Center for Middle Eastern Studies

NEWSLETT.ER

SLIDE PACKET NEWS

The Center has ready fordistribu tion a series of multi­purpose educational materials con­cerning the Middle East. Thematerials are primarily designedfor use in secondary schools, but­have also been utilized in collegecourses. The units cover MiddleEastern villages, cities, costumes,festivals and celebrations, food,and the family.. They wereprepared under a grant from theU.S. Department of Education. Aunit on Turkey was completed withthe aid of the Institute of TurkishStudies. The general objective ofall the units is to give students anopportunity to take a closer look atthe variety of peoples and lifestylesrepresented in the Middle East andto encourage understanding.

The University of Texas at Austin

Each educational unit includesslides, slide commentary,background reading, questions fordiscussion, a glossary, andworksheets. The format of theseunits was designed to allow a largedegree of flexibility in presentation,depending on the level, size andlength of the class. No recordedcassette of the commentary accom­panies the slides; therefore,teachers and students may proceedat a pace that seems most comfort­able, taking time for questions andanswers. Pertinent articles, suchas "14th Century Fez" and "Veilingin Egypt," help provide a contextfor each of the subjects. For infor­mation on pricing and ordering,con tact Anne Johnson, Ou treachAssistant at the Center.

Spring 1985

ELIZABETH FERNEAPRESIDENT OF MESA

Honoring her for her innovativework on the changing roles ofwomen and the family in the Mid­dle East, the members of the Mid­dle Eastern Studies Association(MESA) elected Elizabeth FemeaPresident for the coming year.MESA, an international associa­tion of scholars, focuses on thestudy of the Middle East since therise of Islam, principally from theviewpoint of the humanities andthe social sciences. The organiza­tion has approximately 1500members.

Ms. Fernea has taught at TheUniversity of Texas for ten years,offering a series of courses oncultural and social change in theMiddle East. She has also acted asUndergraduate Advisor and hasbeen responsible for developingand coordinating the Center'sgrowing program of outreach toschools and the local community.She is the editor of Women and the

Family in the Middle East: New Voicesof Change; co-author with RobertFernea of 'The Arab World, PersonalEncounters; and co-editor andtranslator of Middle Eastern MuslimWomen Speak. She has authoredthree works based on her ex­periences in the Middle East. Theyare Guests of the Sheik, A View of theNile, and A Street in Marrakech. Ms.Fernea has also produced threefilms on the general issue of womenand social change in the MiddleEast: The Price of Change, A Veiled

Revolution, and Women Under Siege.

Women Under Siege, a close look atthe life of women in a Palestinianrefugee camp in 1981, was afinalist at the American FilmFestival in New York during thespring of 1984-.

CMES ACTINGDIRECTOR

Ian R. Manners, Associate Pro­fessor of Geography, has served asActing Director of the Center dur­ing the Spring, 1985, while Pro­fessor M.A. Jazayery has been onleave of absence. Professor Man­ners was named Associate Directorof the Center in the fall.

Professor Manners received hisdegrees from Oxford Universityand taught for four years at Co­lumbia University before acceptinga position at UT in 1972. In 1981,he was a Visiting Research Fellowat the University of Waikato whileworking for the New ZealandCommission on the Environment.He has conducted field research onproblems of water management inJordan, Kuwait, and SaudiArabia.

Professor Manners' particularinterests are ecological and socio-

economiC aspects of resourcemanagement, with particularreference to the Middle East. Heis currently conducting research onenvironmental impact assessmentand mitigation issues associatedwith energy development. Hismost recent book, North Sea Oil andEnvironmental Planning: The UnitedKingdom Experience, was publishedby UT Press in 1982.

AWARDS FOR ROGERLOUIS

Professor Roger Louis, facultymember of the History Depart­ment and the Centers for Asianand Middle Eastern Studies, haswon two awards for his recentlypublished book, The British Empirein the Middle East 1945-1951: Arab

Nationalism, the United States, andPostwar Imperialism. The book wonthe American Historical Associa­tion's George Louis Beer Prize forbest book in international historyand was the recipient of the TexasInstitute of Letters Award for themost significant contribution toknowledge. In February, ProfessorLouis was appointed to theMildred Caldwell and BainePerkins Kerr Centennial Professor­ship in English History and

Culture in the College of LiberalArts at UT.

Professor Louis, a UT facultymember since 1970, is interna­tionally recognized as one of theleading historians of the BritishEmpire. In addition to his jointfaculty appointments, he serves asthe curator of historical collectionsin the Harry Ransom HumanitiesResearch Center. Last Fall, hewas elected a Fellow of the RoyalHistorical Society, the distin­guished British academy ofhistorians. In England this spring,Professor Louis is serving asOverseas Fellow of Churchill Col­lege at Cambridge. This summerhe will conduct a National Endow­ment for the Humanities summerseminar at UT for college teacherson uThe End of the BritishEmpire."

UPCOMINGPROGRAMS

Summer Institute

The Center will offer again thissummer a four-week workshop forsecondary school teachers. The In­stitute, "Using Computers in Social

Studies, with Special Emphasis onthe Study of the Middle East," willbe held June 10 through July 4.Participants who successfully com­plete the program will earn sixhours of graduate credit, threehours in the College of Educationand three hours in MiddJe EasternStudies, the College of LiberalArts. Registration is limited to 20teachers.

Faculty will include George Kulp,Research Scientist at the UT Com­putation Center; Elizabeth. Fernea,Lecturer and Outreach Coor­dinator at the Center for MiddleEastern Studies; Gary McKenzie,Associate Professor at the College

of Education; and Barbara Roberts,Social Studies teacher at LBJ HighSchool in Austin.

The Austin Independent SchoolDistrict will provide space andcomputer time. Stipends forteachers may be arranged. Theprogram is funded in part with sup­port from the U.S. Department ofEducation. Applications andUniversity registration will be pro­cessed through the Center for Mid­dle Eastern Studies. Further infor­mation on the Institute may be ob­tained from Anne Johnson,Outreach Assistant.

Conference on IranianNationalism during the

M usaddiq Period

A conference on "Iranian Na­tionalism and the International OilCrisis 1951-1954" will be held atThe University of Texas onSeptember 26-27, 1985. ProfessorsRoger Louis (History) and Janus A.Bill (Government) are organizingthe program. Plans call for threemajor substantive sessions entitled"Nationalism and Nationalists inIran," "Britain, the United States,and the Crisis of 1954," and "TheInternational Oil Crisis." Tendistinguished scholars fromEngland and America will presentmajor research papers, which willeventually be' published m acoherent volume.

The conference will be one of theevents marking the 25th anniver­sary of the Center for MiddleEastern Studies. Other co-sponsorsof the conference are the Depart­ments of History and Government,the College of Liberal Arts, and theGraduate School.

Texas Association of Middle EastScholars Meeting

Professor M.A. Jazayery, Presi­dent of the Texas Association ofMiddle Eastern Scholars, has an­nounced that the Association's 1985meeting will be on Friday, October25, and Saturday, October 26.This fifth annual meeting will takeplace on the UT campus and willbe organized by the Center underthe direction of Program ChairmanHenry Speck.

The format of the meeting willconsist of four panels, one each onthe Arab World, Iran, Israel, andTurkey. Titles and abstracts ofproposed papers should be sent toProfessor Henry Speck, III, ACUStation, Box 8247, Abilene, TX79601.

TURKISH STUDIESPROGRAM DEVELOPED

The Center is working withother departments to develop acomprehensive program of TurkishStudies at The University of Texas.Beginning in 1983, the Depart­ment of Oriental and AfricanLanguages and Literatures.(DOALL) offered Turkishlanguage courses for the first timesince 1973. At the present timeDOALL offers courses in bothelementary and intermediateTurkish. These courses have beentaught by Assistant InstructorAyshegul Musallam under the super­vision of Professor John Bordie(FLEC).

Last fall, Dean Robert Kingauthorized DOALL, in coopera­tion with the Center, to recruit a

full-time faculty member lil

Turkish. Filling this position forSeptember, 1985, will make possi­ble course offerings in advancedTurkish for undergraduates andgraduates as well as a course onTurkish culture. Continued fund­ing for this position is being soughtby the Center from the U.S.Department of Education and theInstitute of Turkish Studies.

In its efforts to provide an ex­panded program of TurkishStudies, the Center allocated fundslast summer to bring Turkishscholar Donald Quatacrt, AssociateProfessor of History at the Univer­sity of Houston, to teach a courseon Turkey's history and culture.Another area studies course, "Ot­toman History in the Middle East,1300-1920," was offered last fall byUT faculty member AbrahamMarcus.

The Center has inititated a seriesof lectures, mms, exhibits, andother special activities geared notonly to the interests of the Univer­sity community but to the larger

Austin community as well. IlhanBasgoz, Professor of Folklore andDirector of Turkish and TurkicStudies at Indiana University,came to the University in March tolecture on "The Romance Tradi­tion, Literary and Folk, in Turkeyand the Middle East." During the1984 Middle East Film Festival,ftlmmaker Halit Rejig was broughtto the University to lecture andpresent two documentary ftlms.

The Center has been extremelyfortunate in receiving funding andsupport for Turkish Studies fromthe Institute of Turkish Studies.Located in Washington, D.C., theInstitute is a private foundationcommitted to supporting and en­couraging the develpment ofTurkish studies in United Statesuniversities. The Institute hasgiven scholarships to three outstand­ing UT undergraduates interestedin studying Turkish language andculture. The award for 1984 wentto Rebecca Coates Yerly, a 'Govern­ment major. Awards for 1985 wentto Christopher Foreman, a LiberalArts major, and Paige Poling, an in­tercolligiate major in Business andLiberal Arts. Funding from the In­stitute also enabled the Center toacquire and catalogue manyTurkish-language reference worksfor the University's Middle EastCollection.

The Center will continue its pur-suit of additional funding for

Turkish Studies in the hopes of ex­panding the level of Turkishlanguage training, of providing agraduate fellowship, and of furtherenhancing both the Turkish- andWestern-language library holdingsof the University. The establish­ment of an active Turkish StudiesProgram will balance the Universi­ty's existing Middle Eastern pro­grams in Persian, Hebrew, andArabic.

LECTURES

The Center was pleased to spon­sor in cooperation with othercenters and departments a numberof guest lecturers during the falland spring semesters.

Seven of the foremost writers ofAsia and the Middle East were in­vited to come to the University aspart of the International WritersLecture Series. Organized by theCenter, the department of Orientaland African Languages andLiteratures, and the- Center forAsian Studies, the Series featuredlectures by authors from China,Egypt, India, Israel, and Japan.The main focus of the series wasthe role of the writer in society to­day.

Yusuf Idris, famous for his shortstories, novels, plays andscreenplays, spoke in February on"Writing and the Transformationof Society in the Middle East." Mr.Idris has been nominated for theNobel Prize in Literature. A.B.Yehoshua, a leading Israeli author,presented a lecture on "Politics andFiction in Israel" and conducted aseminar on "Identity Crisis ofIsraeli Authors in the 1980s." InApril, N awal as-Saadawi, Egypt'sbest known contemporary feminist,

spoke on "The Role of WomenWriters in the Arab World." Dr.Saadawi is best known in the Westfor her book, The Hidden Face £ifEve.

The final participant from theMiddle East was the prominentcontemporary Israeli author AmosOz, who spoke during April on"The Role of the Writer in IsraeliSociety Today." Mr. Oz's essaysand novels have been translated in­to English and many otherlanguages.

In addition to the InternationalWriters Lecture Series, the Centerwas pleased to welcome severalother distinguished visitors wholectured and gave seminars on theMiddle East.

In March, Manfred Halpern,Distinguished Professor of PoliticalScience at Princeton University,spoke on "Separating Ourselvesfrom Church and State: LinkingSacred, Political, and Personal Be­ing." Professor Halpern's book,The Politics £if Social Change in theMiddle East and North Africa, isregarded as a classic by scholars ofthe Middle East. The public lec­ture was sponsored by the Center

and the Department of Govern­ment.

A second visitor during thespring was Moshe Ma'oz, Pro­fessor of Contemporary History atthe Hebrew University in Jerusalem,who lectured in April on "Prospectsfor Peace and the Risk of War inthe Middle East." Former Directorof the Truman Institute for Peaceat Hebrew University, ProfessorMa'oz discussed current peace in­itiatives in the Middle East. Hisvisit was co-sponsored by the LBJSchool, the College of Liberal Arts,and the Center.

Also during April, the Centeralong with the PopulationResearch Center, the College ofLiberal Arts, and the Departmentof Geography brought Daniel R.Vining, Jr. to the University. Pro­fessor Vining is Chairman of theGraduate Program in the RegionalScience Department a.t the Univer­sity of Pennsylvania. He discusseddemographic trends in major ThirdWorld cities with emphasis onCairo.

Yuko Kagawa, Lecturer in Per­sian at Osaka InternationalUniversity, is a Visiting Scholar atUT for 1984-1986. She is workingwith Professor Michael Hillmannon modern Persian literature.

PUBLICATIONS

The Center IS anticipatingpublication this summer and nextfall of four books in its ModernMiddle East Series.

Shakib Arslan by WilliamCleveland is a biography of thewriter and politician. Arslan wasan exemplary member of the lastgeneration of Ottoman-Arabs whogrew up before 1914, and, after

World War I, were forced to live ina world no longer of their ownchoosing. During the inter-warperiod and after, Arslan promotedsolidarity among all Islamicpeoples as a legitimate means ofdefense against Western encroach­ment. William Cleveland isAssociate Professor of History atSimon Fraser University in BritishColumbia.

The End !if the Palestine Mandate,edited by Roger Louis and RobertStookey, is a series of essays con­cerning the period when Britainrelinquished its control over man­datory Palestine and the State ofIsrael was established. In order toanalyze this turning point in thehistory of the Middle East,' theeditors have published essays withpoints of view from each of the in­volved parties: British, Zionist,Arab, American, and Russian.The volume also contains an inter­pretive introduction and conclu­sion. Roger Louis is Professor ofHistory at UT and holder of theMildred Caldwell and BainePerkins Kerr Centennial Professor­ship in English History andCulture. Robert Stookey, a retiredForeign Service Officer, IS aResearch Associate for the Centerand a writer on Middle East issues.

The other two books, to bepublished next fall, are Government

and Society in Rural Palestine by YlanaMiller and The Art !if Reciting the

Qur'an by Kristina Nelson. Pro­fessor Nelson's book was the recip­ient of a grant from the NationalEndowment for the Humanities toaid in the meticulous presentationof Qur'anic text and recitationritual.

The Center is now the U.S.distributor for the Cairo Papers in

Social Science, published by theAmerican University in Cairo.

Back issues are available fromAnnes McCann-Baker in care ofthe Center.

FACULTY NEWS

Hafez Farmayan (History) wasinvited this year to participate atthe Princeton Conference onJustice and Injustice in IslamicPolitical Thought and at theTenth Georgio Levi Della VidaConference in Islamic Studies atUCLA. The subject of thisbiennial meeting was "TheModern Economic and SocialHistory of the Middle East in ItsWorld Context."

Elizabeth Fernea (CMES) par­ticipated in The Rama Mehta Col­loquia at Radcliffe College inApril. She spoke on Political/Com­munity Life during the programentitled "The Muslim Woman: In­ternational Perspectives." Herbook, Women and the Family in the

Middle East: New Voices !if Change, acollection of essays, stories, andpoems about the changing role ofthe family in the Middle East, waspublished this spring by UT Press.

Robert Fernea (Anthropology)presided as presiden t at theAmerican Research Center ofEgypt meeting in New York April26. Also in April, he presented apaper entitled "Technological In­novation and Development Amongthe Bedouin of Hail, Saudi Arabia"to the Society of Economic An­thropology. Authored by Robertand Elizabeth Fernea, The ArabWorld, Personal Encounters waspublished by Doubleday late in thespring. The Ferneas write aboutplaces and people as they first knewthem and then take the reader backto the same locations years later,

commenting on changes that havetaken place.

David Francis (Classics), hav­ing returned from a year spent atOxford as a Visiting Fellow and theWayneflete Lecturer, has receivedthis year's Jean Holloway Awardfor Teaching Excellence. The win­ner of this award is chosen eachyear by students.

Michael Hillmann (Persian)had his book, Persian Carpets, comeout from UT Press last fall. Thebook features plates of carpets inAustin homes, stores, and the LBJMuseum. In April, ProfessorHillmann presented a series of fourlectures called "The World ofOriental Carpets" at Rice Universi­ty. He is in the midst of com­pleting a new book called IranianCulture: A Persianist's View, and ofediting a volume called Sociology ofthe Iranian Writer to be published asVolume 18, Numbers 3 and 4 ofIranian Studies (1985). This sum­mer, Professor Hillmann will teacha new course of potential interest tothe community beyond UT. Thecourse, called "Persian Art Pastand Present," will be taught duringthe second summer session.

Ahmad Karimi-Hakkak, Lec­turer in the English Department,has been teaching a graduatecourse on Classical PersianLiterature for the Department ofOriental and African Languagesand Literatures.

Fedwa Malti-Douglas (Arabic)delivered the Eberhard Faber lec­ture at Princeton University inApril. The lecture, entitled "BlindSelf- Visions: Blindness andAutobiography," dealt with theautobiographies of Egyptian TahaHusayn, Indian-American VedMehta, Argentinian Jorge LuisBorges, and American HelenKeller. Professor Malti-Douglas

recently completed a book-lengthmanuscript on Taha Husayn.

Caroline Williams (CMES)spoke at the American ResearchCenter of Egypt meeting in NewYork. Her lecture was entitled"Changes in the Architecture ofCairo in the Early 19th Cen tury."Ms. Williams has recently revisedthe book, The Islamic Monuments ofCairo: A Practical Guide.

CMES FACULTY FROMTHE NETHERLANDS

Jacques Waardenburg, Professor ofReligion and Phenomenology, andHilary Waardenburg-Kilpatn"ck, Lec­turer in Arabic literature, havebeen visiting faculty at the Centerfor Middle Eastern Studies thisspring. Professor Waardenburgteaches at the State University ofUtrecht in The Netherlands, andProfessor Waardenburg-Kilpatrickteaches at the Institute forLanguages and Cultures of theMiddle East at the University ofNijrnegen in The Netherlands.

With a joint appointment inPhilosophy and Middle EasternStudies, Professor Waardenburgtaught the courses "Introduction toIslamic Philosophy" and "Islamic

Reform Movements." He alsogave a lecture on "Is There aRevitalization of Islam?" and gavea talk on Muslim responses to thecrises in Lebanon.

Hilary Waardenburg-Kilpatrickoffered a course in "EnglishLiterature of the Third World." InApril, she gave a lecture entitled"Towards the Appreciation of theKitab al-Aghani (Book of Songs) ofAbu I-Faraj al-Isfahani (4th/10thcent.) as a Literary· Work."

The Waardenburgs will bereturning to the Netherlands dur­ing the summer. Their wit andfresh vision will be missed bystudents, faculty, and staff at theCenter.

STUDENT AWARDS

Through funding from the U.S.Department of Education, theCenter is able to award fellowshipsto qualified graduate students inlanguage and area studies. Con­gratulations to this past year'sFellowsl)ip holders for the Summerof 1984: Mary Gwenn Okruhlzk(Arabic), Steven Perry (Hebrew),and Robert Sweet (Arabic); and forthe full year of 1984-85: JenniferDeCamp (Arabic), Paul Gilmer(Turkish), Jenny White (Arabic),Jonathan Morter (Turkish), MichaelNoble (Arabic), Joya Saad(Arabic/Persian), Caroline Sawyer(Persian), Robert Sweet (Arabic),and Keith Walters (Arabic).

Other students working with theCenter have won a variety ofawards. Betsy Folkim was awardeda Research Grant from the Officeof Graduate Studies in order to col­lect data for her thesis. KeithWalters and David McMurray have

been notified by the U.S. Depart­ment of Education that they havebeen selected as candidates underthe Fulbright-Hays DoctoralDissertation Research Abroad Pro­gram. Darrow Zeidenstein has beenawarded a National Science Foun­dation Graduate Fellowship forthree years.

NEW DEGREEPROGRAMS

The Department of Oriental andAfrican Languages and Literatures(DOALL) now offers a Doctor ofPhilosophy in Middle EasternLanguages, Literatures, andCultures. The degree provides forspecialization in Hebrew, Arabic,or Persian.

DOALL also offers a Master ofArts in Oriental Languages,Literatures, and Cultures. Can­didates in the new program maychoose an area of specializationfrom the Middle East (Hebrew,Arabic, Persian); South Asia (Hin­di, Sanskrit); and East Asia(Chinese, Japanese).

TEACHING MATERIALSAVAILABLE

The Teaching Materials Index,a list of all teaching aids availablein the Resource Center, is beingupdated and annotated. The col­lection includes an assortment ofvideo tapes for classroom purposes.Exxon Foundation recently

donated to the Center three videotapes concerning the history anddevelopment of the Gulf States.This series of tapes is called The OilKingdom Series. The ResourceCenter staff is trying to expand itscollection to include recordings ofcontemporary music from the Mid­dle East. Donations of such cas­settes would be gratefully accepted.A collection of recordings of lec­

tures sponsored by the Center willsoon be available. Teachers andstudents are urged to take advan­tage of these new resources.

COMPUTER-ASSISTEDINSTR UCTION INARABIC

Professor Peter Abboud (Arabic) hascompleted the computer-assis.tedinstruction (CAl) program forteaching intermediate ModernStandard Arabic. Professor Ab­boud finished the project for hislate wife, Dr. Victorine Abboud, whohad begun the program under agrant from the National Endow­ment for the Humanities in 1981.Dr. Abboud was building the pro­gram for the intermediate-levelArabic based on the success of hertwo earlier programs: the Arabicwriting and sound systems and theelementary-level sequence. Theseunique programs were developedin connection with her work at theCAl Lab, housed in the Depart­ment of Oriental and AfricanLanguages and Literatures(DOALL).

The intermediate program willenable the student to attain a work­ing vocabulary of some 1,500 to2,000 Arabic words (compared to800 words at the end of elementary

level), to improve reading and'listening comprehension, and to in­crease proficiency in speaking andwriting. The program will be in­corporated into the curriculum atUT beginning in September 1985.

VICTORINE C. ABBOUD

Dr. Victorine C. Abboud, known toher many friends and colleagues as"Vickie," died in a Dallas hospitalon February 28, 1984, after a longillness. Her loss came as a greatshock to the academic communityat Texas and to the many otherscholars in Middle Eastern Studieswho knew her. At the University,she was engaged in research incomputer-assisted instruction inArabic and taught courses on thetheory and application ofcomputer-assisted instruction.Vickie received her Ph.D. inEducation from The University ofTexas in 1970 and immediatelystarted pioneering work III

compu ter- assisted ins truction,which continued until her death.She was a dedicated scholar andteacher and has been missed by hercolleagues, friends, and students.Her research, which has receivedwidespread international recogni­tion, will remain a testimony to herenergy and creativity and to hercommitment to improvinglanguage instruction. The Centerfor Middle Eastern Studies, withwhich she worked closelythroughout her career, has lost abeloved friend and colleague.

M.A. JazayeryDirector

, l'AFF CHANGES

Annes McCann-Baker became thenew Editor for the Center inMarch. She replaced Daniel Good­win, who is now an editor at theSmithsonian in Washington D.C.

The University of Texas at AustinCenter jor Mzddle Eastern StudiesAustin, Texas 78712

The CMES Editor works with UTPress to publish the Center'sModern Middle East Series, ascholarly series of books focusingon social science viewpoints of theMiddle East.

Ms. McCann-Baker had beenwriter and editor and eventuallyAssistant Coordinator of Trainingfor the Petroleum Extension Ser­vice at UT. Prior to that, she hadwritten and taught English coursesfor the Correspondence Section ofthe Continuing Education Divi­sion, worked as a staff member forthe American Association ofUniversity Professors, and editedfor National GeographicMagazine. She is an evening part­time instructor in English forAustin Community CoJlege.

Ann Grabhorn, who was AssociateOutreach Coordinator for theCenter, has gone back to teaching

for the Austin Independent SchoolDistrict. The Center wishes Annthe best of luck and continues toappreciate her fine educational ef­forts in the Outreach Program.

Editor: Annes McCann-Baker

Production, Design & Photographs:Diane Walls

Typescliing:CMAS PublicationThe Centcr ror Mexican American Studies,U.T. Austin