Wednesday, 6 January

11:00 – 17:00

Registration, Le Meridien Commodore Hotel
 

17:00 – 17:45*

Opening Ceremony, Le Meridiene Commodore Hotel

Dr. Robert Myers, Director of CASAR., Opening comments

 AmyClary.pdf

Dr. Patrick McGreevy, Dean of FAS, Comments

Dr. Ahmad Dallal, Provost of AUB, Welcome

Dr. Robert Myers, Brief logistical comments

17:45-20:00*

Opening address by Scott Lucas: Blasts, Drones, and Tweets: Obama and the Perils of Liberal Intervention  + Q & A period

20:00 – 21:30*

Cocktail reception (featuring Lebanese hot and cold mezza), Le Meridien Commodore hotel.

Thursday, 7 January

All paper sessions will take place on the AUB Campus in West Hall.

8:30-17:00

Late registration will be available at West Hall, Ground Floor.

 

8:30-10:30

Auditorium A

Session 1: Eastern Westerns and Western Writers in the East
 

Chair: John Pedro Schwartz, American University of Beirut, Lebanon

Amy Clary, American University of Beirut, Lebanon: “Looking for Meaning in the Desert: Mark Twain, Edward Abbey, and the Desert Tourism in the Middle East and American West"

Boris Vejdovsky, University of Lausanne, Switzerland: "Your Myths Shall Be My Myths: Middle Eastern and American Narratives of Contact and Rupture and the Traveling Metaphor"

Selma Mokrani, Badji-Mokhtar University, Algeria: “Edith Wharton’s Maghreb: Identity Politics and Dis/Conjunctive Encounters”

Susan Kollin, Montana State University, USA: "The Orientalist Western"

8:30 – 10:30
AuditoriumB                                               

Session 2: Globalizing Economics, Law, and Terrorism in the Middle East and Beyond

Chair: Andrew Winnick, California State University, USA

Amy Bartholomew, Carleton University, USA: “Continuity and Rupture from Bush to Obama: Empire’s Law and the Politics of American Empire Today"

James L. Gelvin, University of California, Los Angeles, USA: “The United States, the Global Economy, and the Rise and Fall of the Populist State in the Middle East”

Maria Ryan, University of Nottingham, UK: “The Middle East in America’s ‘Global War on Terror’”

Waleed Hazbun, John Hopkins University, USA: "Fragments of a Retrospective History: America in the Middle East"

8:30 – 10:30

Auditorium C

Session 3: Studying American Studies in the Middle East/ North Africa 

Chair: Andrew Long, University of Balamand, Lebanon

Khadija El Alaoui, Vassar College, NY, USA: “American Studies in the Middle East: Scenes of Obscenity or Scenes of Multiplicity?"

Osama Abdel El-Fattah Madany, Minufiya University, Egypt: “Engaging American Studies at Minufiya University: Strides and Setbacks”

Miloud Barkaoui, University of Annaba, Algeria: “American Studies in Algeria, the Obama Effect and the Recovery of America’s Image"

Mohammed Dajani Daoudi, Munther Dajani and Zeina Barakat, Al Quds University, Palestine: “Exploring at the Fringes: The Bibliography as Database for Teaching American Studies in Arab Universities”

10:30 – 11:00

Coffee Break, West Hall, 2nd floor

11:00 – 12:30

Auditorium A

Session 4: Intellectuals Understanding and Constructing Knowledge About East and West

Chair: Bashshar Haydar, American University of Beirut, Lebanon

Amy Mills, University of South Carolina, USA: “Constructing American Academic Knowledge of the Middle East”

Majeda Omar, The University of Jordan, Jordan: “On the Philosophical Foundations of Inter-Cultural Dialogue”

Michaelle Browers, Wake Forest University, USA: “The Paradox of the Amman Message: Transnationalism, Authenticity, and American power”

Muhammad Ali Khalidi, York University, Canada: “Which Truth? Whose Power? Chomsky and Said on the Role of the Intellectual in the US”

11:00 -12:30

Auditorium B

Session 5: Seeing the West from the East and the East from the West: “The Other Side” in Contemporary Media

Chair: George Abdelnour, Notre Dame University, Lebanon

Jad Melki, American University of Beirut, Lebanon: “Arabic and US Television News Coverage of the 2006 Lebanese War"

Marzieh Al-Sadat Motahhari Bidgoli, University of Tehran, Iran: "Covering Iran’s 2009 Presidential Election: The New York Times, The Washington Post, and CNN"

Zafer Parlak, Izmir University, Turkey: “An Overview of Recent Turkish-American Relations in Turkish Popular Media”

11:00- 12:30

Auditorium C

Session 6: Reading and Teaching Middle Eastern Women Writers East and West

Chair: Amy Zenger, American University of Beirut, Lebanon

Eileen T. Lundy, University of Texas, USA: "Cacophony, Harmony, Unison: Middle Eastern Women’s Voices Heard in the West"

Ikram Ahmed ElSherif, Gulf University for Science and Technology, Kuwait: “Alternating Defensive Postures: Feminist and Racial Battles in the Work of Arab-American Women"

Mary Louise Tabakow, Sultan Qaboos University, Sultanate of Oman: “Teaching Against What’s Expected: Arab-American Women’s Poetry in the Middle East"

Nadia El Kholy, Cairo University, Egypt: “Telling the Tale: Teaching Egyptian/ Arabic Literature at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond 2008 and 2009”

12:30 – 14:00

Lunch Break – See program booklet for restaurant suggestions

14:00 – 15:30

Auditorium A

Session 7: Cultural Encounters of Unexpected Kinds: Little Known Episodes of the US and the Middle East

Chair: John Meloy, American University of Beirut, Lebanon

Edward E. Curtis, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, USA: “Contact and Divergence: How Muslim-American Ties to the Middle East Have Transformed Islamic Practice and Identities in the United States" 

Sarah Marusek, Syracuse University, USA: "Muslim and Interfaith Charities in Central New York: Multiculutralism and the Politics of Difference"

Sean Foley, Middle Tennessee State University, USA: "Airlift for Allah: The United States and the 1952 Hajj"

Stephanie Anne Boyle, Northeastern University, USA: “Women of Faith: Sufi Mystics and American Female Missionary Doctors in the Egyptian Nile Delta 1896-1913”

14:00 – 15:30

Auditorium B

Session 8: Arab and American: Myths of the U.S. in the Eyes of Diaspora Writers 

Chair: Sirene Harb, American University of Beirut, Lebanon

Keith Feldman, University of California, Berkeley, USA: "Contrapuntalism and Rupture: Suheir Hammad’s ‘Breaking Poems’ and the Poetics of an Afro-Arab Diaspora"

Mona Ibrahim Ali, Cairo University, Egypt: "American Myths Reconsidered in the Poetry of Some Arab American Poets"

Sally Hammouda, Cairo University, Egypt: “From the ‘Unseen’ to the ‘Scene’: Identity Politics in Selected Plays by Arab-American Women Dramatists”

Zeinab Ghasemi Tari, University of Tehran, Iran: “Muslim Representations in American Literature Post 9/11”

14:00 – 15:30

Auditorium C

Session 9: Terrorisms and Counterinsurgency Strategies

 

Chair: Adam John Waterman, University of Massachusetts, USA

Paul Jahshan, Notre Dame University, Lebanon: "Multiculturalism, Terrorism, and Globalization: The Exchange of Parasitical Violence between America and the Middle East"

Matt Kohlstedt, George Washington University, USA: "Constructing the ‘Oriental’: Office of Strategic Services and Office of War Information Middle East Propaganda"

Sergio Catignani, University of Sussex, UK: "Counter-Terrorism as Strategic Narrative: A Comparative Case Study of the US and Israeli Counterinsurgency Campaigns in the Middle East”

14:00-15:30

Bathish Auditorium

Session 10: Us as Them: Western Projections on the Middle East

Chair: Marcy Newman, Amman Ahliya University, Jordan

Amy Kaplan, University of Pennsylvania, USA: “Exodus/ and the Americanization of the Zionist Narrative”

Robert Myers, American University of Beirut, Lebanon: “Playing Arab: Images of Easterners on Western Stages”

Djelal Kadir, Pennsylvania State University, USA: “Comments”

15:30 – 16:00

Coffee Break, West Hall 2nd floor

16:00 – 18:00

Bathish Auditorium

Session 11: Plenary Session: Views from Abroad: Redefining Globalization Between the U.S. and the Middle East

Chair: Stanley Katz, Princeton University, USA

Alex Lubin, University of New Mexico, USA: "From Imperial Subjects to National Citizens: The Making and Unmaking of Afro-Arab Internationalism Between the World Wars"

Brian Edwards, Northwestern University, USA: “Shrek in the Suq: Rethinking Public Diplomacy ‘From the Native’s Point of View’”

Harilaos Stecopoulos, University of Iowa, USA: “State Multiculturalism: Literary Studies and U.S. Public Diplomacy After 9/11”

 18:15-19:15

Bathish Auditorium  

Session 12: Performance followed by Discussion: "Middle East LA,"  The Human Writes Project: Mark Gonzales, Nizar Wattad and Omar Chakaki 

Friday, 8  January

All paper sessions will take place on the AUB campus in West Hall.

 8:30-17:00

 Late registration will be available at West Hall, Ground floor

8:30 – 10:30

Auditorium A

Session 13: American-Style Education in the Arab World
 

Chair: Andrew Winnick, California State University, USA

Betty Anderson, Boston University, USA: "Breaking Down Stereotypes in the American Classroom: Coeducation at the American University of Beirut (AUB) as a model for understanding the diversity of Middle Eastern Women’s lives”

Ellen Fleischmann, University of Dayton, USA: "Lost in Translation: Home Economics at Sidon Girls’ Schooll"

Hani Elayyan, King’s Academy, Jordan: "East Meets West in the Jordanian Countryside: King’s Academy as a Model"

Jasamine Rostam-Kolayi, California State University, Fullerton, USA: “The American Girls’ School in Tehran and Gender, Class, and Nationalism in Iran”

8:30-10:30

Auditorium B 

Session 14: Lebanon in the West/ The West in Lebanon

Chair: Khadija Al-Alaoui, Vassar College, USA

David Wrisely, American University of Beirut, Lebanon: "Historical Fiction of the Lebanese in Early 20^th century North America: Rabih Jaber’s America"

John Munro, Independent Consultant, Cyprus: “Gibran Naimy and Rihani and the Immigrant Experience”

Stacey Fahrenthold, Northeastern University, USA: "The Syrian and Lebanese American Federation: a Case for Connection, 1935-1948"

Susanne Wiedemann, Saint Louis University, USA: “Connecting National Ruptures: U.S., West German, and East German Cultural Diplomacy in Lebanon, 1955-1970”

8:30 – 10:30

Auditorium C

Session 15: Building States/ Rebuilding Bridges

Chair: Mayssun Sukarieh, American University of Beirut, Lebanon

Belkacem Iratni, University of Algiers, Algeria: "US- Maghreb Relations"

Heshmat Moinifar, University of Tehran, Iran: “Immigration to the US, the acculturation process and cultural identity: The case of an Iranian living in the US”

Jan Asmussen, University of Kiel, Germany: "Reinventing Iraq? – Strengthening traditional Institutions in State-Building"

Nicholas Noe, Lebanese University, Lebanon: "The Rise and Fall of America’s Cedar Revolution: Lost Opportunities for Peace-building in the Middle East"

8:30-10:30

Bathish Auditorium

Session 16: Narratives and (Mis)Understandings Between East and West

Chair: Noel Ignatiev, American University of Beirut, Lebanon

Adam John Waterman, University of Massachusetts, USA: “George Washington in Mascara”  

Cynthia P. Schneider, Georgetown University, USA: "Authentic Narratives: Building Connections between America and the Middle East through Film and Television"

Nadia Oweidat, Oxford University, UK: "Authentic Narratives: Potential for Internal Debates and Better Understanding of the Arab World"

10:30 – 11:00

Coffee Break, West Hall, 2nd floor

11:00 – 13:00

Auditorium A

Session 17: Middle Eastern Mappings: City and Country

Chair: Peter Williams, University of Balamand, Lebanon

Danyel Reiche and Hiba Khodr, American University of Beirut, Lebanon: “Policy Innovations and Diffusion in the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries and the Role of US Institutions-- The Specialized Cities Phenomenon”

Jonathan Hall, University of Balamand, Lebanon: “University and the Post-Colonial City: Beirut, and the City of Law and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon”

Omar Tesdell, University of Minnesota, USA: “Producing the Jordan Valley Through Agro-ecological Change”

Robert Ross, Point Park University, USA: “Stopping Gentrification: The Case of Beirut and its Implications for Cities in America and Beyond”

11:00 – 13:00

Auditorium B

Session 18: Mutual Exclusions: Shared Pain, Different Representations in Post 9/11 Literature

Chair: Syrine Hout, American University of Beirut, Lebanon

Amani Wagih Abd Al-Halim, Cairo University, Egypt: “Post 9/11: The Shared Painful Experience in Sam Shepard’s ‘God of Hell’ and Yussef El-Guindi’s ‘Back of the Throat’”

Fatma Hassan Taher, Misr University for Science and Technology, Egypt: “Rethinking the Imperial Encounter: A Comparative Reading of Updike’s Terrorist and Sonalla Ibrahim’s Americanly”

Nicholas Pagan, Eastern Mediterranean University, Turkey: “The Two Cultures? Reading Garbage”

Tawfiq Yousef, University of Jordan, Jordan: “Different Discourses, Same Goals” 

11:00 – 13:00

Auditorium C

Session 19: Divided Histories and Histories of Division
 

Chair: Noel Ignatiev, American University of Beirut, Lebanon

Jakob Schiller, University of New Mexico, USA: “Labor Across Militarized Borders: A Comparative Analysis of Israel’s ‘Security Wall’ and the U.S./Mexico Border” 

Marcy Newman, Amman Ahliya University, Jordan: “Nakba Education Project”

Mounira Soliman, Cairo University, Egypt: “Palestine- America-Israel: An Ambivalent Relationship”

13:00 – 14:30

Lunch Break- See program booklet for restaurant suggestions

14:30 – 16:30

Auditorium A

Session 20: Islam as Democracy, Dissent and Resistance

Chair: Andrew Long, Balamand Univeristy, Lebanon

Edward Lundy, Austin Community College, USA: “Islamist Movements: One View from the West”

Elham Kadkhodaee and Fatemeh Shafiee, University of Tehran, Iran: “Political Islam in the Middle East: Resistance or Terrorism?”  

Joshua Andresen, American University of Beirut, Lebanon: “Democracy, Deconstruction, and Islam”

Sima Baidya, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India: “Assertion of Islamism and Dissent: Interactions between America and Political Islam”

14:30 – 16:30

Auditorium B

Session 21: U.S / Iran: Apprehensions and Misapprehensions

Chair: Amy Zenger, American University of Beirut, Lebanon

Mohammad Mousavi, University of Tehran, Iran: “Obama and the Cost-Benefit Analysis of The Iran-US relationship: Using the Prisoners’ Dilemma Model”

Seyed Mohammad Marandi, University of Tehran, Iran: “Iranian and American History Textbooks and Representations of Iranian-American Relations”

Steve Hewitt, University of Birmingham, U.K.: “The Canadian Caper Revisited: Canada, The U.S. and Iran in 1979-1980”

Zohreh Nosrat Kharazmi, University of Tehran, Iran: “Liberal Democracy of America and Islamic Republic of Iran; Discourses to Co-Exist/Conflict”

14:30 – 16:30

Auditorium C

Session 22: Media, Technology and Diplomacy: East and West

Chair:George Abdelnour, Notre Dame University, Lebanon

Lina Khatib, Stanford University, US: “American Internet Diplomacy and the Middle East: Public Diplomacy in the Digital Age”

Marwan Kraidy, University of Pennsylvania, USA: “The Contentious Politics of Music Videos: The U.S. and Arab Culture Wars in Comparative Perspective”

Maryam Sadat Mirhosseini Nayyeri, University of Tehran, Iran: “American-Iranian Third Culture lifestyle and music”

14:30 – 16:30

Bathish Auditorium

Session 23: Changing Places: The U.S., Iraq, and the Middle East

Chair: David Wrisley, American University of Beirut, Lebanon

Abdulkader Sinno, Indiana University, USA: “The Muslim Within: Explaining Puzzles of Muslim-American Representation in Elected Office"

Jane Desmond, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA: “From ‘Inhuman’ to ‘Humane’: Soft Power at the Zoo and the U.S. Army CERP Program in Iraq"

Moustafa Bayoumi, Brooklyn College CUNY, USA: “Powell and Khan: Two Stories about the United States, Iraq and the 2008 Election”

16:30 – 17:00

Coffee Break, West Hall, 2nd floor

17:00 – 19:00

Bathish Auditorium

Closing Address, Introduction: Robert Myers

Ussama Makdisi, Rice University, USA.: Closing Address, “After Orientalism: Rethinking the Study of U.S.-Middle East Relations”
Melani McAlister, George Washington University, USA: Comments with Q & A period

20:00 – onward*

Closing Reception and Dinner at Le Meridien Commodore Hotel.*

Saturday, 9 January

9:00 -19:00*

Meeting place:

Optional all day trip to Jbeil, Byblos, Jeita Grotto, Jounieh and Nahr El Kalb.  The $65 USD fee includes transportation, lunch, guides and entrance to all sites.
Le Meridien Commodore Hotel