buffet of authentic Bangladeshi cuisine, a bus tour of Hamtramck and a visit to Masji-Al-Falah, the Islamic Center of North Detroit, for a presentation, tour and discussion. Our last stop will be Madison Heights, where we will visit Vietnamese shops and markets and hear from a speaker about that community. This tour is for adults over 50. The cost $131 includes lunch, snacks and tips.
https://olli-umich.org/olli/index.php/member/ctlg/viewEventDetails/839

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Class / Instruction Sat, 10 Sep 2016 18:06:32 -0400 2017-05-02T08:15:00-04:00 2017-05-02T18:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (50+) Class / Instruction Travel
Pathways to Worldwide Health (June 8, 2017 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/41163 41163-8989850@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, June 8, 2017 9:00am
Location: Public Health II
Organized By: School of Public Health

Faculty and students from the University of Michigan and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev have been conducting research and exchange internships together for several years. This unique forum on June 8 featuring Israeli and American scholars showcases the world-changing ways these collaborations are improving health around the world.
Each of these exciting research partnerships pursues in some way the health and vitality of diverse populations, from health care delivery in resource-limited settings to disease prevention in children to transboundary contaminant control. Presenters work in the fields epidemiology, environmental health sciences, genetics, medicine, health management and policy, and many more.
If you are interested in refugee and migrant health, water sanitation and air quality, public health policy, health-worker safety, health management systems, or chronic disease including cancer, join us on Thursday, June 8 at the U-M School of Public Health.

See the full program at sph.umich.edu/events.

Catered lunch will be provided.
RSVP online by Monday, June 5 at 5pm—myumi.ch/6vjOo.

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Presentation Mon, 05 Jun 2017 16:14:20 -0400 2017-06-08T09:00:00-04:00 2017-06-08T14:30:00-04:00 Public Health II School of Public Health Presentation UM SPH Delegation to Israel
CMENAS Colloquium Film Screening. Encounter Point (September 11, 2017 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/42913 42913-9683001@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, September 11, 2017 4:00pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies

Just when the world is losing hope about the possibility of resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict comes Encounter Point. Created by a Palestinian, Israeli, North and South American team, Encounter Point moves beyond sensational and dogmatic imagery to tell the story of an Israeli settler, a Palestinian ex-prisoner, a bereaved Israeli mother and a wounded Palestinian bereaved brother who risk their safety and public standing to press for an end to the conflict. They are at the vanguard of a movement to push Palestinian and Israeli societies to a tipping point, forging a new consensus for nonviolence and peace. Perhaps years from now, their actions will be recognized as a catalyst for constructive change in the region. Encounter Point is a film about hope, true courage and implicitly about the silence of journalists and politicians who pay little attention to vital grassroots peace efforts.

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Film Screening Thu, 24 Aug 2017 09:42:13 -0400 2017-09-11T16:00:00-04:00 2017-09-11T18:00:00-04:00 Weiser Hall Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies Film Screening encounter-point
The Iranian Film Festival of Ann Arbor (September 17, 2017 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/44159 44159-9889009@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, September 17, 2017 4:00pm
Location: Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.)
Organized By: Department of Middle East Studies

The Department of Near Eastern Studies and the Iranian Graduate Students Association at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, is pleased to present our second annual Iranian Film Festival. With the passing of one of Iran’s most iconic and internationally celebrated filmmakers, Abbas Kiarostami, we have decided to dedicate this year’s festival to a retrospective of his work.

The films will be screened at 4pm in the Rackham Amphitheatre.

9/17: Where is the Friend’s House?
9/24: Life and Nothing More
10/1: Close-Up
10/8: Taste of Cherry
10/15: Ten
10/29: Like Someone in Love

Admission is free and open to the public.


For more information, visit https://persian.nes.lsa.umich.edu/iff/ or email us at iranian-film-festival@umich.edu.

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Film Screening Thu, 21 Sep 2017 09:27:47 -0400 2017-09-17T16:00:00-04:00 2017-09-17T18:00:00-04:00 Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.) Department of Middle East Studies Film Screening IFF Poster
Literature in Conflict/Literature in Peace (September 18, 2017 1:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/42397 42397-9601892@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, September 18, 2017 1:30pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (50+)

Discussions will focus on novels by writers from the Holy Land (Muslims, Christians, Jews, and atheists). How do these writers see themselves and other parties of the conflict? How do these writers perceive “resolving” Palestine/Israel conflict? What do these writers dream of for their generation and beyond? Do we, concerned Americans, see that part of the world in ways similar or different from the ways those writers see it? Why do we agree or disagree with these writers?

Participants in this course for those 50 and above will understand Palestine/Israel conflict through the eyes of novelists from Palestine/Israel.

Instructor Adnan Salhi will lead these two hour discussions on select Mondays and Tuesdays on September 18, October 16 and November 20, 2017 and on February 22, March 29 and April 26, 2018.

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Class / Instruction Wed, 16 Aug 2017 14:03:01 -0400 2017-09-18T13:30:00-04:00 2017-09-18T15:30:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (50+) Class / Instruction OLLI Study Group
CMENAS Colloquium Film Screening. The Wanted 18 (September 18, 2017 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/42804 42804-9661744@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, September 18, 2017 4:00pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies

Please join us for a film screening of "The Wanted 18." It started simply enough, with the purchase of 18 cows. Bought by residents of the West Bank town of Beit Sahour, the cows were a symbol of freedom and resistance, allowing them to provide milk for their children rather than buying it from an Israeli company. But these were not ordinary times. The first Palestinian popular movement in the West Bank was rising and soon the illegal cows, cherished by the Palestinians, were being sought by the Israeli army. With humor and passion, The Wanted 18 captures the spirit of the 1987 uprising through the personal experiences of those who lived it, bringing to life one of the strangest chapters in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

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Film Screening Tue, 22 Aug 2017 09:55:09 -0400 2017-09-18T16:00:00-04:00 2017-09-18T18:00:00-04:00 Weiser Hall Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies Film Screening poster
The Iranian Film Festival of Ann Arbor (September 24, 2017 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/44159 44159-9889010@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, September 24, 2017 4:00pm
Location: Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.)
Organized By: Department of Middle East Studies

The Department of Near Eastern Studies and the Iranian Graduate Students Association at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, is pleased to present our second annual Iranian Film Festival. With the passing of one of Iran’s most iconic and internationally celebrated filmmakers, Abbas Kiarostami, we have decided to dedicate this year’s festival to a retrospective of his work.

The films will be screened at 4pm in the Rackham Amphitheatre.

9/17: Where is the Friend’s House?
9/24: Life and Nothing More
10/1: Close-Up
10/8: Taste of Cherry
10/15: Ten
10/29: Like Someone in Love

Admission is free and open to the public.


For more information, visit https://persian.nes.lsa.umich.edu/iff/ or email us at iranian-film-festival@umich.edu.

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Film Screening Thu, 21 Sep 2017 09:27:47 -0400 2017-09-24T16:00:00-04:00 2017-09-24T18:00:00-04:00 Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.) Department of Middle East Studies Film Screening IFF Poster
CMENAS Colloquium Series. Does Nonviolence Work in the Israeli Palestinian Conflict? The First Intifada as an Example (September 25, 2017 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/42798 42798-9661732@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, September 25, 2017 12:00pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies

Husam Jubran is a Fulbright scholar who has been working as a tour guide for the past 17 years. He finished his master's degree in 2004 from the Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, in Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding. He combines his knowledge and skills to provide political and interfaith tours. He is one of few Palestinian guides to provide political and alternative tours.

Besides his involvement is tourism he serves as a representative in Palestine and Jordan for Synergos Institute. His main role is to locate social innovators in the two countries and work with them to develop their projects. He also the Director of Facilitation at the Hands Of Peace and American interfaith organization that works with Israeli and Palestinian kids through dialogue to create better understanding between the two sides.

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 22 Aug 2017 12:27:02 -0400 2017-09-25T12:00:00-04:00 2017-09-25T13:30:00-04:00 Weiser Hall Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies Lecture / Discussion speaker
CMENAS Colloquium Film Screening. Rachel (September 25, 2017 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/42809 42809-9661748@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, September 25, 2017 4:00pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies

Please join us for a screening of the film, "Rachel," a 2009 documentary film by Simone Bitton detailing the death of Rachel Corrie. Rachel was an American peace activist, killed by an Israeli military bulldozer in 2003 during a nonviolent action against the demolition of Palenstinians homes in Rafah, Gaza.

Rachel is an in-depth cinematic investigation into the death of an unknown young girl, made with a rigor and scope normally reserved for first-rate historical characters. It gives voice to all the people involved in Rachel’s story, from Palestinian and foreign witnesses to Israeli military spokespersons and investigators, doctors, activists and soldiers linked to the affair. The film begins like a classic documentary, but soon develops, transcending its subject and transforming into a cinematographic meditation on youth, war, idealism, and political utopia. In the beginning, there is this: she was called Rachel Corrie. She was 23. She was convinced that her American nationality would be enough to make her an effective human shield, that her simple presence would save lives, olive trees, wells, and houses

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Film Screening Tue, 22 Aug 2017 12:29:11 -0400 2017-09-25T16:00:00-04:00 2017-09-25T18:00:00-04:00 Weiser Hall Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies Film Screening poster
CMENAS Lecture. Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS): Saving Syrian Lives at the Frontline (September 29, 2017 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/43893 43893-9852293@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, September 29, 2017 4:00pm
Location: Hatcher Graduate Library
Organized By: Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies

Please join CMENAS for our two-day event series, "Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS): Saving Syrian Lives at the Frontline," featuring Syrian American Medical Society

Day 1: "Do Syrian Refugees Exist?" will explore the current refugee crisis in Syria through the work of Syrian American Medical Society volunteers, Dr. Jihad Shoshara, Dr. Hisham Bismar, and Ms. Lara Zakaria.

Day 2: "Arab American Profiles: Medicine and Humanism in Action." This event will explore the pressure that many debt-burdened students and community members feel in having to choose between medicine as a vocation and languages and humanities as an avocation. SAMS volunteers will offer stories of how to balance gainful employment and humanitarian work. Our aim is to help community members and students cultivate their own identity and aspirations.

Volunteers will raise awareness of the current situation in Syria, their invisible patients, and their experiences of engaging in medical relief and humanitarian work.


Cosponsors:
University of Michigan–Arab & Muslim American Studies, Conflict and Peace Initiative, Donia Human Rights Center, International Institute, MEdAN-Middle East and Arab Network, MENA Public Health, Michigan Refugee Assistance Program, and Program in International & Comparative Studies

Arab American National Museum

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 14 Sep 2017 09:14:02 -0400 2017-09-29T16:00:00-04:00 2017-09-29T18:30:00-04:00 Hatcher Graduate Library Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies Lecture / Discussion sams-image
CMENAS Lecture. Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS): Saving Syrian Lives at the Frontline (September 30, 2017 5:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/43893 43893-9852294@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, September 30, 2017 5:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies

Please join CMENAS for our two-day event series, "Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS): Saving Syrian Lives at the Frontline," featuring Syrian American Medical Society

Day 1: "Do Syrian Refugees Exist?" will explore the current refugee crisis in Syria through the work of Syrian American Medical Society volunteers, Dr. Jihad Shoshara, Dr. Hisham Bismar, and Ms. Lara Zakaria.

Day 2: "Arab American Profiles: Medicine and Humanism in Action." This event will explore the pressure that many debt-burdened students and community members feel in having to choose between medicine as a vocation and languages and humanities as an avocation. SAMS volunteers will offer stories of how to balance gainful employment and humanitarian work. Our aim is to help community members and students cultivate their own identity and aspirations.

Volunteers will raise awareness of the current situation in Syria, their invisible patients, and their experiences of engaging in medical relief and humanitarian work.


Cosponsors:
University of Michigan–Arab & Muslim American Studies, Conflict and Peace Initiative, Donia Human Rights Center, International Institute, MEdAN-Middle East and Arab Network, MENA Public Health, Michigan Refugee Assistance Program, and Program in International & Comparative Studies

Arab American National Museum

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 14 Sep 2017 09:14:02 -0400 2017-09-30T17:00:00-04:00 2017-09-30T19:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies Lecture / Discussion sams-image
The Iranian Film Festival of Ann Arbor (October 1, 2017 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/44159 44159-9889011@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 1, 2017 4:00pm
Location: Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.)
Organized By: Department of Middle East Studies

The Department of Near Eastern Studies and the Iranian Graduate Students Association at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, is pleased to present our second annual Iranian Film Festival. With the passing of one of Iran’s most iconic and internationally celebrated filmmakers, Abbas Kiarostami, we have decided to dedicate this year’s festival to a retrospective of his work.

The films will be screened at 4pm in the Rackham Amphitheatre.

9/17: Where is the Friend’s House?
9/24: Life and Nothing More
10/1: Close-Up
10/8: Taste of Cherry
10/15: Ten
10/29: Like Someone in Love

Admission is free and open to the public.


For more information, visit https://persian.nes.lsa.umich.edu/iff/ or email us at iranian-film-festival@umich.edu.

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Film Screening Thu, 21 Sep 2017 09:27:47 -0400 2017-10-01T16:00:00-04:00 2017-10-01T18:00:00-04:00 Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.) Department of Middle East Studies Film Screening IFF Poster
Non/Human Materials Before Modernity (October 2, 2017 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/41784 41784-9472911@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, October 2, 2017 9:00am
Location: Tisch Hall
Organized By: Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies

Non/Human Materials Before Modernity considers the materiality and makings of the non/human body. Through a series of short papers, responses from colleagues, and larger discussion, the symposium will provide a forum for thinking cross-disciplinarily and across traditional lines of periodization. The symposium will address how different premodern cultures sought to understand the makings of species, kinds, and other divisions between beings and/or things. By historicizing the materialization of non/human bodies, documenting the many and various strategies by which they have emerged and been constituted, and tracing the broader cultural impacts of their emergence and constitution, these panels will challenge the U-M community to re-imagine the materials and effects of non/humanity.

Monday, October 2, 2017

9-9:30 am: Welcome and Introductions

9:30-10:50 am: Flesh & Stone
Miranda Brown (University of Michigan): The Jade Body
Rick Bonnie (Frankel Center, University of Helsinki): Pure Stale Water: Experiencing Ancient Jewish Ritual Bathing
Erin Brightwell (University of Michigan): response

11:10 am-12:30 pm: Messmates
Mira Balberg (Northwestern University): The Human and Its Double: Snakes, Humans, and Dogs in the Palestinian Talmud
James McHugh (University of Southern California): Spirits of Liquor and Consciousness as Alcohol in Early Indian Thought
Ian Moyer (University of Michigan): response

2-3:20 pm: Humanimal
Peggy McCracken (University of Michigan): The Material of Metamorphosis,
Sonya Özbey (University of Michigan): “Those that Have Blood and Qi”: The Psychophysical Continuum of Humanity and Animality in the Xunzi
Melanie Yergeau (University of Michigan): response

3:40-5 pm: Malleable Matter
Aileen Das (University of Michigan): An Alchemical Cosmos: Material Fluidity and Transmutation in the Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ
Rachel Neis (University of Michigan): Flesh, Food, or Family? Rabbinic Uterine Materials
Elizabeth Roberts (University of Michigan): response

Tuesday, October 3, 2017

9-10:20 am: Cutting & Assembling
Sarah Linwick (University of Michigan): Between Kinds: Knowing Non/Human Bodies in Early Modern England
Paolo Squatriti (University of Michigan): response
Clara Bosak-Schroeder (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign): Women’s Bodies Remaking Boundaries
Todd Berzon (Frankel Center / Bowdoin College): response
(workshop format; link to Sarah Linwick and Clara Bosak-Schroeder's precirculated papers at http://bit.ly/cuttingassembling)

10:40 am-12 pm: Gods & Humans
Paroma Chatterjee (University of Michigan): The Emperor’s “New” Images
Youn-mi Kim (Ewha Womans University): Beyond Anthropocentric Approaches: The Agency of the Nonhuman in Enacting Buddhist Ritual
Michael Swartz (Frankel Center / Ohio State University): response

12:30-1:50 pm: Weaving
Francesca Rochberg (University of California, Berkeley): Ways that Matter Can Matter: Reflections on the Concept of Kinds and Categories before Modernity
Catherine Chin (Frankel Institute, University of California, Davis): Brick Says: I Like an Arch

This Eisenberg Forum / Frankel Institute Symposium is presented by the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies and the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies, with additional support from Asian Languages and Cultures, Classical Studies, Comparative Literature, Institute for Research on Women and Gender, International Institute, Medieval and Early Modern Studies, and Romance Languages and Literatures.

Image: "Rapture," Kiki Smith, bronze, 2001 (Pace Gallery).

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Conference / Symposium Fri, 29 Sep 2017 11:03:36 -0400 2017-10-02T09:00:00-04:00 2017-10-02T17:00:00-04:00 Tisch Hall Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies Conference / Symposium word mark
CMENAS Colloquium Film Screening. Five Broken Cameras (October 2, 2017 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/42812 42812-9661751@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, October 2, 2017 4:00pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies

Please join us for a screening of "Five Broken Cameras." An extraordinary work of both cinematic and political activism, "5 Broken Cameras" is a deeply personal, first-hand account of non-violent resistance in Bil'in, a West Bank village threatened by encroaching Israeli settlements.

Shot almost entirely by Palestinian farmer Emad Burnat, who bought his first camera in 2005 to record the birth of his youngest son, the footage was later turned into a galvanizing cinematic experience by co-directors Guy Davidi and Burnat.

Structured around the violent destruction of a succession of Burnat's video cameras, the filmmakers' collaboration follows one family's evolution over five years of village turmoil. Burnat watches from behind the lens as olive trees are bulldozed, protests intensify, and lives are lost. "I feel like the camera protects me," he says, "but it's an illusion."

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Film Screening Tue, 22 Aug 2017 10:13:13 -0400 2017-10-02T16:00:00-04:00 2017-10-02T18:00:00-04:00 Weiser Hall Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies Film Screening poster
Non/Human Materials Before Modernity (October 3, 2017 8:30am) https://events.umich.edu/event/41784 41784-9472912@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 3, 2017 8:30am
Location: Tisch Hall
Organized By: Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies

Non/Human Materials Before Modernity considers the materiality and makings of the non/human body. Through a series of short papers, responses from colleagues, and larger discussion, the symposium will provide a forum for thinking cross-disciplinarily and across traditional lines of periodization. The symposium will address how different premodern cultures sought to understand the makings of species, kinds, and other divisions between beings and/or things. By historicizing the materialization of non/human bodies, documenting the many and various strategies by which they have emerged and been constituted, and tracing the broader cultural impacts of their emergence and constitution, these panels will challenge the U-M community to re-imagine the materials and effects of non/humanity.

Monday, October 2, 2017

9-9:30 am: Welcome and Introductions

9:30-10:50 am: Flesh & Stone
Miranda Brown (University of Michigan): The Jade Body
Rick Bonnie (Frankel Center, University of Helsinki): Pure Stale Water: Experiencing Ancient Jewish Ritual Bathing
Erin Brightwell (University of Michigan): response

11:10 am-12:30 pm: Messmates
Mira Balberg (Northwestern University): The Human and Its Double: Snakes, Humans, and Dogs in the Palestinian Talmud
James McHugh (University of Southern California): Spirits of Liquor and Consciousness as Alcohol in Early Indian Thought
Ian Moyer (University of Michigan): response

2-3:20 pm: Humanimal
Peggy McCracken (University of Michigan): The Material of Metamorphosis,
Sonya Özbey (University of Michigan): “Those that Have Blood and Qi”: The Psychophysical Continuum of Humanity and Animality in the Xunzi
Melanie Yergeau (University of Michigan): response

3:40-5 pm: Malleable Matter
Aileen Das (University of Michigan): An Alchemical Cosmos: Material Fluidity and Transmutation in the Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ
Rachel Neis (University of Michigan): Flesh, Food, or Family? Rabbinic Uterine Materials
Elizabeth Roberts (University of Michigan): response

Tuesday, October 3, 2017

9-10:20 am: Cutting & Assembling
Sarah Linwick (University of Michigan): Between Kinds: Knowing Non/Human Bodies in Early Modern England
Paolo Squatriti (University of Michigan): response
Clara Bosak-Schroeder (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign): Women’s Bodies Remaking Boundaries
Todd Berzon (Frankel Center / Bowdoin College): response
(workshop format; link to Sarah Linwick and Clara Bosak-Schroeder's precirculated papers at http://bit.ly/cuttingassembling)

10:40 am-12 pm: Gods & Humans
Paroma Chatterjee (University of Michigan): The Emperor’s “New” Images
Youn-mi Kim (Ewha Womans University): Beyond Anthropocentric Approaches: The Agency of the Nonhuman in Enacting Buddhist Ritual
Michael Swartz (Frankel Center / Ohio State University): response

12:30-1:50 pm: Weaving
Francesca Rochberg (University of California, Berkeley): Ways that Matter Can Matter: Reflections on the Concept of Kinds and Categories before Modernity
Catherine Chin (Frankel Institute, University of California, Davis): Brick Says: I Like an Arch

This Eisenberg Forum / Frankel Institute Symposium is presented by the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies and the Frankel Center for Judaic Studies, with additional support from Asian Languages and Cultures, Classical Studies, Comparative Literature, Institute for Research on Women and Gender, International Institute, Medieval and Early Modern Studies, and Romance Languages and Literatures.

Image: "Rapture," Kiki Smith, bronze, 2001 (Pace Gallery).

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Conference / Symposium Fri, 29 Sep 2017 11:03:36 -0400 2017-10-03T08:30:00-04:00 2017-10-03T13:50:00-04:00 Tisch Hall Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies Conference / Symposium word mark
Middle East Studies Student Group Info Session (October 3, 2017 5:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/44838 44838-9989214@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, October 3, 2017 5:00pm
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Department of Middle East Studies

Would you like to be part of a community of students interested in Middle East studies? Are you interested in organizing or attending Middle East studies-focused academic, social, and networking events?

The Department of Near Eastern Studies is hosting a meet-up for students who are interested in forming a Middle East studies student group.

Tuesday, October 3, 2017
5:00pm, 1022 South Thayer Building
Dinner will be provided

Come and meet other students with shared interests, and take the first steps towards establishing a new student group! Please RSVP at http://bit.ly/mideaststudies by Friday, September 29.

Questions? Email nes-advising@umich.edu

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Other Wed, 20 Sep 2017 10:24:31 -0400 2017-10-03T17:00:00-04:00 2017-10-03T18:00:00-04:00 202 S. Thayer Department of Middle East Studies Other flyer
Fragments Workshop. A CONQUEST KOINE: The Oral and Written Transmission of Reports on the Islamic Conquest of Duin (October 6, 2017 2:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/43614 43614-9821485@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 6, 2017 2:00pm
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Medieval and Early Modern Studies (MEMS)

Commentators: Manan Ahmed (Columbia U) and Matt Mosca (U Washington).

The earliest extant Arabic histories describing the rise of Islam and the Caliphate date to the ninth century, some two centuries after the events they purport to describe. This has prompted a strong tendency towards skepticism among historians of early Islam who suggest that perhaps these histories reveal more about ʿAbbasid-era realities than about conquest- or Umayyad-era events. Accordingly, a number of scholars have turned to non-Arabic sources to corroborate or challenge the data culled from Arabic histories.

This paper questions the use of non-Arabic sources as independent checks on the Arabic. In particular, it examines the accounts of the seventh-century Arab conquest of Armenia and specifically Dabīl/Duin, the Sasanian and caliphal capital of Armenia, to forward suggestions about how we might trace oral transmission of historical reports in multilingual communities of the medieval Near East.

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Workshop / Seminar Wed, 06 Sep 2017 08:24:37 -0400 2017-10-06T14:00:00-04:00 2017-10-06T17:00:00-04:00 202 S. Thayer Medieval and Early Modern Studies (MEMS) Workshop / Seminar 202 S. Thayer
The Iranian Film Festival of Ann Arbor (October 8, 2017 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/44159 44159-9889012@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 8, 2017 4:00pm
Location: Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.)
Organized By: Department of Middle East Studies

The Department of Near Eastern Studies and the Iranian Graduate Students Association at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, is pleased to present our second annual Iranian Film Festival. With the passing of one of Iran’s most iconic and internationally celebrated filmmakers, Abbas Kiarostami, we have decided to dedicate this year’s festival to a retrospective of his work.

The films will be screened at 4pm in the Rackham Amphitheatre.

9/17: Where is the Friend’s House?
9/24: Life and Nothing More
10/1: Close-Up
10/8: Taste of Cherry
10/15: Ten
10/29: Like Someone in Love

Admission is free and open to the public.


For more information, visit https://persian.nes.lsa.umich.edu/iff/ or email us at iranian-film-festival@umich.edu.

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Film Screening Thu, 21 Sep 2017 09:27:47 -0400 2017-10-08T16:00:00-04:00 2017-10-08T18:00:00-04:00 Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.) Department of Middle East Studies Film Screening IFF Poster
CMENAS Colloquium Series. The Pharaoh, the Devil, and the Two Khilafas (October 9, 2017 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/45236 45236-10118991@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, October 9, 2017 12:00pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies

Rabia Terri Harris is an essayist, editor, peace activist, public intellectual, practicing chaplain, freelance theologian, sometime translator, and aspiring servant of Allah. In 1994 Ms. Harris founded the Muslim Peace Fellowship, the first organization specifically devoted to the theory and practice of authentically Islamic active nonviolence. Today she serves as Director of MPF and Resident Elder at Dar Anwar as-Salam, the Muslim component of the Community of Living Traditions, a tripartite Abrahamic residential peace community located in Stony Point, New York. She is also among the organizers of a new venture in Islamic pastoral care; the Muslim Chaplains Association.

Ms. Harris holds a Bachelor’s degree from Princeton University in the field of Religion, a Master’s from Columbia University in Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures, and a Graduate Certificate in Islamic Chaplaincy from Hartford Seminary.

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Lecture / Discussion Fri, 29 Sep 2017 15:57:03 -0400 2017-10-09T12:00:00-04:00 2017-10-09T13:30:00-04:00 Weiser Hall Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies Lecture / Discussion Weiser Hall
CMENAS Colloquium Film Screening. Arna's Children (October 9, 2017 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/42815 42815-9661753@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, October 9, 2017 4:00pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies

Please join us for a screening of "Arna's Children." Juliano Mer Khamis' documentary on his mother, Arna, an activist against the Israeli occupation who founded an alternative education system for Palestinian children.

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Film Screening Tue, 22 Aug 2017 10:15:38 -0400 2017-10-09T16:00:00-04:00 2017-10-09T18:00:00-04:00 Weiser Hall Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies Film Screening poster
ASP Roundtable Discussion | Scholars Under Fire: The Turkish State, Nationalists, and the Repression Against Study of the Armenian Genocide... 102 Years After the Events (October 11, 2017 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/45047 45047-10072856@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 11, 2017 4:00pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Center for Armenian Studies

Michigan sociologist Fatma Müge Göçek and historian Ronald Grigor Suny have for almost two decades brought Turkish, Armenian, Kurdish, and other scholars together to research, write about, and discuss the massacres and deportations by the Ottoman government of Armenians and Assyrians. The recent conference in Berlin, organized as part of a series of Workshops on Armenian and Turkish Scholarship, was threatened by the right-wing Fatherland Party (Vatan Partisi) and the Turkish government. Scholars from Turkey were prevented from attending; demonstrations against the conference were threatened; and several participants in Turkey came under fire from universities and the state. Professor Göçek and Professor Suny will talk about this threat to academic freedom and censorship that undermines what our university stands for and protects.

WATS was founded in the year 2000 by faculty members from the Armenian Studies Program, Ronald Suny, Kevork Bardakjian, and Gerard Libaridian, as well as UM sociologist, Fatma Müge Göçek. This pioneering venture brought together for the first time a group of scholars of Armenian and Turkish Studies to collectively work on what had long been a forbidden topic, the Armenian Genocide.

WATS proved to be a powerful impetus to a rethinking of the events of 1915, as well as the successful creation of a community of scholars, including Armenians, Kurds, and Turks, who were prepared to acknowledge that a genocide had occurred, were willing to work together to create documentation and a scholarly record of what happened and why, and moved the field of serious Ottoman studies from denial to dealing honestly with the darkest elements of the past. The progress in Armenian and Ottoman studies was enormous, quite unpredictable when the group first met in 2000 in Chicago. Out of the various workshops, held in Chicago, Ann Arbor, Minneapolis, New York City, Salzburg, Amsterdam, and Berkeley, a volume of collected papers appeared: "A Question of Genocide: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire," edited by Ronald Suny, Fatma Müge Göçek, and Norman Naimark and published by Oxford University Press in 2011. Various members of WATS published their own monographs, among them Ronald Suny's " "They Can Live in the Desert But Nowhere Else": A History of the Armenian Genocide" (Princeton University Press, 2015); and Fatma Müge Göçek's "Denial of Violence: Ottoman Past, Turkish Present and Collective Violence against Armenians, 1789-2009" (Oxford University Press, 2015).

Co-Sponsors: International Institute; Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies; Department of Sociology; and Conflict and Peace Initiative.

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 03 Oct 2017 14:02:58 -0400 2017-10-11T16:00:00-04:00 2017-10-11T17:30:00-04:00 Weiser Hall Center for Armenian Studies Lecture / Discussion ASP Roundtable Discussion | The Turkish State, Nationalists, and the Repression Against Study of the Armenian Genocide... 102 Years After the Events
Mohsin Hamid: EXIT WEST (October 11, 2017 5:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/45307 45307-10152987@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 11, 2017 5:00pm
Location: Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.)
Organized By: University of Michigan Helen Zell Writers' Program

Mohsin Hamid is the author of four novels, Moth Smoke, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, and Exit West, and a book of essays, Discontent and Its Civilizations.

His writing has been featured on bestseller lists, adapted for the cinema, twice shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, selected as winner or finalist of more than twenty-five awards, and translated into over thirty-five languages.

Born in Lahore, he has spent about half his life there and much of the rest in London, New York, and California.

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Other Mon, 02 Oct 2017 15:39:16 -0400 2017-10-11T17:00:00-04:00 2017-10-11T18:00:00-04:00 Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.) University of Michigan Helen Zell Writers' Program Other Mohsin Hamid
Migritude (Workshop) (October 12, 2017 9:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/41721 41721-9440440@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, October 12, 2017 9:00am
Location: Angell Hall
Organized By: Department of English Language and Literature

Thursday, October 12, 2017
9:30-11AM; 2:30-4:10PM
CONTACT: smnair@umich.edu

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Workshop / Seminar Mon, 02 Oct 2017 14:53:50 -0400 2017-10-12T09:00:00-04:00 2017-10-12T17:00:00-04:00 Angell Hall Department of English Language and Literature Workshop / Seminar Migritude Schedule
The Iranian Film Festival of Ann Arbor (October 15, 2017 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/44159 44159-9889013@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 15, 2017 4:00pm
Location: Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.)
Organized By: Department of Middle East Studies

The Department of Near Eastern Studies and the Iranian Graduate Students Association at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, is pleased to present our second annual Iranian Film Festival. With the passing of one of Iran’s most iconic and internationally celebrated filmmakers, Abbas Kiarostami, we have decided to dedicate this year’s festival to a retrospective of his work.

The films will be screened at 4pm in the Rackham Amphitheatre.

9/17: Where is the Friend’s House?
9/24: Life and Nothing More
10/1: Close-Up
10/8: Taste of Cherry
10/15: Ten
10/29: Like Someone in Love

Admission is free and open to the public.


For more information, visit https://persian.nes.lsa.umich.edu/iff/ or email us at iranian-film-festival@umich.edu.

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Film Screening Thu, 21 Sep 2017 09:27:47 -0400 2017-10-15T16:00:00-04:00 2017-10-15T18:00:00-04:00 Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.) Department of Middle East Studies Film Screening IFF Poster
Islamic Books Reading Group. Book Discussion: Mohsin Hamid, Exit West (October 18, 2017 6:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/42230 42230-9587139@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 18, 2017 6:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Global Islamic Studies Center

Tarfia Faizullah, Delbanco Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Michigan, will lead a discussion of "Exit West," the new novel by award-winning writer, Mohsin Hamid, following his visit to the University of Michigan. This event is open to the public. Participants are encouraged to read the novel prior to the meeting. The novel is discounted (15% off) at the Literati Bookstore in downtown Ann Arbor.

Please note the new date for this event: October 18.

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 10 Oct 2017 08:45:35 -0400 2017-10-18T18:00:00-04:00 2017-10-18T20:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Global Islamic Studies Center Lecture / Discussion Exit West
CMENAS Lecture. Condition Critical: Life and Death in Israel/Palestine (October 22, 2017 3:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/45227 45227-10116114@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 22, 2017 3:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies

How are health and human rights of marginalized communities impacted by decades of conflict, displacement, segregation, and occupation? Through eyewitness reports and intimate stories, Dr. Rothchild explores everyday life up-close in Israel, East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza. Followed by reception and book signing.

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Lecture / Discussion Fri, 29 Sep 2017 10:15:06 -0400 2017-10-22T15:00:00-04:00 2017-10-22T18:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies Lecture / Discussion Alice-Rothchild-event
CMENAS Colloquium Film Screening. Disturbing the Peace (October 23, 2017 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/42817 42817-9661755@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, October 23, 2017 4:00pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies

Please join us for a film screening of "Disturbing the Peace." This film follows a group of former enemy combatants - Israeli soldiers from the most elite units, and Palestinian fighters, many of whom served years in prison - who have come together to challenge the status quo and and say "enough". The film traces their transformational journeys from soldiers committed to armed battle to non-violent peace activists. It is a story of the human potential unleashed when we stop participating in a story that no longer serves us, and with the power of our convictions take action to create a new possibility...

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Film Screening Tue, 22 Aug 2017 10:18:17 -0400 2017-10-23T16:00:00-04:00 2017-10-23T18:00:00-04:00 Weiser Hall Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies Film Screening poster
ISP Film. The Night of Counting the Years (October 25, 2017 7:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/42651 42651-9622473@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, October 25, 2017 7:00pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Global Islamic Studies Center

Join us for a screening of this 1969 classic of Egyptian cinema, The Night of Counting the Years (Arabic: Al-Mummia) by director Chadi Abdel Salam. The film has been beautifully restored and is ready for generations of new viewers. In Arabic with English subtitles.

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Film Screening Fri, 18 Aug 2017 12:26:33 -0400 2017-10-25T19:00:00-04:00 2017-10-25T21:00:00-04:00 Weiser Hall Global Islamic Studies Center Film Screening The Night of Counting the Years
II Career Event (October 27, 2017 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/43002 43002-9693640@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 27, 2017 12:00pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies

Come learn about what it's like to work at the State Department in an informal conversational setting. If you are considering pursuing a career in foreign policy, this is a great opportunity to hear about the various routes you can take, both in academia and in the government. For those studying Central Asia and/or Islamic Studies, this will be of special interest.

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Lecture / Discussion Fri, 20 Oct 2017 10:50:00 -0400 2017-10-27T12:00:00-04:00 2017-10-27T13:30:00-04:00 Weiser Hall Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies Lecture / Discussion ambramson-image
M2GATE: Make a Difference Through Social Entrepreneurship (October 27, 2017 3:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/46160 46160-10407016@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, October 27, 2017 3:00pm
Location: Ross School of Business
Organized By: William Davidson Institute

Join us to learn about a new virtual exchange program connecting undergrads with fellow students from Egypt (The Faculty of Economics and Political Science at Cairo University), Libya (Benghazi Youth for Technology & Entrepreneurship – BYTE), Morocco (Al Akhawayn University), and Tunisia (Tunis Business School at Tunis University), and students from the United States (University of Michigan).

This co-curricular certificate program is open to any postsecondary (undergraduate) student. During the 8-week cross-cultural program, you and your teammates will have the opportunity to connect with experienced instructors who will help you build the 21st century skills required to develop and launch a social entrepreneurship project. In the process, you’ll learn to work as a team and build bridges between cultures. Join us as we find creative solutions to pressing global challenges!

The MENA-Michigan Initiative for Global Action Through Entrepreneurship (M2GATE) program is offered by the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan.

Want to learn more?

U-M Ann Arbor students, stop by an info session at 3 p.m. Oct. 27 at the Ross School of Business, Room 2240. Details on the program are here: http://wdi.umich.edu/m2gate/

U-M Dearborn students, are invited to join an info session on November 13 (drop-in questions from 3 pm, presentation at 3:30pm), Talent Gateway Commons (Suite 285, Fairlane Center North – FNC).

Or you can send us an email at: m2-gateprogram@umich.edu

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Social / Informal Gathering Wed, 25 Oct 2017 09:57:04 -0400 2017-10-27T15:00:00-04:00 2017-10-27T16:00:00-04:00 Ross School of Business William Davidson Institute Social / Informal Gathering M2GATE
The Iranian Film Festival of Ann Arbor (October 29, 2017 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/44159 44159-9889014@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Sunday, October 29, 2017 4:00pm
Location: Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.)
Organized By: Department of Middle East Studies

The Department of Near Eastern Studies and the Iranian Graduate Students Association at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, is pleased to present our second annual Iranian Film Festival. With the passing of one of Iran’s most iconic and internationally celebrated filmmakers, Abbas Kiarostami, we have decided to dedicate this year’s festival to a retrospective of his work.

The films will be screened at 4pm in the Rackham Amphitheatre.

9/17: Where is the Friend’s House?
9/24: Life and Nothing More
10/1: Close-Up
10/8: Taste of Cherry
10/15: Ten
10/29: Like Someone in Love

Admission is free and open to the public.


For more information, visit https://persian.nes.lsa.umich.edu/iff/ or email us at iranian-film-festival@umich.edu.

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Film Screening Thu, 21 Sep 2017 09:27:47 -0400 2017-10-29T16:00:00-04:00 2017-10-29T18:00:00-04:00 Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.) Department of Middle East Studies Film Screening IFF Poster
CMENAS Colloquium Film Screening. To Die in Jerusalem (October 30, 2017 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/42908 42908-9682997@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, October 30, 2017 4:00pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies

“To Die in Jerusalem” is a 2007 HBO documentary film about the effects of a March 29, 2002, Jerusalem suicide bombing on the families of the 17-year-old Israeli victim Rachel Levy and the 18-year-old Palestinian female suicide bomber, Ayat al-Akhras. Al-Akhras blew herself up at the entrance of Kiryat HaYovel's main supermarket, killing two people and injuring 28.

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Film Screening Thu, 24 Aug 2017 09:24:12 -0400 2017-10-30T16:00:00-04:00 2017-10-30T18:00:00-04:00 Weiser Hall Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies Film Screening to-die-in-jerusalem
DISC/WCED Film and Discussion. Tickling Giants (November 1, 2017 6:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/42229 42229-9585113@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, November 1, 2017 6:00pm
Location: North Quad
Organized By: Global Islamic Studies Center

Sara Taksler, director (111 min., 2016). Discussion moderated by Allen Hicken, Ronald and Eileen Weiser Professor of Emerging Democracies, U-M.

"Tickling Giants" tells the story of Dr. Bassem Youssef, the "Egyptian Jon Stewart," who decides to leave his job as a heart surgeon and become a late-night comedian. The movie is about how he finds creative, non-violent ways to protect free speech and fight a president who abuses his power.

Sponsored by the Digital Islamic Studies Curriculum (DISC), with support from the Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies, Language Resource Center, and Egyptian Student Association.

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Film Screening Tue, 19 Sep 2017 13:50:53 -0400 2017-11-01T18:00:00-04:00 2017-11-01T21:00:00-04:00 North Quad Global Islamic Studies Center Film Screening Tickling Giants poster
CMENAS Colloquium Film Screening. My Neighborhood (November 6, 2017 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/42912 42912-9682999@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, November 6, 2017 4:00pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies

When a Palestinian boy loses half of his home to Israeli settlers in East Jerusalem, he joins his community in a campaign of nonviolent protests. Efforts to put a quick end to the demonstrations are foiled when scores of Israelis choose to stand by the residents' side. The film is 25 minutes long and will be followed by discussion.

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Film Screening Thu, 24 Aug 2017 09:29:11 -0400 2017-11-06T16:00:00-05:00 2017-11-06T18:00:00-05:00 Weiser Hall Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies Film Screening my-neighborhood
DISC/WCED Panel. Unraveling the Arab Spring: Egypt Since 2011 (November 7, 2017 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/42661 42661-9622484@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, November 7, 2017 4:00pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Global Islamic Studies Center

Moderator: Pauline Jones, DISC director. Panelists: Samer Ali, CMENAS director, U-M; Juan Cole, Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History, U-M; Jean Lachapelle, Weiser Emerging Democracies Postdoctoral Fellow, U-M; Bassem Youssef, satirist.

"Unraveling the Arab Spring: Egypt Since 2011" examines the aftermath of Egypt's Arab Spring, the revolution that shook the country six years ago. This panel features the renowned Bassem Youssef, an Egyptian surgeon turned comedian, who fled his homeland after the government forced him to terminate the production of his show "Al-Bernameg" - the first political satire show in the Middle East. Youssef will join U-M distinguished scholars Juan Cole and Samer Ali, as well as Jean Lachapelle, Weiser Emerging Democracies Postdoctoral Fellow, to discuss the shifting relationships between Egyptians, their government, and freedom of expression in an Egypt that attempts to thrive beyond the Arab Spring.

Organized by the Digital Islamic Studies Curriculum (DISC) and Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies, with support from the University Musical Society and Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies.

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 08 Nov 2017 09:02:04 -0500 2017-11-07T16:00:00-05:00 2017-11-07T18:00:00-05:00 Weiser Hall Global Islamic Studies Center Lecture / Discussion By Sherif9282 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons
CMENAS Colloquium Series. The Road Ahead for Israel and Palestine: Two Years (November 8, 2017 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/42796 42796-9661731@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, November 8, 2017 12:00pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies

The talk will address whether the two-state solution is still possible and if not, then what? The talk will focus on a possible role for the US and Middle East regional players as well as domestic and leadership constraints in Israel and Palestine.

Shai Feldman is the Judith and Sidney Swartz Director of the Crown Center for Middle East Studies and Professor of Politics at Brandeis University. He is also a Senior Fellow and a member of the Board of Directors of Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs where he serves as co-chair of the Crown-Belfer Middle East Project. Prof. Feldman is also an Associate Fellow of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London. In 2001-2003, Feldman served as a member of the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters.

Khalil Shikaki is a professor of political science and director of the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah. Since 2005 he has been a senior fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University. He earned his PhD in Political Science from Columbia University in 1985, and taught at several Palestinian and American universities. Between 1996-99, Prof. Shikaki served as the dean of scientific research at al Najah University in Nablus. He spent the summer of 2002 as a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC. Since 1993 he has conducted more than 200 polls among Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and, since 2000, dozens of joint polls among Palestinians and Israelis. His research has focused on the peace process, Palestinian state building, public opinion, transition to democracy, and the impact of domestic Palestinian politics on the peace process. He is the co-author of the annual report of the Arab Democracy Index.

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 22 Aug 2017 09:26:23 -0400 2017-11-08T12:00:00-05:00 2017-11-08T13:30:00-05:00 Weiser Hall Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies Lecture / Discussion Weiser Hall
Medieval Lunch. It Happened Earlier Than You Think: Jewish-Christian Disputations in Late Antiquity (November 14, 2017 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/43770 43770-9841061@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, November 14, 2017 12:00pm
Location: Tisch Hall
Organized By: Medieval and Early Modern Studies (MEMS)

The Medieval Lunch Series is an informal program for sharing works-in-progress and fostering community among medievalists at the University of Michigan. Faculty and graduate students from across disciplines participate, sharing their research and discussing ongoing projects.

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Workshop / Seminar Thu, 07 Sep 2017 08:57:42 -0400 2017-11-14T12:00:00-05:00 2017-11-14T13:00:00-05:00 Tisch Hall Medieval and Early Modern Studies (MEMS) Workshop / Seminar Disputation in Late Antiquity
Why Study the Middle East? (November 15, 2017 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/45997 45997-10344537@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, November 15, 2017 12:00pm
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Department of Middle East Studies

Current undergraduate students are invited to a drop-in info session on the Department of Near Eastern Studies' major, minors, and language programs.

Stop by anytime from 12-2pm to speak with an advisor, learn more about the department’s academic programs, and talk about career opportunities for students who study the Middle East. Students who are ready to declare a major or minor with NES will have the opportunity to do so. Lunch will be provided.

Current NES students are also welcome to stop by for lunch and advising, and to learn more about the department’s Winter 2018 course offerings.

The Department of Near Eastern Studies teaches the diverse histories, religions, languages and literatures that originated in a vast region of the world extending from the Nile to the Oxus Rivers, and from the Mediterranean Sea to the Indian Ocean. Coursework in the department takes an interdisciplinary and comparative approach to societies, beginning with the emergence of cities and writing in Sumer and Ancient Egypt, to the rise of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and onwards to the Modern Middle East, extending to its transnational and diasporic communities.

The languages taught by the department include Arabic, Armenian, Hebrew, Persian, Turkish, and several ancient Near Eastern languages.

Please RSVP at http://bit.ly/nesinfo. We hope to see you there!

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Other Thu, 19 Oct 2017 15:53:22 -0400 2017-11-15T12:00:00-05:00 2017-11-15T14:00:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Department of Middle East Studies Other flyer
ASP Lecture | Biopolitics and Life-Writing among Ottoman Armenians: The Sacred Life of Zabel Yesayan (November 15, 2017 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/42279 42279-9593312@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, November 15, 2017 4:00pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Center for Armenian Studies

The Cilician massacres in 1909 were a moment in the newly emerging political landscape that affected not only the lives of Armenians in the region, but the entire Armenian community in the Ottoman state. This talk explores the (bio) political meaning of the dehumanization of Armenians with its focus on the personal experiences of the Ottoman Armenian writer and activist, Zabel Yesayan. If biopolitics can be defined as the management of lives by new power mechanisms that deprive people of human agency, then how are we to understand the category of the biopoliticized life? Can a ‘biopoliticized life’ speak for itself, for its reduction to a state of bodily existence, for its own death?

In relation to the loss of one’s political and everyday life, this talk concentrates on the paradox of the making of the modern biopoliticized subject, which materializes in an alternative and radical form of life-writing. Emphasizing the ways one engages with life-writing, which Dr. Aktokmakyan calls ‘auto-bio-thanato-graphy,’ the talk examines the ‘non-sovereign’ quality in Yesayan’s "Among the Ruins" to reframe a theory of agency and body politics, as well as the notion of the political in the Western Armenian literature.

Maral Aktokmakyan earned her PhD in Western Languages and Literature from Boğaziçi University in 2016. She specializes in modern Western Armenian literature with her Master’s Thesis on female literary styles and discourses in the works of Serpouhi Dussap and Charlotte Brontë. She is currently working on the literary representations of biopolitical reductions with a particular emphasis on the Ottoman Armenians before and after the Genocide. Her dissertation, entitled "If This is Life: Rethinking the Modern Subject through the Aporia of Biopolitics," examines the ways in which biopoliticized lives in the works of Zabel Yesayan and Hagop Mntzuri, William Faulkner and Joseph Conrad are represented and problematized.

Photo caption: Ottoman Armenians celebrate the restoration of constitution in 1908, Merzifon- in Les Armeniens 1917-1939 La Quete d’un Refuge (The Armenians, 1917-1939 In Search of Refuge). By Michel Paboudjian.

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 26 Sep 2017 08:57:40 -0400 2017-11-15T16:00:00-05:00 2017-11-15T17:30:00-05:00 Weiser Hall Center for Armenian Studies Lecture / Discussion Ottoman Armenians celebrate the restoration of constitution in 1908, Merzifon- in Les Armeniens 1917-1939 La Quete d’un Refuge (The Armenians, 1917-1939 In Search of Refuge). By Michel Paboudjian
Islamic Books Reading Group. Book Discussion: Ibn Tufayl's Hayy Ibn Yaqzan (November 15, 2017 7:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/42646 42646-9622470@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, November 15, 2017 7:00pm
Location: Museum of Art
Organized By: Global Islamic Studies Center

Karla Mallette, director of the Islamic Studies Program and professor of Italian and Near Eastern Studies, will lead a discussion of the wonderful classic of Islamic thought, "Hayy Ibn Yaqzan." Written by the 12th-century Andalusian genius, Ibn Tufayl, the Hayy is a philosophical novel that examines the human condition through the eyes of a child as he is raised by a doe on a desert island.

This event is open to the public. Participants are encouraged to read the novel prior to the meeting. We will be reading the translation by Lenn Goodman (http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/I/bo25938805.html), published by Chicago University Press, which will be discounted (15% off) at Literati Bookstore in downtown Ann Arbor.

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 24 Aug 2017 21:05:57 -0400 2017-11-15T19:00:00-05:00 2017-11-15T20:30:00-05:00 Museum of Art Global Islamic Studies Center Lecture / Discussion Hayy Ibn Yaqzan
ISP Lecture. Eating the Audience’s Brain: Persianate Sociability in 18th-Century Delhi’s Poetry Salons (November 17, 2017 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/42653 42653-9622476@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, November 17, 2017 4:00pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Global Islamic Studies Center

The grave of 18th-century Persian-language poet ʿAbd al-Qadir Bedil (d. 1720) hosted a posthumous literary salon from 1721 to roughly 1760. In anecdotes and verse, poets’ memories of the posthumous salon and its verse reveal how non-elite social actors shaped the Persianate literary sphere of Mughal India. Early modern literary spheres and shrine spaces have remained elusive subjects for social historians of South Asia, greater Iran, and Central Asia. My analysis of this shrine-based salon, as memorialized in period diaries, focuses on how localized/trans-regional textual processes mirrored the material settings in which they were deployed. New approaches to understanding available historical material, such as those focusing on literary modes of representation, are needed to document late-Mughal cultural history. From this position, we see how the socio-literary space of the shrine compels a vernacular appraisal of social institutions and linguistic spheres in which literary practices are viewed as ambiguous modes of pre-colonial sociability motivated by multilingual social actors.

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 08 Nov 2017 13:03:02 -0500 2017-11-17T16:00:00-05:00 2017-11-17T17:30:00-05:00 Weiser Hall Global Islamic Studies Center Lecture / Discussion Nathan Tabor
U-M Reception at the Middle East Studies Association's 51 Annual Meeting (November 18, 2017 8:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/42906 42906-9682996@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, November 18, 2017 8:30pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies

Please join us at the Middle East Studies Association's 51st annual meeting in Washington, DC at our University of Michigan reception. Faculty, students, alumni, and friends are all welcome to attend. Light beverages and hors d'oeuvres will be served.

Please RSVP (including regrets): Please RSVP (including regrets): bit.ly/cmenas-reception


Sponsored by Arab and Muslim American Studies, Armenian Studies, Center for Middle Eastern & North African Studies, Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, Department of Anthropology, International Institute, Islamic Studies Program, Department of Political Science, and Department of Near Eastern Studies.

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Reception / Open House Wed, 08 Nov 2017 16:40:51 -0500 2017-11-18T20:30:00-05:00 2017-11-18T22:30:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies Reception / Open House 51st-reception
CMENAS Lecture. Politics through Narrative: A Conversation with Husam Jubran and Yuval Ben Ami (November 30, 2017 5:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/46656 46656-10569829@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, November 30, 2017 5:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies

Tracing their divergent upbringings, Husam Jubran and Yuval Ben Ami share their personal narratives, political transformations, and friendship. Together, Jubran and Ben Ami use a dual-narrative approach to highlight the nuances in the political landscape of Israel and Palestine as they work towards real peace and justice for Palestinians and Israelis.

Speakers:

Yuval Ben Ami is a travel writer, tour guide and multidisciplinary artist. In 2010, he co-founded +972 Magazine, an English-language website dedicated to bringing critical analysis and coverage from Israel and Palestine. Since 2011 he has acted as guide in the unique model of dual-narratives about Palestine and Israel for organizations and universities such as National Geographic Expeditions and the University of Michigan. And since 2014 he serves as one of two experts on the Holy Land for the National Geographic Society. In 2016 he developed "To Be There," a performance piece re-creating a tour of Jerusalem in different cities. In another conceptual project, "Songs in Hotel Rooms", he explores song traditions and their relation to geography. Ben-Ami lives in Tel Aviv, Israel, with his wife and daughter.


Husam Jubran is a Fulbright scholar who has been a tour guide for the past 17 years. He received his master's degree in Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding in 2004 from the Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. One of only a few Palestinian guides to do so, he combines his knowledge and skills to provide political and interfaith tours. He also works with the Synergos Institute, identifying social innovators in Palestine and Jordan and helping to develop their projects. He is the Director of Facilitation at the Hands Of Peace and American Interfaith Organization that joins Israeli and Palestinian youth in dialogue to foster better understanding amongst them. He lives in Beit Sahour, the West Bank, with his wife and four children.

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 08 Nov 2017 16:48:59 -0500 2017-11-30T17:00:00-05:00 2017-11-30T19:00:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies Lecture / Discussion
Beyond East and West: Space and Simultaneity in Post-Millennial Western Sufi Auto-Biographies (December 4, 2017 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/47042 47042-10776995@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, December 4, 2017 4:00pm
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Department of Middle East Studies

Lecture by Professor Marcia Hermansen.

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 29 Nov 2017 09:42:44 -0500 2017-12-04T16:00:00-05:00 2017-12-04T17:30:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Department of Middle East Studies Lecture / Discussion Event poster
ISP Films. The Short Films of Larissa Sansour (December 6, 2017 7:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/42982 42982-9688338@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, December 6, 2017 7:00pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Global Islamic Studies Center

Larissa Sansour is a Palestinian artist and filmmaker who uses experimental methods and sci-fi tropes to examine Palestinian identity and Middle East politics. By turns entertaining, thought provoking, and frightening, her films brilliantly explore one aspect of the Islamic Studies Program's theme, "Muslim Futures": the use of future tense speculation to understand the present. Join us to watch three of her shorts: "In The Future They Ate From the Finest Porcelain" (29 min., 2015), "A Space Exodus" (6 mins., 2008), and "Nation Estate" (10 mins., 2012).

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Film Screening Fri, 25 Aug 2017 08:25:38 -0400 2017-12-06T19:00:00-05:00 2017-12-06T20:30:00-05:00 Weiser Hall Global Islamic Studies Center Film Screening Larissa Sansour films
CMENAS Lecture. Inter/Nationalism: Decolonizing Native America and Palestine (January 16, 2018 2:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/47902 47902-11046239@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, January 16, 2018 2:30pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies

“The age of transnational humanities has arrived.” According to Steven Salaita, the seemingly disparate fields of Palestinian Studies and American Indian studies have more in common than one may think. In Inter/Nationalism, Salaita argues that American Indian and Indigenous studies must be more central to the scholarship and activism focusing on Palestine.

Salaita offers a fascinating inside account of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement—which, among other things, aims to end Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land. In doing so, he emphasizes BDS’s significant potential as an organizing entity as well as its importance in the creation of intellectual and political communities that put Natives and other colonized peoples such as Palestinians into conversation. His discussion includes readings of a wide range of Native poetry that invokes Palestine as a theme or symbol; the speeches of U.S. President Andrew Jackson and early Zionist thinker Ze’ev Jabotinsky; and the discourses of “shared values” between the United States and Israel.

Inter/Nationalism seeks to lay conceptual ground between American Indian and Indigenous studies and Palestinian studies through concepts of settler colonialism, indigeneity, and state violence. By establishing Palestine as an indigenous nation under colonial occupation, this book draws crucial connections between the scholarship and activism of Indigenous America and Palestine.

Steven Salaita is a former professor, now a political writer. He is the author of several books, including Uncivil Rites: Palestine and the Limits of Academic Freedom and Israel’s Dead Soul.

Cosponsors: Arab and Muslim American Studies, Conflict and Peace Initiative, Department of American Culture, Department of Near Eastern Studies, Digital Islamic Studies Curriculum, International Institute, Islamic Studies Program. This event is funded in part by Title VI funds from the U.S. Department of Education.

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 09 Jan 2018 11:30:29 -0500 2018-01-16T14:30:00-05:00 2018-01-16T16:00:00-05:00 Weiser Hall Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies Lecture / Discussion Steven Salaita, BDS Activist and Independent Scholar
DISC Lecture. In His Own Voice: What Hatayi Tells Us about Shah Ismail’s Religious Views (February 5, 2018 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/47757 47757-11004745@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, February 5, 2018 4:00pm
Location: Hatcher Graduate Library
Organized By: Global Islamic Studies Center

This talk will look at religious views of Shah Ismail, the founder of the Safavid Empire, as reflected in his poetry. The speaker will argue that in Shah Ismail’s poetic corpus, we are faced with a peculiar combination of divinization of ‘Ali, monism, and a firm focus on the salvific community united with the love of ‘Ali and allegiance to the Safavid shaykh/pir. Shah Ismail’s bid on sovereignty, therefore, can be interpreted as a clear instance of the strategy of equating royal and sacred authority which became popular in the post-Mongol age: his sacred power, understood as the distillation of ‘Ali’s authority into his person as the Safavid Sufi master, elevates him to the position of royal authority, the sovereign king.

Ahmet T. Karamustafa is professor of history at the University of Maryland, College Park. His expertise is in the social and intellectual history of Sufism in particular and Islamic piety in general in the medieval and early modern periods. His publications include "God’s Unruly Friends" (University of Utah Press, 1994) and "Sufism: The Formative Period" (Edinburgh University Press & University of California Press, 2007). He is currently working on a book project titled "Vernacular Islam: Everyday Muslim Religious Life in Medieval Anatolia" (co-authored with Cemal Kafadar) as well as a monograph on the history of early medieval Sufism titled "The Flowering of Sufism."

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Lecture / Discussion Mon, 18 Dec 2017 16:57:30 -0500 2018-02-05T16:00:00-05:00 2018-02-05T17:30:00-05:00 Hatcher Graduate Library Global Islamic Studies Center Lecture / Discussion Ahmet T Karamustafa
CMENAS and EMU Lecture. Why is Anyone Anti-Vaccine? A History of Vaccination and Anti-Vaccination (February 8, 2018 7:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/49545 49545-11473478@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, February 8, 2018 7:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies

Ellen Amster is the Hannah Chair in the History of Medicine at McMaster University, and Associate Professor in the Departments of Family Medicine and History. She received her B.A. from the University of Chicago and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. A historian of North Africa and France, her research on science in the French-Islamic colonial encounter was first a book, Medicine and the Saints: Science, Islam, and the Colonial Encounter in Morocco, 1877-1956 (University of Texas ) and now extends to a field and Arabic course for students in Morocco and CIHR-funded global health work in maternal and infant health. Her recent articles touch on political Islam, Islamic biopolitics, the history of public health, and Sufism; her current research includes Muslim midwifery, medical humanities, the material and visual cultures of religion, the body, and women’s history. She has created the History of Medicine and Medical Humanities Research Portal, a resource for all researchers with library, archival, museum, and digital collections.

Co-sponsors:
Eastern Michigan University Center for Jewish Studies, Eastern Michigan University College of Health and Human Services

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 31 Jan 2018 11:16:17 -0500 2018-02-08T19:00:00-05:00 2018-02-08T20:30:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies Lecture / Discussion event_image
CMENAS Lecture. "The Body and the Body Politic in the Middle East and North Africa--History, Traditional Healing, and Biomedicine" (February 9, 2018 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/47709 47709-11002082@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, February 9, 2018 4:00pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies

Ellen Amster is the Hannah Chair in the History of Medicine at McMaster University, and Associate Professor in the Departments of Family Medicine and History. She received her B.A. from the University of Chicago and Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. A historian of North Africa and France, her research on science in the French-Islamic colonial encounter was first a book, Medicine and the Saints: Science, Islam, and the Colonial Encounter in Morocco, 1877-1956 (University of Texas ) and now extends to a field and Arabic course for students in Morocco and CIHR-funded global health work in maternal and infant health. Her recent articles touch on political Islam, Islamic biopolitics, the history of public health, and Sufism; her current research includes Muslim midwifery, medical humanities, the material and visual cultures of religion, the body, and women’s history. She has created the History of Medicine and Medical Humanities Research Portal, a resource for all researchers with library, archival, museum, and digital collections. http://medhumanities.mcmaster.ca/

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Lecture / Discussion Fri, 09 Feb 2018 10:32:22 -0500 2018-02-09T16:00:00-05:00 2018-02-09T18:00:00-05:00 Weiser Hall Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies Lecture / Discussion speaker
ASP Lecture | Modern Armenian Historiography: Suggestions for Periodization (February 14, 2018 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/46854 46854-10656089@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, February 14, 2018 4:00pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Center for Armenian Studies

Dr. Sanjian will analyze the development of Armenian historiography, i.e. the study of the methods of Armenian historians from the Middle Ages to the present, together with the changing interpretations of key events in the Armenian past recorded in the works of their predecessors. He will suggest a tentative periodization, emphasizing the medieval period (5th-18th cc. C.E.) and the successive periods of the influence of Father Mikayel Chamchian in the late early modern era (late 18th-mid-19th cc.), historism (late 19th c.-1920), and Soviet Marxism (1920-1991), culminating in the present era of post-Soviet independence (from 1991).

Dr. Ara Sanjian is an Associate Professor of History and the Director of the Armenian Research Center at the University of Michigan, Dearborn. He received his master’s degree in history from Yerevan State University (1991) and his PhD from the University of London (1996). From 1996 to 2005 he taught at Haigazian University in Beirut and was the Henry S. Khanzadian Kazan Visiting Professor in Armenian Studies at California State University, Fresno in 2003. His research interests focus on the post-World War I history of Armenia, Turkey and the Arab states of Western Asia.

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Lecture / Discussion Tue, 19 Dec 2017 11:01:11 -0500 2018-02-14T16:00:00-05:00 2018-02-14T17:30:00-05:00 Weiser Hall Center for Armenian Studies Lecture / Discussion Ara Sanjian
Literature in Conflict/Literature in Peace (February 15, 2018 1:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/47670 47670-10973746@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, February 15, 2018 1:30pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (50+)

Discussions will focus on novels by writers from the Holy Land (Muslims, Christians, Jews, and atheists). How do these writers see themselves and other parties of the conflict? How do these writers perceive “resolving” Palestine/Israel conflict? What do these writers dream of for their generation and beyond? Do we, concerned Americans, see that part of the world in ways similar or different from the ways those writers see it? Why do we agree or disagree with these writers? Participants in this course will understand Palestine/Israel conflict through the eyes of novelists from Palestine/Israel.

This study group for those 50 and over will be led by instructor Adnan Salhi for two hours on Thursdays: February 15, March 29, and April 26.

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Class / Instruction Fri, 15 Dec 2017 12:53:01 -0500 2018-02-15T13:30:00-05:00 2018-02-15T15:30:00-05:00 Off Campus Location Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (50+) Class / Instruction OLLI Study Group
ISP Workshop. Belief and Action: The Subjects of Islamic Studies (February 16, 2018 9:30am) https://events.umich.edu/event/48666 48666-11265195@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, February 16, 2018 9:30am
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Global Islamic Studies Center

Presenters: Zaid Adhami, assistant professor of religion, Williams College; Kathryn Babayan, associate professor of history, U-M; Sarah Eltantawi, assistant professor of religion, Evergreen State College; Hussein Fancy, associate professor of history, U-M; Juliane Hammer, associate professor of religion, University of North Carolina; Rudolph Ware, associate professor of history, U-M

Over the past generation, Islamic studies in North America has undergone a dramatic shift. In nineteenth-century Europe, Orientalism embraced the study of the histories, cultures, and religions of lands from the southern and eastern Mediterranean through Central Asia and into the Indian subcontinent. Orientalist scholars typically were not themselves natives of any of these regions; nor were they themselves Muslims. In the course of the last two centuries, Orientalism has been atomized: divided into distinct fields of regional and disciplinary studies. At the same time, the study of Islam—the religion, the culture, and the civilization—has gone global; scholars today study the history, current state, and future of Islam and Muslims worldwide. And today, students and teachers of Islamic studies are much more likely to come from within the tradition: born to Muslim families or in Muslim-majority regions, or converts to the faith. Yet in the field of Islamic studies—as in other religious studies disciplines—scholars struggle to account for the subject of their inquiry. They debate the focus of Islamic atudies: societies, cultures, or religion itself. They seek a scholarly vocabulary to talk about belief, and to think together about the relationship between belief, scholarship, and pedagogy. And they debate the role that action and activism plays for scholars in the field.

At this workshop, we will convene a group of scholars from U-M and other North American universities to discuss the genealogy, current state, and future of Islamic studies in North American universities. How has Islamic studies evolved over the last two centuries? How has the rising number of Muslim scholars in the field changed the nature of our scholarship? What changes must still happen, in order to provide leadership within American universities and in American society at large? How does scholarship intersect with action, activism, and advocacy? How can Islamic studies serve as a model for programs of religious studies in general? This workshop will consist of a series of roundtable discussions, structured in order to facilitate discussion. Each roundtable will pair two scholars working in disparate regions, disciplines, and historical periods. Each participant will speak for about ten minutes, followed by a conversation among scholars and attendees. The workshop is designed to facilitate free-ranging, creative discussion, and to integrate the audience in all discussions, in order to take stock of the field and generate a productive discussion of our future.

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Workshop / Seminar Mon, 05 Feb 2018 13:53:33 -0500 2018-02-16T09:30:00-05:00 2018-02-16T16:30:00-05:00 Weiser Hall Global Islamic Studies Center Workshop / Seminar Belief and Action workshop
Middle East Languages Fair (February 16, 2018 11:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/48958 48958-11339486@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, February 16, 2018 11:00am
Location: Michigan Union
Organized By: Department of Middle East Studies

Are you interested in learning more about the Middle East languages taught at the University of Michigan? The Department of Near Eastern Studies invites you to the Middle East Languages Fair. Come learn about opportunities at UM to study the following languages: Arabic, Armenian, Hebrew, Persian, Turkish, Yiddish, and multiple ancient Near Eastern languages (including Akkadian, Aramaic, Classical Hebrew, Coptic, Demotic, Hittite, Middle Egyptian, Sumerian, and Ugaritic). There will also be opportunities to win raffle prizes.

Students interested in studying abroad in the Middle East will be able to speak with a representative from the Center for Global and Intercultural Studies (CGIS). A representative from the Language Resource Center will be at the fair, as well, to share information about language-learning resources on campus.

The Middle East Languages Fair will be held in the Pond Room on the first floor of the Michigan Union from 11am-2pm on Friday, February 16. We hope to see you there!

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Fair / Festival Wed, 24 Jan 2018 15:02:19 -0500 2018-02-16T11:00:00-05:00 2018-02-16T14:00:00-05:00 Michigan Union Department of Middle East Studies Fair / Festival flyer
WCED Lecture. State Repression and Collective Action in Egypt (February 20, 2018 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/47384 47384-10888269@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, February 20, 2018 4:00pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies

Egypt has witnessed thousands of protests over the last decade. In the face of such collective action, security forces have responded in varied ways, ranging from tolerating protests to crackdowns using non-deadly force, to unleashing large-scale lethal repression. What explains these patterns of repression? Which protests were security forces most likely to shut down, and why? What determined the level of violence that security forces used? Based on extensive fieldwork in Egypt, Jean Lachapelle will argue that autocrats’ repressive strategies are largely shaped by elite assessments of the risks of a popular backlash—i.e., the risk that repression may backfire and cause further mobilization. Empirically, Lachapelle demonstrates the relationship between backlash risks and patterns of violent repression in Egypt between 2004 and 2015, using interviews and an original event dataset of protests and police responses.

Jean Lachapelle completed his Ph.D. in political science at the University of Toronto in 2017. His current research examines the causes of state violence in authoritarian regimes, with regional expertise on the Middle East and North Africa. More broadly, Jean is interested in issues of repression, revolution, the relationship between violence and political order, as well as methods of causal inference in the social sciences. His first book project, entitled “Determinants of State Repression in Authoritarian Regimes,” focuses on Egypt (1981-2013) and theorizes the decision-calculus of authoritarian rulers to deploy repression, using interviews and an original dataset of protests and repressive events collected over the course of 16 months of research in Egypt. As a Weiser Center postdoctoral fellow, Jean will complete his book manuscript and work on related projects that test and expand its key arguments. In particular, he will conduct a cross-national study of Syria, Tunisia, Iraq, and Egypt since the mid-20th century that explains why these countries exhibit divergent patterns of state repression.

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 07 Dec 2017 08:49:53 -0500 2018-02-20T16:00:00-05:00 2018-02-20T17:30:00-05:00 Weiser Hall Weiser Center for Emerging Democracies Lecture / Discussion Jean Lachapelle
Medieval Lunch. A Prisoner of His Skin: The Paradoxes of King Mobad's Power (March 7, 2018 12:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/48782 48782-11306112@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Wednesday, March 7, 2018 12:00pm
Location: Tisch Hall
Organized By: Medieval and Early Modern Studies (MEMS)

The Medieval Lunch Series is an informal program for sharing works-in-progress and fostering community among medievalists at the University of Michigan. Faculty and graduate students from across disciplines participate, sharing their research and discussing ongoing projects.

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Lecture / Discussion Thu, 18 Jan 2018 15:09:15 -0500 2018-03-07T12:00:00-05:00 2018-03-07T13:00:00-05:00 Tisch Hall Medieval and Early Modern Studies (MEMS) Lecture / Discussion “The Marriage of sudaba and kai kavus,” ca. 1525-30 CE, The Shahama of Shah Tahmasp fol.130r. Source: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/452129
The Leaking Subject: Arab Culture in the Digital Age (March 8, 2018 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/48963 48963-11339490@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, March 8, 2018 4:00pm
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Department of Middle East Studies

Title: “The Leaking Subject: Arab Culture in the Digital Age”
Date: Thursday March 8, 2018 @ 4:00
Location: 1022 South Thayer Building
Followed by reception with refreshments

In recent years, Arab activists have confronted authoritarian regimes both on the street and online, leaking videos and exposing atrocities, and demanding political rights. Tarek El-Ariss situates these critiques of power within a pervasive culture of scandal and leaks and shows how cultural production and political change in the contemporary Arab world are enabled by digital technology yet emerge from traditional cultural models.

Focusing on a new generation of activists and authors from Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula, El-Ariss connects WikiLeaks to The Arabian Nights, Twitter to mystical revelation, cyberattacks to pre-Islamic tribal raids, and digital activism to the affective scene-making of Arab popular culture. He shifts the epistemological and historical frameworks from the postcolonial condition to the digital condition, and shows how new media challenge the novel as the traditional vehicle for political consciousness and intellectual debate.

Theorizing the rise of “the leaking subject” who reveals, contests, and writes through chaotic yet highly political means, El-Ariss investigates the digital consciousness, virality, and affective forms of knowledge that jolt and inform the public and that draw readers in to the unfolding fiction of scandal.

His talk is based on his forthcoming book Leaks Hacks and Scandals: Arab Culture in the Digital Age (Princeton University Press, Fall 2018).

Tarek El-Ariss is Associate Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at Dartmouth College. His books include Trials of Arab Modernity: Literary Affects and the New Political and The Arab Renaissance: A Bilingual Anthology of the Nahda. Other areas of his scholarship include Arabic travel writing and the war novel, gender and sexuality studies, and sci-fi and utopia studies, psychoanalysis, deconstruction and affect theory.

Sponsored by: Department of Near Eastern Studies, CMENAS (Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies), Department of Comparative Literature, Islamic Studies Program, Digital Islamic Studies Curriculum (DISC), Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs (MESA)

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Lecture / Discussion Wed, 21 Feb 2018 13:56:36 -0500 2018-03-08T16:00:00-05:00 2018-03-08T17:30:00-05:00 202 S. Thayer Department of Middle East Studies Lecture / Discussion Professor Tarek El-Ariss
Palestine & Native America: Settler colonialism and Indigeneity (March 9, 2018 5:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/50563 50563-11816527@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, March 9, 2018 5:00pm
Location: West Hall
Organized By: Tricontinental Solidarity Network

We are happy to invite you to this conversation between Mallory Whiteduck (American Culture) and Raya Naamneh (Comparative Literature) to comparatively and critically discuss indigeneity and the experiences of living under settler colonialism in both North America and Palestine. Thinking through these two fragmented geopolitical spaces, we hope to discuss the relevance of this transnational connection for the understanding of indigenous experiences and forms of anti-colonial resistance, past and present.
The event will include food and light refreshments.

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Lecture / Discussion Sat, 03 Mar 2018 14:29:11 -0500 2018-03-09T17:00:00-05:00 2018-03-09T18:30:00-05:00 West Hall Tricontinental Solidarity Network Lecture / Discussion West Hall
II Arts of Islam Symposium (March 12, 2018 9:30am) https://events.umich.edu/event/47832 47832-11022890@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, March 12, 2018 9:30am
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Center for Southeast Asian Studies

What are contemporary expressions of self and community in the context of Islam? This cross-disciplinary symposium highlights contemporary expressive performance and visual work that engage with Islam in everyday life. The event is a collaborative effort bringing together regional centers at the International Institute and partners across campus and the community. This event is funded in part by Title VI NRC grants from the U.S. Department of Education.

10:00am: Welcome Remarks

10:15 to 11:45
Panel I: Literature and Poetry

Muhammad Ali: "Beauty and Piety in Contemporary Indonesian Islamic Literature" (University of California, Riverside)
Kamelya Youssef: "Frayed Towel Made Holy: Prayer [rug] for this Nonbeliever" (Detroit-based poet, organizer, student, and teacher)
Khaled Mattawa: "On Not Finding the Center" (U-M)
Moderator: Nancy Florida (U-M)

1:00-2:30
Panel II: Music and Dance

Adil Johan: "Intimacies of Popular Islam in Malaysian Film Music" (Institute for Ethnic Studies, National University of Malaysia)
Fatou-Seydi Sarr: "Immigration and Criminalization--Teaching through African Dance" (African Bureau for Immigration and Social Affairs, Detroit)
Inna Naroditskaya: "Weaving Mugham and Carpet into Baku's Sounding Architecture" (Northwestern University)
Moderator: Christi-Anne Castro (U-M)

2:45-3:45
Panel III: Visual Arts

Murad Khan Mumtaz: "Modern and Contemporary Miniaturist Painting in Pakistan: A Practitioner’s Perspective" (University of Virginia)
Laila Hotait: "Nostalgia as a Tool in the Arts for the Construction of Arab-American Identities" (University Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, Mexico)
Moderator: Nachiket Chanchani (U-M)

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Conference / Symposium Thu, 08 Mar 2018 16:37:12 -0500 2018-03-12T09:30:00-04:00 2018-03-12T16:30:00-04:00 Weiser Hall Center for Southeast Asian Studies Conference / Symposium logo
CMENAS & LACS Filmscreening. Crayons of Askalan by Dr. Laila Hotait Salas (followed by Q&A with the filmmaker) (March 13, 2018 2:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/50099 50099-11642047@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Tuesday, March 13, 2018 2:30pm
Location: Weiser Hall
Organized By: Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies

Film Description: This creative hybrid documentary is based on the true story about the Palestinian artist Zuhdi Al Adawi, who in 1975 at the age of just 15 years was convicted to 15 years' imprisonment, which he served in the Israeli high-security prison Askalan. It was only thanks to the help of his fellow inmates and their families that he managed to survive mentally. Colour crayons that were smuggled in became his only contact with the outside world - not through letters, but through his distressed and allegorical drawings, which are brought to life in partially animated sequences.

Filmmaker Bio: Laila Hotait Salas, Ph.D, is a Lebanese-Spanish filmmaker and artist. Her academic work deals with Arab contemporary cinema and its filmmakers.

As a filmmaker herself, her first documentary film, ‘Crayons of Askalan’ (2011) has been presented in more than 20 film festivals, including Hot Docs, the Doha Tribeca Film Festival, CPH:DOX and DocsDF. Her sound art works have been presented at international venues such as the Centre Pompidou, the Kunst-im-Tunnel Museum Düsseldorf and several art galleries. Hotait was selected by the CPH:LAB as an international emerging film talent in 2011. Her work has received support from institutions including the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture, the Sundance Documentary Fund Program, Screen Institute Beirut and the Doha Film Institute and is currently developing a feature film that was selected by Cine Qua Non Lab residency program.

Laila Hotait has been teaching film writing and directing at the University Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, Mexico, for five years.

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Film Screening Thu, 08 Mar 2018 10:21:14 -0500 2018-03-13T14:30:00-04:00 2018-03-13T16:30:00-04:00 Weiser Hall Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies Film Screening film_image
ASP Workshop | Armenian Music, Memorial Practices and the Global in the 21st Century (March 16, 2018 10:00am) https://events.umich.edu/event/46856 46856-10656091@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, March 16, 2018 10:00am
Location: Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.)
Organized By: Center for Armenian Studies

From lullabies transmitting genocide memories and post genocide experience in Turkey (Bilal 2013; 2006) to anamnesis, a form of liturgical remembrance of God’s role in human life (Findikyan 2008), and an act of survival in exile (Kerovpyan, 2015), music is constitutive to the Armenian experience worldwide. Both the shared affective participation in the resonance of melodies and rhythms and the tales and stories conveyed in sung musical texts help to create a bond of common experience and sense of belonging within and across Armenian populations spread throughout the globe.

This workshop situates various genres of Armenian music—liturgical, lullaby, folk, pop, and contemporary—as a site from which to explore central questions for the Armenian experiences in the 21st Century. What ties together diverse Diaspora populations, Anatolia, and the Republic of Armenia? How is a shared Armenian experience conveyed and transmitted? Which institutions and practices sustain the Armenian community? How does music resonate with individuals while simultaneously creating both communal bonds, tensions, and distinctions? In what ways does music tie the past to the present and even help imagine a future? How do we contextualize the ‘traditional’ and the ‘experimental’ in contemporary Armenian music production?

The workshop will be followed by the screening of the film - "Singing in Exile" (Directed by Turi Finocchiaro and Nathalie Rossetti; 2015) at 6:30 PM
Space 2435, North Quad, 105 S State Street, Ann Arbor, MI 48109.

Saturday, Mar 17, 4 PM
Evening Service and Musical Concert.
St. John Armenian Church, 22001 Northwestern Hwy # 1, Southfield, MI 48075.

Participants:
Hakem Al-Rustom, University of Michigan
Roxana-Maria Aras, University of Michigan
Meilu Ho, University of Michigan
Aram Kerovpyan, Centre for Armenian Modal Chant Studies of Paris
Alyssa Mathias, University of California, Los Angeles
Jonathon McCollum, Washington College
Christopher Sheklian, University of Michigan

Caption: Paper · 416 ff. · 13.1 x 10 cm · Awendants, Khizan in the Province Van · 1647.
Credit: Utopia, armarium codicum bibliophilorum, Cod. 4: Armenian Hymnarium (Sharaknots) (http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/list/one/utp/0004)

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Workshop / Seminar Wed, 28 Feb 2018 11:20:03 -0500 2018-03-16T10:00:00-04:00 2018-03-16T17:00:00-04:00 Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.) Center for Armenian Studies Workshop / Seminar Armenian Music, Memorial Practices and the Global in the 21st Century
ASP Film Screening | Singing in Exile (March 16, 2018 6:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/46857 46857-10656092@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, March 16, 2018 6:30pm
Location: North Quad
Organized By: Center for Armenian Studies

Aram and Virginia, an Armenian couple from the diaspora, transmit an ancestral tradition of chant which is in danger of disappearing to a troupe of European actors. During the process of creating a new play, the couple takes the company on a trip to Anatolia (also known as Asia Minor, bounded by the Black Sea to the north, South Caucasus and Iran to the east, the Mediterranean Sea to the south and the Aegean Sea and Sea of Marmara to the west) where the Armenian civilization has been destroyed. Along the way, the questioning of the actors brings to the forefront the wealth of this culture: the chant becomes a language of creation and sharing, the breath of life. It is a journey where the sounds, the music, the words, the bodies and the cries impart a memory and a future.

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Film Screening Wed, 28 Feb 2018 14:04:18 -0500 2018-03-16T18:30:00-04:00 2018-03-16T20:30:00-04:00 North Quad Center for Armenian Studies Film Screening Singing in Exile Poster
Gendering the Gulf Campus: Designing the City State University (March 19, 2018 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/48964 48964-11532463@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, March 19, 2018 4:00pm
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Department of Middle East Studies

Join guest speaker Bader Al-Bader, a Ph.D. Student in Architecture & Design, for a discussion on design of universities in the Gulf, Arab world, connected to presence/absence of gender segregation. Part of the NES Lecture Series.

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Lecture / Discussion Fri, 19 Jan 2018 11:56:01 -0500 2018-03-19T16:00:00-04:00 2018-03-19T17:30:00-04:00 202 S. Thayer Department of Middle East Studies Lecture / Discussion 202 S. Thayer
Gendering the Gulf Campus: Designing the City State University (March 19, 2018 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/50327 50327-11710222@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Monday, March 19, 2018 4:00pm
Location: 202 S. Thayer
Organized By: Department of Middle East Studies

The Gulf is a rapidly developing region. Coming into being alongside skyscrapers, stadia, and man-made islands are universities and campuses. In a region in which governmental discourse often revolves around human development, higher education plays a major role in forming citizens and developing economies. In this talk, Bader al-Bader focuses on
uwait University's new sex-segregated mega-campus on the edge of the city, examining its design as an overtly gendered space. Since Kuwait is a city state, and its university the only public institution of higher learning, much hope rests upon the institution's efficacy. The new singular campus consolidates, integrates, and homogenizes the disparate extant university campuses dispersed across the city. The new singular campus establishes a novel form of separation that leverages architectural design and persuasion skills. Keeping in mind the constitutional requirement of equity and non-discrimination, the design of the new mega-campus exhibits the major lengths to which the design endeavor went in attempting to emphasize equality through mirroring. 

Bader al-Bader is a Ph.D. student in the Taubman College of Architecture and
Urban Planning at the University of Michigan, interested in studying the spaces in
which of the magic of higher education takes place. He is currently a co-coordinator
of Interdisciplinary Islamic Studies Seminar and the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Committee co-chair at Graduate Rackham International. Visit persistentpasts.com to
learn more about the most recent exhibition he has worked on.

Sponsored by: Department of Near Eastern Studies

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Lecture / Discussion Mon, 05 Mar 2018 13:16:43 -0500 2018-03-19T16:00:00-04:00 2018-03-19T17:30:00-04:00 202 S. Thayer Department of Middle East Studies Lecture / Discussion Gendering the Gulf Campus: Designing the City State University
Restructuring Academia and Student Life (March 22, 2018 6:30pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/50975 50975-11930609@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Thursday, March 22, 2018 6:30pm
Location: Hatcher Graduate Library
Organized By: Arab and Muslim American Studies (AMAS)

The Islamophobia Working Group is comprised of faculty, staff, and students who strategize on how to create an inclusive campus environment for those impacted by anti-Arab and anti Muslim sentiments. Come learn about this group's DEI work of the last two years. Student panelists will discuss campus climate concerns that include advocating for a Middle Eastern/North African (MENA) identity checkbox, more reflection rooms on campus, and changing the Arabic language textbook.

Food will be provided at 6:30, followed by the panel beginning promptly at 7.

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Lecture / Discussion Mon, 12 Mar 2018 17:45:32 -0400 2018-03-22T18:30:00-04:00 2018-03-22T20:30:00-04:00 Hatcher Graduate Library Arab and Muslim American Studies (AMAS) Lecture / Discussion Poster
CMENAS Event. Salts of the Earth with Zamzam and Honey: Spoken Word Performances by Poet Mohja Kahf (March 23, 2018 4:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/47323 47323-10866236@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Friday, March 23, 2018 4:00pm
Location: Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.)
Organized By: Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies

March 23, 2018, 4:00-6:00 pm
Syrian Dreams-Siren Blasts
Kahf will share her poetry on Syria and exile, Hagar and Sarah, the little mosque on the corner, and big white granny panties. Kahf's poetry performance explodes on stage in living color and inspires audience participation.

March 24, 2018, 6:00-8:00 pm
Poems of Hagar & Her Sisters
Kahf will read and perform from her Hagar Poems, which received an Honorable Mention in the 2017 Arab American Book Award.

Kahf is a Safe Zone ally for LGBTQ folk.

This event is part of Arab Heritage Month at the University of Michigan.

Cosponsors:
Department of American Culture, Arab and Muslim American Studies, Center for Arab American Studies, Islamic Studies Program, Department of Near Eastern Studies, Middle East and Arab Network, Students Organizing for Syria, Yoni Ki Baat, Michigan Refugee Assistance Program, Students for International Refugee Awareness, Students Allied for Freedom and Equality, Department of Comparative Literature, Department of English Language and Literature, Helen Zell Writers' Program, Department of Women's Studies, OAMI, Global Scholars Program, Multi Ethnic Student Affairs, Unitarian Universalist Justice for the Middle East Group, Center for World Performance Studies, Residential College, Program in Transcultural Studies, Conflict & Peace Initiative

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Performance Thu, 22 Mar 2018 16:32:11 -0400 2018-03-23T16:00:00-04:00 2018-03-23T18:00:00-04:00 Rackham Graduate School (Horace H.) Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies Performance image
CMENAS Event. Salts of the Earth with Zamzam and Honey: Spoken Word Performances by Poet Mohja Kahf (March 24, 2018 6:00pm) https://events.umich.edu/event/47323 47323-10866237@events.umich.edu Event Begins: Saturday, March 24, 2018 6:00pm
Location: Off Campus Location
Organized By: Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies

March 23, 2018, 4:00-6:00 pm
Syrian Dreams-Siren Blasts
Kahf will share her poetry on Syria and exile, Hagar and Sarah, the little mosque on the corner, and big white granny panties. Kahf's poetry performance explodes on stage in living color and inspires audience participation.

March 24, 2018, 6:00-8:00 pm
Poems of Hagar & Her Sisters
Kahf will read and perform from her Hagar Poems, which received an Honorable Mention in the 2017 Arab American Book Award.

Kahf is a Safe Zone ally for LGBTQ folk.

This event is part of Arab Heritage Month at the University of Michigan.

Cosponsors:
Department of American Culture, Arab and Muslim American Studies, Center for Arab American Studies, Islamic Studies Program, Department of Near Eastern Studies, Middle East and Arab Network, Students Organizing for Syria, Yoni Ki Baat, Michigan Refugee Assistance Program, Students for International Refugee Awareness, Students Allied for Freedom and Equality, Department of Comparative Literature, Department of English Language and Literature, Helen Zell Writers' Program, Department of Women's Studies, OAMI, Global Scholars Program, Multi Ethnic Student Affairs, Unitarian Universalist Justice for the Middle East Group, Center for World Performance Studies, Residential College, Program in Transcultural Studies, Conflict & Peace Initiative

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Performance Thu, 22 Mar 2018 16:32:11 -0400 2018-03-24T18:00:00-04:00 2018-03-24T20:00:00-04:00 Off Campus Location Center for Middle Eastern and North African Studies Performance image