Alexander Lubin, Director (al11@aub.edu.lb)

Alex Lubin received his doctorate in American Studies from the University of Minnesota (2000).  He is a cultural historian with interests in U.S. racial formations, transnational American Studies, and U.S./Middle East cultural relations.  Lubin is the author of Romance and Rights: The Politics of Interracial Intimacy, 1945-1954 (2005), the editor of Revising the Blueprint: Ann Petry and the Literary Left, (2007), and the co-editor (with Dr. Alyosha Goldstein) of a special edition of the South AtlanticQuarterly on settler colonialism.  He is currently at work on a monograph entitled, Geographies of Liberation: The Making of an Afro-Arab Political Imaginary (University of North Carolina).  This work excavates a centuries-long history of political and cultural exchange between African Americans and the Arab world.  He is also the co-editor (with Dr. Marwan Kraidy) of the forthcoming volume, Shifting Borders: American Studies Between the American Century and the Arab Spring (under review).

phone: +961 1 350000 ext. 4197
Fax: +961 1 744461
Building 37(behind The Old Lee Observatory), Ground floor, room 304  

Nancy Batakji Sanyoura, Assistant to Director (nb22@aub.edu.lb)

Nancy Batakji Sanyoura received her MA in Public Administration from the American University of Beirut in June 2009. Eight years ago, she began working as the first administrative assistant at CASAR – AUB. Currently, she is the Assistant-to-director of CASAR. Prior to that, Nancy worked at The Arab Thought Foundation as a Public Relations Assistant and helped in organizing the Foundation’s First and Second Annual conferences. Nancy was associate editor of the proceedings volumes of CASAR’s three previous conferences. She has participated in media outreach workshops for civil society practitioners.

phone: +961 1 350000 ext. 4195
Fax: +961 1 744461
Building 37, (behind The Old Lee Observatory), Ground floor, room 301

Executive Committee

Dr. Adam John Waterman                  English Department (aw06@aub.edu.lb) 
Dr. Alexander Barder                            Political Studies and Public Administration
                                                                  Department (ab67@aub.edu.lb)
Dr. Sirene Harb                                     English Department (sh03@aub.edu.lb) 
Dr. Waleed Hazbun                              Political Studies and Public Administration
                                                                  Department (wh20@aub.edu.lb)

Second International Advisory Board (IAB)

Dr. Amy Kaplan                                    The University of Pennsylvania
Dr. Marwan Kraidy                               University of Pennsylvania
Dr. Melani McAlister                            George Washington University
Dr. Mounira Soliman                           The American University in Cairo
Dr. Moustafa Bayoumi                        CUNY, Brooklyn College
Dr. Ruth Wilson Gilmore                     CUNY

Current Visiting Professors

Jasbir Puar: Edward Said Chair of American Studies (Fall & Spring 2012-2013) (jp02@aub.edu.lb)

Jasbir K. Puar is Associate Professor of Women's & Gender Studies at Rutgers University.  She is the author of Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times (Duke University Press 2007) winner of the Cultural Studies Book Award from the Association for Asian American Studies. Her articles appear in Gender, Place, and Culture, Social Text, Radical History Review, Antipode: A Radical Journal of Geography, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, and Feminist Legal Studies. Her edited volumes include a special issue of GLQ titled, "Queer Tourism: Geographies of Globalization" and co-edited volumes of Society and Space ("Sexuality and Space"), Social Text ("Interspecies"), and Women's Studies Quarterly ("Viral"). 
Her writings also appear in the Guardian, the Huffington Post, Jadaliyya, The Feminist Wire, Oh! Industry, and Bullybloggers.

Lisa Hajjar: Visiting Assistant Professor (Fall & Spring 2012-2013) (lh48@aub.edu.lb)

Lisa Hajjar is a Visiting Assistant Professor from the University of California - Santa Barbara. She is offering Sociology of Human Rights, in which students will discuss the social and political pressures that led to the creation of human rights, global human rights activism, and the relationships between rights and war and law. She is also teaching Law, Politics, & The U.S. "War on Terror", which will focus on the legal and political implications of policies instituted by the Bush and Obama administrations, specifically in regards to torture, targeted killing, military occupation, and litigation that challenges the government's treatment of prisoners.

Elena Glasberg: Visiting Lecturer (Fall & Spring 2012-2013) (eg08@aub.edu.lb)

Elena Glasberg, a visiting lecturer from the Writing Program at NYU, is teaching CASAR's Introduction to American Studies this year. In this course students will read Melville's Moby Dick and Eggers' Zeitoun side-by-side to discover what people, places, themes, and ideas, emerge, and will explore the clichés and contradictions associated with "America". Dr. Glasberg is also offering Cultural Geography of North America, a course that explores how maps can document, guide, connect, and anchor, while also disorienting, dividing, and displacing. Students will learn about spatial theories and the history of mapping, and will research shifting borders and controversies in the world of geography.

 Previous Faculty/Staff Members