Middle East and Islamic Studies Conference 2009
Preliminary Program
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GENERAL SCHEDULE
Friday October 16, 2009 |
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9 a.m. - 9:30 a.m. |
Welcoming Comments(Nob Hill Room at Seven Hills Conference Center) Co-Directors Dr. Lucia Volk and Dr. Nicole Watts, Conference Coordinator Dr. Mahmood Monshipouri, and Remarks by Dean Joel Kassiola |
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9:30 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. |
Session I(See workshop locations) |
12 p.m. - 1:30 p.m. |
Lunch |
1:30 p.m. - 4:15 p.m. |
Session II(See workshop locations) |
4:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. |
Roundtable on Iran(Humanities Bldg, Room 133) |
6:45 p.m. |
Middle Eastern Dinner(Nob Hill Room) |
Saturday October 17, 2009 |
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9 a.m. - 11 a.m. |
Session III(See workshop locations) |
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11:15 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. |
Keynote Speaker Dr. Reşat Kasaba(Nob Hill Room) “Countering Myths, Searching Knowledge: How to Study Middle East and Islam in the 21st Century” |
1:00 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. |
Lunch |
2:30 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. |
Plenary Session(Nob Hill Room) |
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San Francisco State University’s Middle East and Islamic Studies (MEIS) program is pleased to host the second annual California State University (CSU) conference on Middle East and Islamic Studies to be held on the campus of San Francisco State University.
The main objective of the 2009 conference is to bring scholars in the field of Middle East and Islamic Studies, broadly defined to include North Africa, South Asia, the Middle East, and Islamic civilizations and communities more generally, to share and collaborate in their research interests (i.e. by working on edited collections, collective grant proposals, or future conference panels and workshops, for instance for MESA), as well as working on ways—electronically and otherwise—to disseminate teaching ideas. With this in mind, the conference format will be workshops designed to facilitate collaborative work and the building of formal or informal research teams.
WORKSHOP SESSION LOCATIONS
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Workshop I: Presidio Room (Towers Conference Center)
Workshop II: Richmond Room (Towers Conference Center)
Workshop III: Sunset Room (Towers Conference Center)
Workshop V: Russian/Telegraph Hill Room (Seven Hills Conference Center)
Workshop VI: Mount Davidson/Twin Peaks Room (Seven Hills Conference Center)
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Dr. Reşat Kasaba (University of Washington)
"Countering Myths, Searching Knowledge:
How to Study Middle East and Islam in the 21st Century"
Nob Hill Room (Seven Hills Conference Center)
Dr. Reşat Kasaba is the Jackson School of International Studies Professor and former director of the National Resource Center for International Studies at the University of Washington. Dr. Kasaba's accomplishments range from receiving the Distinguished Teaching Award to authoring several books and numerous articles on Turkey, the Ottoman Empire, political economy, and the Middle East.
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Friday October 16, 2009 4:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.
Humanities Building, Room 133
Moderator:
Dr. Mahmood Monshipouri (San Francisco State University)
Panelists:
Dr. Manochehr Dorraj (Texas Christian Univeristy), "US-Iran Relations: Where Do We Go From Here."
Dr. Barbara Ann Flanagan (Central Washington University), "The Janus Nature of Human Rights in Iran."
Dr. Nader Entessar (University of South Alabama), "Iran's Foreign Policy: What's Next?"
Dr. Shahla Talebi (Arizona State University), "A Look at Gender Issues in Iran."
Mr. Ali Assareh (New York University of Law), "Democratic Reform in Iran: Economic Prerequisites."
Dr. Maziar Behrooz (San Francisco State University), "Iran and the Green Movement: What happened?"
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Location: Presidio Room (Towers Conference Center)
Workshop Director: Dr. Carel Bertram
Turn the clock back 100 years or more and today’s nation states of the Middle East (writ large), which are almost all major players in today’s world, had completely different demographics. Although indisputably influenced (but go ahead and dispute it by showing how it works the other way) by Islamic culture, communities of Zoroastrians, Jews and Greek Orthodox, Assyrian and Armenian Christians have at various periods been major, even dominant demographic and cultural elements from Sa'na to Samarqand since the advent of Islam. And before. Thus, the topic of this workshop is the history, role and stories of the individual confessional communities that contradict the image of the Middle East as coterminous with the world of Islam. Can this story be told without a sole rhetoric of “resistance to the Arab and Islamic onslaught” [Mordechai Nisan,] or can we speak of how memory of a shared past is made inclusionary or exclusionary [Lewis]? Our goal is to find a resilient frame for this topic and to present it accurately in its historic and contemporary, thematic and lived diversity. We welcome work that explores historical or contemporary communities, their strategies in relating to power, including maintaining a sense of cohesion and identity through linguistic, geographic, religious or other cultural means. Each strategy and each interaction with the majority or ruling culture has its immediate and long-term consequences as well. Thus, papers might follow specific groups as they move into new cultural conditions. This includes, for example, Copts in Egypt in or over various periods; the position of Mizrachi, Sepharidic and even Ashkenazi Jews in their historic Middle Eastern homelands or in their exilic communities outside the Middle East or in Israel; the position of former Ottoman millets, especially Ottoman Greeks and Armenians in the new Turkey or other former Ottoman lands, and even the relationship of exilic communities, those who have left the Middle East, as they gaze back at their former/ancestral homes in terms of politics or identity.
SESSION I. Friday October 16, 2009 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Carel Bertram, “The complications of memory: Diasporic Western
Armenians visiting Turkey and confronting loss, legitimization of self,
lahmacun, and Muslim cousins.”
Judith Bing, “Ottoman houses and religious confessions: From Ohrid in
Macedonia to Turnovo in Bulgaria, from mahalla to mahalla, from village
to village.”
Susan Gilson Miller, “Morocco: The Moroccan Jewish Quarter: History
and Conservation.”
Orit Bashkin, “Iraqi Jews as Arab subjects.”
Robert Mazza, “Christian institutions of Jerusalem and Palestine in the
late 19th century, until the early 1920s.”
Jasamin Rostam-Kolayi, “Minority Girls’ Schools in Iran, 1800s-1930s.”
SESSION II. Friday October 16, 2009 2 p.m.- 4:45 p.m.
Amal Cavender, “Historic and physical aspects related to urban forms in
Maloula, an Aramaic village in Syria.”
Lucia Volk, “The Other South Lebanon: Christian Lebanese between
Emigration, Exile, and Exclusion.”
Sebastian Elsässer, “Coptic issues in contemporary Egypt.”
Nancy W Jabbra, “Relations Melkite Greek Catholic villagers in the
Zahlah area of Lebanon have with their neighbors in surrounding villages.”
Charles G. Häberl, “Endangered Languages and Cultural Survival in the
Middle East.”
SESSION III. Saturday October 17, 2009 9 a.m. – 11 a.m.
All workshop participants convene for group discussion
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WORKSHOP II. Iran: Thirty Years After the Revolution
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Location: Richmond Room (Towers Conference Center)
Workshop Director: Dr. Sasan Fayazmanesh
2009 marks the 30th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution. The revolution changed Iran politically, transforming it from a monarchy to an Islamic Republic. Hence, the 1979 revolution is also referred to as the “Islamic Revolution.” The political transformation, however, has not been the only outcome of the revolution. The revolution has had profound effects in different arenas, both inside and outside of Iran.
Internally, the revolution influenced economic relations in Iran. It reconfigured class structure, changed the labor laws and the direction of the labor movement in Iran. It also affected Iran’s economic performance, including the rate of growth of gross domestic products, foreign direct investment, capital outlays in different sectors of the economy—particularly the oil sector—unemployment rate, rate of inflation, and exchange rate. In addition, the revolution has had a profound effect on the role or status of distinct and identifiable groups within the society, including women, students, and minorities. Moreover, the revolution has influenced art, literature, culture, science and technology in Iran. Despite many difficulties and barriers, the Iranian film industry has thrived, scientific endeavors have flourished and technological advancements were made in certain sectors of the economy.
Externally, the Iranian revolution has drastically changed the relationship between Iran and other countries. A closer relation has developed between Iran and some members of the Non-Aligned Movement. However, Iran’s relation with the United States, Israel and some European countries has deteriorated considerably. Moreover, Iran has been under numerous unilateral sanctions by the US since 1979. In the past few years it has also come under some unilateral sanctions by the European countries. In addition, three multilateral sanction resolutions have been imposed by the United Nations on Iran since 2006. These sanctions have affected both Iran’s economy and the economies of various countries, particularly those that have targeted Iran. The purpose of this workshop is to produce an edited volume on Iran, tentatively titled Iran: Thirty Years after the Revolution.
SESSION I Friday October 16, 2009 9:30 a.m.-12 p.m.
Reform, Revolution and Containment.
Ali Assareh, New York University School of Law, “Failure of the Reform
Movement in Iran: A Political Economy Perspective.”
Maziar Behrooz, California State University, San Francisco, “Chances
and Choices: Post-Revolutionary Iran’s first two years.”
Sasan Fayazmanesh, California State University, Fresno, “The Iranian
Revolution and the US Policy of Containment.”
SESSION II: Friday October 16, 2009 2 p.m.-5 p.m. The Transformation of Iranian Society and National Identity.
Afshin Matin-Asghari, California State University, Los Angles, “Both
Eastern and Western: The Transformation of Modern Iran’s National and
Islamic Identity.”
Shahla Talebi, Arizona State University, “From Iran to Nariman: The
Sociopolitical and Gendered Transformation of Iranian Society since the
1979 Revolution.”
SESSION III: Saturday October 17, 2009 9:30 a.m.-12 p.m. Art and Media in Iran.
Hannah Jacobi, Free University, Berlin, “Contemporary Art in Iran within the global and the local context.”
Babak Rahimi, UC San Diego, “Internet, Politics and Shia Iran since the 1979 Revolution.”
Workshop III. Teaching the Middle East Through the Humanities: Representing the Region Through Literature, Art, and Film
Location: Sunset Room (Towers Conference Center)
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Workshop Director: Dr. Persis Karim
Because many US-based college students have little or no exposure to the Middle East, the arts and humanities provides an excellent opening to engage students in the field and in the region as a whole. Organized by Professor Persis Karim (San Jose State University), this workshop will bring together scholars of Art, Literature and the Film to introduce strategies for teaching the Middle East through the Humanities. The workshop participants will be asked to discuss some of their teaching successes and will offer practical tools/suggestions for how to select materials for a college-level audience, and to look at the ways that the representations of art and culture can awaken a curiosity about the region as whole. Some possible workshop topic might include: “Teaching Arab novels in Translation”; “Teaching the History of Colonialism in the Region through Literature”; “Contemporary Film and Culture from the Middle East”; “Using Documentaries to Introduce the Region”; “How to Introduce Islam Using Film and Art”; “Countering US Media Images of the Middle East by Using Art and Film in the Classroom”; “Using Al-Jazeera and other Middle East Media Sources to Teach the Middle East”; “Music and Art in the Teaching of the Middle East,” and “Using Diaspora Literature of Iran and the Arab World to Open the Doors of Learning to Middle Eastern Studies.
The objectives of this workshop are to assist scholars and professors to share innovative and thoughtful ways to introduce the region and its culture into a multi-disciplinary university classroom Sample syllabi, examples of texts and films, and other materials will be presented at the workshop. One objective of the workshop is to develop website resources that can be used by MEIS to disseminate information and can serve as a resource for college and university professors interested in using humanities sources in their classrooms. In addition to developing sample syllabi, workshop participants will be encouraged to write testimonials and articles that address the particular challenges of teaching Middle Eastern Studies to U.S.-based university students. A further objective of this workshop is to propose a similar MESA-sponsored workshop at its annual conference.
SESSION I: Friday October 16, 2009 9 a.m.-10:45 a.m.
Teaching the Middle East through an Alternative Lens.
Mario Ruiz, Assistant Professor, Hofstra University, "Teaching Middle East History through Islamic Youth Culture."
Mary Husain, Instructor, Communications, Fresno State University,
"Emphasizing the Middle East: General Education Courses as a Gateway
Cultural Understanding.”
Anna Oldfield, Hamilton College, Asian Studies Postdoctoral Fellow and
Visiting Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature, "Teaching Cultures of the Islamic World, Old and New: Challenges and Possibilities."
11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Teaching the Middle East through Media in the Classroom
Ahmet Okal, Instructor, Turkish Language, The University of Arizon,a
“Teaching Language and Culture: Living in a web-built apartment building
in Istanbul."
Adrian Gully, Deakin University, Australia, "Islam, Orientalism and the Arabs in Film, Art, and History.”
Samirah Alkassim, Professor of Film, American University of Cairo,
"Using Indigenous Filmmakers and Artists to Introduce the Culture of the
Middle East."
SESSION II: Friday October 16, 2009 2 p.m. – 4:45 p.m.
Teaching the Middle East and Islam through Art and Architecture.
Johanna Movassat, Lecturer Art, San Jose State University, "Teaching
Islamic Art An (Art) Historical Approach.”
Carol Bier, Instructor, Humanities Dept, San Francisco State University,
"Cultural Equity: Humanities in Teaching about Islam.”
A. Sameh El Kharbawy, Asssociate Professor, Fresno State University,
"The Art of Being Middle Eastern in the 'Modern Time'."
SESSION III: Saturday October 17, 2009 9-10:15 a.m.
Teaching the Middle East through Ethnographic Narratives and Literature
el-Sayed el-Aswad, United Arab Emirates University, “Teaching Folklore of the
Arab Gulf Region through Ethnographic Documentaries and Visual Narratives.”
Persis Karim, San Jose State University, “The Middle East through Novels and
Memoirs-- A Case Study in Using Abdul Rahman Munif's Cities of Salt and
Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis to Teach about American Imperial Encounters in
Saudi Arabia and Iran.”
Saturday October 17, 2009 10:30-11:45a.m.
Visions, Issues and Ideas for the Future of Middle East and Islamic Studies and the Humanities: A Roundtable Discussion on Pedagogy and Institutional Obstacles.
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WORKSHOP V. Human Rights in the Middle East and the Muslim World
Location: Russian/Telegraph Hill Room (Seven Hills Conference Center)
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Workshop Director: Dr. Mahmood Monshipouri
There is relatively little prospect of eliminating all obstacles to protecting human rights in the twenty-first century. Applying universal human rights standards to the Middle East and Asia is far from simple. One of the most daunting tasks facing the international human rights community is how a commitment to the full range of human rights is possible given the Middle Eastern and Asian countries’ unequal economic and political circumstances and priorities. The human rights movement must come to grips with the question of how best to improve human rights in the Muslim world given the realities and dynamics of the state system of international relations. Global standards must be enforced while taking into account the complexity and diversity of security considerations as well as socioeconomic and cultural contexts. This workshop blends thematic, historical, and contemporary issues of human rights in the Middle East and Asia. The purpose of this workshop is to produce an edited volume on the subject.
SESSION I: Friday October 16, 2009 9:30 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Framing the Debate
Lawrence Davidson, Professor of History, West Chester University, PA,
“Framing the Human Rights Discourse: The Role of Natural Localism and the
Power of Paradigm.”
Manochehr Dorraj, Professor of Political Science, Texas Chrisian University, “Islam and Human Rights.”
Turan Kayaoglu, Assistant Professor of International Relations,
University of Washington, Tacoma, “Defamation of Religions and Incitement
to Religious Hatred in International Human Rights.”
Ellen McLarney, Andrew W. Mellon Assistant Professor, Duke University,
“Human Rights in Islam: A Genealogy of Two Islamic Thinkers.”
Halim Rane, Deputy Director of Islamic Research Unit, Griffith University, Australia,
“Human Rights through the Lens of Islamic Legal Thought.”
SESSION II: Friday October 16, 2009 2 p.m. – 5 p.m.
Area and Case Study
Anthony Tirado Chase, Associate Prof., Occidental College,
“Sexual Rights, the Muslim World, and Why Pushing the Envelope is Essential
to Human Rights Global Resonance.”
Nader Entessar, Professor of Political Science, Univ. of South Alabama,
“Human Rights and the Kurdish Question in the Middle East.”
Mohiaddin Mesbahi, Professor and Director of Middle East Studies Center,
Florida International University, “Islam, Human Rights and Security Discourse in Eurasia.”
Mahmood Monshipouri and Jon Whooley, SFSU, IR Dept.,
“Minority Rights and Marginalized Communities in the Middle East.”
Barbara Ann Rieffer-Flanagan, Assistant Professor, Central Washington University,
“The Janus Nature of Human Rights in Iran: Limited Progress on Human Rights
Since the Revolution.”
SESSION 3. Saturday October 17, 2009 9:30 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Strategies
Bahey Eldin Hassan, Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies
“Which Strategies to Improve Human Rights in the Arab World?”
Rachid Touhtou, Researcher, INSEA, Rabat, Morocco
“Transitional Justice in Morocco: The Case of Women Narratives of Human
Rights Violations.”
WORKSHOP VI. State-Society Relations in North Africa, the Middle East, and Muslim Asia
Location: Mount Davidson/Twin Peaks Room (Seven Hills Conference Center)
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Workshop Director: Dr. Nicole Watts
Workshop Co-Director: Dr. Lauren Basson
Like no other state in history, the modern state seeks to transform society into an image of its own making and to harness its citizens’ productive power for its own benefit. States in North Africa, the Middle East, and Central and South Asia have, like those all over the world, attempted this feat, with varying degrees of success and failure. This workshop examines state efforts to dominate society in these areas and the myriad ways that social groups have resisted, assisted, and otherwise modified state rule. A main point of the workshop is to move away from persistent popular and academic images of the state as a monolithic institution ruling over a pliant and largely helpless society, and towards more sophisticated understandings of the ways that states (and parts of states) and societies (and parts of them) affect each other around the Middle East, North Africa, and Asia.
In particular, the workshop will seek to "disaggregate" the state and explore how different parts and levels of the state may work in opposition to one another (as well as in a coordinated fashion), and how different social groups interact both in conflict and cooperation with state institutions to affect policy outcomes in predictable and unpredictable ways. Examples might be activists’ use of the courts to challenge regimes (even in authoritarian contexts), how different administrative levels of a bureaucracy might work in different ways (thus producing unexpected policy outcomes), how alliances between social movement actors and parts of states might re-shape local norms or change political dynamics, etc .
Working Group I. Teaching State-Society Relations in the MENA and South Asia
Lauren Basson (co-director), Department of Humanities and Sciences,
Cornish College of the Arts, Seattle, WA (comparative citizenship and national identity, ethnicity and race, Israel-Palestine, U.S.)
Houri Berberian, Dept of History, California State University Long Beach
(Iran, Armenians in the Middle East, gender)
Ali İğmen, Dept of History, California State University Long Beach
(history, Central Asia, early Republican Turkey, nationalism)
Working Group II. NGOs, Associations, and the State
Elif Babül, Dept of Anthropology, Stanford University (human rights,
state-society relations, Turkey)
Khashayar Beigi, Dept of Anthropology, UC Berkeley (culture and technology in Iran)
Manar Hassan (workshop assistant) Dept of Political Science, SFSU
(electoral politics, state-NGO relations, contemporary Egyptian politics)
Damla Işık, Dept. of Anthropology, Western Connecticut State University
(civil society, state-society relations, Turkey)
Sadia Saeed, Department of Sociology, University of Michigan
(human rights, international development, religion and culture, contemporary Pakistan, sociology of nationalism)
Working Group III. Minority-State Relations in Less-than-Fully Democratic Contexts
Nicole Watts (director), Department of Political Science, San Francisco State Univ.
Nosheen Ali, Islamic Studies Program, Stanford University (development sociology, minority-state relations, politics and ecology, North Pakistan)
Saad Abi-Hamad, Dept of History, Texas Tech University
(colonialism and the colonial state, Islamic activism, nationalism, Egypt)
Leila Harris, Dept. of Geography and Gaylord Nelson Institute for
Environmental Studies, Univ. of Wisconsin (politics of water, gender, Turkey)
Odile Moreau, Montpelier Univ. (Ottoman military, North Africa)
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