Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, July/August 1998, Pages 83-84

Education

Educational Resources

By Betsy Barlow

The Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University has published the second unit, entitled “Family Matters,” in its series “Are You Listening? Voices From the Middle East.” Designed for use at the secondary level, this series provides literature in translation from short stories or excerpts of memoirs or novels written by indigenous authors in Turkey, Israel, Iran and the Arab world on a specific theme.

A teaching guide presents curriculum units for each story, including student activities, extensive background notes, a glossary of Middle Eastern words and phrases, and a comprehensive bibliography related to the themes and issues in the stories. The price of Unit II is $12.

Unit I, “Growing Pains,” which was published last year, is now available at the reduced price of $15. Both units may be purchased together for $25. Prices include postage and handling. Checks should be payable to the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Teaching Resource Center, 1737 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA 02138; phone (617) 495-4078.

Outreach Council Newsletter

The Middle East Outreach Council newsletter, published three times a year, included in its latest issue a teaching unit on the hajj and the Islamic Calendar. A listing of readings and videos about the hajj was included, as well as information about Islamic holidays and the Islamic calendar. The feature article on Web sightings included a special listing of good sites related to the hajj and other aspects of Islam.

The newsletter is sent free to members of the Middle East Outreach Council. Membership costs $10 a year. To join, contact the membership secretary, Mary Martin, Middle East Center, 839 Williams Hall, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305; phone (215) 898-6335.

New and Old Arab Films

The Arab Film Distribution has a new address in Seattle. It is now located at 2417 10th Avenue East, Seattle, WA 98102; phone: (206) 322-0882; fax: (206) 322-4586; e-mail: info@arabfilm.com

In addition to a new address, the company also has new videos in its collection. The latest addition is “The Children of Shatila,” directed by Mai Masri and produced by Jean Chamoun, which premiered at the ADC conference in Washington, DC in June. The film looks at the lives of children—mainly orphans—who survived the massacre in 1982. It approaches the topic from a psychological point of view: how do these children live without the close ties of a family? What opportunities do they have in life? What kind of therapy can help them? What are their hopes for survival and hopes for the future in a world where the conflict and the degradation continue? The cost of purchase for individual home use is $39.99. Sales to educational institutions, like universities, with rights for educational showings, is $250.

Many of the videos in the Arab Film Distributor collection are suitable for high school or college viewing, and will enhance understanding of the Middle East. For example, the holdings included “Nasser 56,” directed by Mohamed Fadel (1996, 142 minutes), and two films by Moustapha Akkad which had been difficult to find—“Lion of the Desert” (1981) and “The Message: The Story of Islam” (1977), all popular with college audiences.

Two Egyptian shorts, “Mud Horse” and “Sad Song of Touha,” are also on the list. The company also co-distributes with Landmark Films “Al-Nakbeh,” an important new film about the Palestinian events of 1948, and with Capitol Films the Tunisian film concerned with gender issues “The Silences of the Palace” by Moufida Tlatli.

Film aficionados will enjoy the company’s Web site, at www.arabfilm.com The organization plans the fourth annual film festival to be held in October 1998 in Seattle. Information about this program should be available from the Web site or by phone by early August.

San Francisco Film Festival

An Arab Film Festival took place in the San Francisco area June 5 to 7 and June 12 to 14, sponsored by the Arab Women’s Solidarity Association. Three theaters in San Jose, San Franciso, and at the University of California-Berkeley Art Museum hosted the 11 different films presented.

Several new or unusual films were shown. “Genocide by Sanctions,” a film about contemporary Iraq prominently featuring former U.S. Attorney General Ramsay Clark, was exhibited in both San Franciso and Berkeley. It is available to audiences in other cities free of charge. Contact the producers at pvnnye@peoplesvideo.org.

“Bye-Bye,” a story of emigration from North Africa to France and the struggle for integration, is available from Mark Smolowitz at Turbulent Arts, phone (415) 552-1952. “Honey and Ashes,” directed by Nadia Fares (Tunisia, 1996), the story of three Arab women caught between tradition and the desire to control their own lives, is available from Seventh Art Releasing, phone (213) 845-1455, fax (213) 845-4717. “The Dupes,” the film version of Ghassan Kanafani’s Men in the Sun, is available from Arab Film Distribution (address above).

This festival was arranged because people in the San Francisco area who know the Middle East got tired of seeing nothing but its Hollywood image. They wanted to experience a more realistic approach, which would permit the American audience to see the humanity of the Arabs, and watch real people confronted with real issues.

They also wanted to promote Arab filmmaking. They searched for Arab films that were, or could be, available in the U.S. and found theaters to host their events. This approach could be followed in other communities where there is a desire to transcend the Hollywood image. Fortunately, more Arab films of merit are becoming available in the American market.

Books From Small Presses

Fons Vitae, a newly created publishing and distribution company, is offering works published by small presses such as the Islamic Texts Society, Quinta Essentia (Cambridge, England), Quilliam Press (Oxford, England), Dar Nun (Riyadh), the Foundation for Traditional Studies (Oakton, VA), Archetype (Cambridge, England), and Aperture (New York).

New and forthcoming titles include: Motherhood in Islam and Mary, the Blessed Virgin of Islam by Aliah Schleifer; Early Sufi Women, translated by Rkia Cornell; Doors of the Kingdom, Dar Nun Press; Mecca the Blessed, Medina the Radiant: The Holiest Cities of Islam, The Life of the Prophet Muhammad by Leila Azzam and Aisha Gouverneur, and a video, “Islam: A Pictorial Essay in Four Parts.” For further information contact Fons Vitae, 49 Mockingbird Valley Drive, Louisville, KY 40207-1366, phone (502) 987-3641.

Workshops, Programs and Conferences

The National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations sent a group of educators to study in Syria from June 8 through June 21 on its Joseph Malone Program for training educators (named for Joseph J. Malone, a former professor at the American University of Beirut and at the School for Advanced International Studies in Washington, DC, who set up the first programs for exchanges of educators). In Syria the educators were scheduled to visit Quneitra, Palmyra, Homs and Hama, and to meet with university professors, visit archeological digs, meet with Syria government and U.S. Embassy officials, and tour sites of historic or cultural importance.

A tour to Yemen will depart July 7 for two weeks, where participants will visit the Traditional Museum and National Museum, meet with the president of Sana’a University, tour the Old City, receive a guided tour of the Rock Place, make visits to Hejjara, Manakha, Tereem, Say’un and Shibam, attend a briefing at the American Embassy in Sana’a, and briefings with the Yemeni deputy minister of foreign affairs, the minister of industry and the minister of information. There are still a few places in the Yemen trip, which costs $2,400, for those who act quickly. The groups are deliberately kept small (10-15 people) and include educators with different backgrounds and from different disciplines, so that the atmosphere is stimulating.

The summer trips usually are composed of educators with some knowledge of the Middle East. The academic year trips are designed for those with little or no experience in the Arab world. Kirsten Bornman, the Malone Program coordinator, tells us that educators who participate expand and enliven their course offerings as a result. Results also have included collaboration on distance learning programs, special training programs for Saudi businesswomen, collaboration on art exhibits, and educational “sister” pairings.

Student trips (mostly for undergraduates) are offered in the summer to Morocco and Syria, and to Kuwait in the winter. The National Council also offers a series of Model Arab League programs for both university and high school level students during the academic year. During the summer, students may apply for an internship program for working in Middle East-related organizations in Washington, DC. The National Council organizes lectures to supplement their work and to ensure that students are familiar with the important issues related to the Middle East.

For further information, contact the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, 1140 Connecticut Ave. NW, Suite 1210, Washington, DC 20036; phone (202) 293-0801, fax (202) 293-0903. If interested in the July Yemen program, please contact Kirsten Bornman, program coordinator, promptly.

The Middle East Center at the University of Utah co-sponsored earlier this month a workshop on “Egypt: Myth and Reality” exploring history, geography, religion, politics, literature, and music. Teachers were provided with materials including lesson plans and resource information. The co-sponsor of the program was the Utah State Office of Education, which provided credit hours to the teachers. For further information about the educational programs available at Utah, contact: Linda Adams, University of Utah Middle East Center, 260 S. Campus Drive, room 153, Salt Lake City, Utah 84112-9157; phone (801) 581-5003.

The School for International Training (SIT) in Brattleboro, Vermont offered in June a course in Intercultural Conflict Transformation and Peacebuilding. Instructors for the courses were Dr. Paula Green, Director of the Karuna Center for Peacebuilding and an adjunct faculty member at SIT, and Mr. Baht Latumbo, a citizen of the Philippines who has led training sessions in nonviolence and conflict resolution in the USA, Europe and throughout Asia.

For further information about the ICTP Course or the educational offerings at SIT, contact the Center for Social Policy and Institutional Development, School for International Training, Kipling Road, P.O. Box 676, Brattleboro, VT 05302-0676; phone (802) 258-3339; fax (802) 258-3348; e-mail cspid@sit.edu.

The G. E. von GrÙnebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies at the University of California-Berkeley has announced that an international committee has selected Josef Von Ess and Andr³ Raymond to receive the Sixteenth Giorgio Levi Della Vido Award in Islamic Studies. The prize is given to scholars whose work has significantly and lastingly advanced the study of Islamic civilization. Raymond, the founder of the Institut de Recherches et d’Ätudes sur le Monde Méditerranéen et Musulman (REMAM) and Von Ess, the chair of Islamic studies at Tübingen University, will receive the award at a conference at UCLA April 8-9, 1999 to be organized in their honor. Further information about the conference will be forthcoming in a few months from the Center for Near Eastern Studies at UCLA, 405 Hilgard Street, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1480; phone (310) 825-1181; fax (310) 206-2406.

The Center also publishes the proceedings of these biennial conferences. Contact them for information about the availability of the 1996 conference proceedings honoring Oleg Grabar and entitled The Experience of Islamic Art.

A conference on “Medieval Philosophy and the Classical Tradition: Islam, Judaism, and Christianity” will begin April 11 in Dayton, Ohio. The organizer, John Inglis, Department of Philosophy, University of Dayton, has issued a call for papers, which should be received no later than Monday, Jan. 11, 1999. Topics suggested are naming, creation, emanation, the soul, virtue, Neoplatonism, Aristotelianism, and criticism of the classical tradition, but this is not an exclusive list. The focus could be on the views of an individual or on a comparison across or within traditions. Presentation time is 20 minutes, but the organizers intend to publish select papers from the conference.

The keynote speakers are David Burrell, Notre Dame, Daniel H. Frank, Kentucky, and Michael Marmura, the University of Toronto. For further information, contact John Inglis, Department of Philosophy, University of Dayton, 300 College Park, Dayton, OH 45469-1546; phone (937) 229-2933; fax (937) 229-4400; or e-mail: inglis@checkov.hm.udayton.edu.