Arabic

In this lecture, Dr. Sa’ed Atshan will provide an overview of the hostilities between the Israeli military and Hamas, reflecting on the past, present, and future of this crisis. The talk will also address the impact on Palestinian and Israeli civilians, the provision of international humanitarian aid, the role of the United States, and prospects for reconciliation.

Storytelling and Folktale Traditions from the Arab World

Film Screening of the documentary Spaces of Exception (2018, 90 minutes), followed by Q&A with filmmakers Matt Peterson and Malek Rasamny, moderated by Professor James Sanchez.

A reading of some of Mahmoud Darwish’s poems in Arabic and their English translations, followed by an open discussion.

Come join the Arabic and Hebrew departments for a screening of the short comedy musical film: West Bank Story followed by an open discussion. The film discusses the effects of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict on the daily lives of Israelis and Palestinians using the most important medium: falafel.

In his lecture “Understanding Arab Comics: A View from Cairo” Jonathan Guyer will discuss the power of political cartoons in the current Arab world. Jonathan Guyer is a fellow of the Institute of Current World Affairs and contributing editor of the Cairo Review of Global Affairs. From 2012 to 2013, he was a Fulbright fellow researching political cartoons in Egypt. He previously served as a program associate for the New America Foundation in Washington, DC, and as assistant editor of Foreign Policy’s Middle East Channel.

Arabic language students are presenting on various Arabic cities and people in the Arab world with different ethnic backgrounds and history. Geography, culture and politics will be discussed in this 2 hour event.

Dr. Miral Mahgoub, an Egyptian novelist and Associate Professor of Modern Arabic Literature and Middle East/Islamic Studies at the School of International Letters and Cultures at Arizona State University, will speak about her novel, The Tent (1996), a dream-like portrayal of rural Bedouin life in Egypt. Dr. Mahgoub was awarded the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature in 2010 for her novel Brooklyn Heights and was recently profiled by the New York Times: “Making the Life of a Modern Nomad into Literature” (1/4/2012).

“Carol Fadda is an Associate Professor of English at Syracuse University. Her work on US ethnic literatures focuses on Arab-American literary studies, delineating the complexity of Arab-American communal and individual identities, particularly in light of 9/11 and its aftermath. She has published widely on gender, race, ethnicity, war, trauma, and transnational citizenship in Arab and Arab-American literary texts. Her latest book is entitled Contemporary Arab-American Literature: Transnational Reconfigurations of Citizenship and Belonging.”