Center for Middle Eastern Studies

NEWSLETTERNo. 19 The University of Texas at Austin Fall 1993

New Center Administration

Ghanoonparvar, Raizen, Marcus

Summer Study Abroad

M indful of the need for stu­dents to receive foreign fieldexperiences in the Middle

East, the Cen,ter is planning summer­abroad programs in Israel and Turkeyand an expanded faculty and studentexchange program with Moulay IsmailUniversity in Morocco. The summerstudy in Israel involves a six-weekprogram from July 6-August 20 in­cluding travel throughout Israel andtwo available credit courses: "Conser­vation, Resources and Technology inthe Middle East," taught by DavidEaton (LBl School of Public Affairs),and "The Jewish People and TheirLiterature," taught by Yair Mazor(OALL).

The Summer Study inIstanbul program win take place atBosphorus University from June 28­August 20. Students win have theopportunity to take courses in Turk­ish language and culture, business,government, and history, as well asenjoy field trips in Istanbul. This pro­gram is sponsored jointly by the Uni­versityand the UniversityoflllinoisatUrbana-Champagne.

The Center looks forward toproviding opportunities for both fac­ulty and students to participate in itsexchangeprogram with Moulay IsmailUniversity in Morocco as early as thespring of 1994.

Individuals interested in theseprograms should contact the Centerat the University of Texas at Austin,Austin, Texas 78712; phone (512) 471­3881; fax (512) 471-7834; e-mailmideast@bongo.cc.utexas.edu

book, The Middle East on the Eve ofMo­dernity: Aleppo in the Eighteenth Cen­tury, published by Columbia Univer­sity Press in 1989, won the AlbertHourani Book Award the first year itwas given at MESA in 1991.

Dr. Raizen has been a Lecturerin Hebrew since 1991. She received theUniversity of Texas Outstanding Dis­sertation Award in 1988 and the TexasExceHence Teaching Award in 1993.She has forthcoming, with Lehmannand Hewitt, from Lang PublishingCompany the publication Biblical He­brew: an Analytical Introduction.

Professor M.R. Ghanoonparvar(Persian Studies) was namedthe new Associate Director of

the Center during the summerof1993.Replacing him as Undergraduate Ad­visor is Esther Raizen (Hebrew Stud­ies). The new Graduate Advisor isAbraham Marcus (History), replacingElizabeth Fernea, who is teaching atOhio State for the semester. Robert K.Holz (Geography) continues as Cen­ter Director.

ProfessorGhanoonparvarhastaught at the University since 1990,and was Undergraduate Advisor atthe Center from 1991-:-1993. A frequenttranslator and the author of manybooks and articles, he is the recentauthor of In a Persian Mirror: Images ofthe West and Westerners in Contempo­rary Iranian Fiction. He received hisPh.D. from the University in 1979,andhas taught at the Universities of Ari­zona and Virginia.

Professor Marcus came to theUniversity in 1979 after receiving hisPh.D. from Columbia University. His

From The Director

The fall semester of the aca.demicyear is always a hectic time atthe Center for Middle Eastern

Studies. Besides all of the activities anew year brings: the start of classes,new appointments of both faculty andstudents, budget matters and plan­ning the activities for the academicyear, we are faced with the dauntingtask ofpreparing the grant proposal tothe U.S. Office of Education, which isour major source of funding. Thisfunding is based on a three-year cycle,which will begin anew in 1994-95. Weexpect the competition for funding tobe especially intense this year, and, asa result, our proposal will have to bemore sharply focused and innovative.Preparing the proposal consumes agreat deal of the director's and staff'stime and energy, but we are apprecia­tive of the opportunity to compete forthis funding and grateful for the sup­port we have had in the past.

We still occupy quarters onthe 15th floor of the Dobie Center.Plans call for us to move back to cam­pus in the late spring of 1994. TheCenter is tentatively scheduled to oc­cupy quarters on the third floor of theWMB, just across the West Mall fromthe Student Union. The move is com­plicated because it must be coordi­nated with the moves of several otherprograms that must vacate space tomake room for the Center. It will begood to be back on campus, especiallyin such a central location to campusactivities and university administra­tive offices.

I have felt for a long time thattheCenter needs moreand better linesof communication and contact withthe Middle East. In this informationage of electronic communication wehave opportunities to exchange infor­mation rapidly, easily and relativelyinexpensively if we are properlyequipped, trained and organized. Inorder to develop these lines of com­munication, the Center has begun aprogram to establish electronic link­ages with Middle Eastern universi-

ties. With financial support from DeanSheldon Ekland-Olson in the Collegeof Liberal Arts, the College of Com­munication and the School of Libraryand Information Sciences, we wereable to hire a Research Associate, Dr.Elizabeth Bouri, to begin work on thisproject. Besides electronic linkagessuch as E-mail and Internet we intendto examine the opportunities for es­tablishing interactive television link­ages in real-time. The program is juststarting, and Istrongilyencourageany­one who has a special interest in thisform of communication to contact Dr.Bouri at the Center.

Over the summer of 1993, theCenter organized and conducted theSummer Language Institute, spon­sored by the Western Consortium ofMiddle Eastern Centers. We had 82studentsenrolled in first-, second-andthird-year Arabic, first- and second­year Hebrew, first- and second-yearPersian and first-year Turkish. We alsooffered for the first time at Texas first­year Azerbaijani. Areacoursesinotherdepartments and a number of non­credit enrichment courses on theMiddle East were offered. Next sum­mer, the1994 Institute will be held atthe University of Utah in Salt LakeCity.

At a reception for faculty, staffand students, I initiated a new pro­gram designed to recognize and re­ward faculty who have made long,sustained and valuable contributionsto CMES. The award consists of aframed certificate, a book and Centerfinancial supporttoattend the nationalmeetings of the Middle East StudiesAssociation. Thisyear, theaward wentto Professor Hafez Farmayan, Profes­sor of History, for his long and dedi­cated service to the Center. Plans callfor this award to be given each year inthe future.

Recent communication fromthe upper Administration indicatedour exchange program with MoulayIsmail University in Meknes, Morocco,should have final signatures in the

next few weeks. This means the pro­gram will be ready for exchanges tobegin in thespringsemester, 1994,andwe look forward to providing oppor­tunities for both faculty and studentsto go out to Morrocco.

TheCenterhas initiated a jointM.A. program with the College ofCommunication, modeled after ourvery successful joint program with theCollege of Business. The course ofwork has been approved by the facul­ties in CMES and the College of Com­munication. It is currently being re­viewed by the Graduate School andthe upper administration and, if allapprovals are received, we hope toactivate the program in the Fall Se­mester, 1994. We are looking for waysto establish similar contacts with theColleges of Engineering and Libraryand Information Sciences.

The Center hopes to offer aSummer Study Abroad Program inIsrael in the summer of 1994. Plansarewell underway. A brochure has beenprinted and the two faculty who willteach courses, Yair Mazor and DavidEaton, areactively recruiting studentsto take part in this overseas program.They may ask to speak to your classesabout this study-abroad program. Ifthey make such a request, please try tocooperate. The Oxford Program inGeography has found this to be one ofthe most valuable methods of recruit­ing students for that summerprogram.

At this time it seems we havea bUSY, excitingand academicallypro­ductive year ahead of us.

Robert K.HolzDirector

,

Fourteenth Annual GaleLecture

On July 8, Professor Mahdokht Moin,VisitingScholarat the Center, lecturedon "Hafez's Ghazals: A Seminar Ses­sion in Persian."

The Center will host the an­nual meeting of the Texas Associationof Middle East Scholars (TAMES) onFebruary 18-19. Any persons inter­ested in delivering papers or attend­ing should contact Deborah Littrell atthis address, phone (512)471-3881.

Professor Hafez Farmayan(History) is organizing a conferenceon Nineteenth Century Persian TravelMemoirs to be sponsored by the Cen­ter on April 8-9. The Persian travelmemoirs that the conference partici­pants will address offer rich insightinto the profound influence thatWest­ernconceptsoflaw, justice, and powerhave had on the structure and contentof recent Iranian events.

Kafka's Tears: On Being Jewish,Male and Ill," was the title ofthe 14th annual Gale Lecture

presented this year by ProfessorSander L. Gilman on October 21. Pro­fessor Gilman is the Goldwin SmithProfessor of Humane Studies and theDirectorof the ProgramoUewish Stud­ies at Cornell University. He is alsoProfessor of the History of Psychia~ryat Cornell Medical College and Presi­dent of the Modem Languages Asso­ciation.

The Gale Lecture, sponsoredby the Gale FamilyofBeaumont TexasChair of Judaic Studies in cooperationwith the Center, is held annually andpresentsa topic related toJewish Stud­ies. This year's lecture on Kafka in­cluded slides and a discussion of thegeneral social and psychological stateof the Jews in Europe at the tum of thecentury. The lecture was arranged bySeth Wolitz, L.D., Marie and EdwinGale Chair of Judaic Studies.

Other speakers on MiddleEastern matters included Dr. AbdullahAlshayeji from Kuwait University,who spoke on international relationsto various classes in the program earlyin the semester. On October 8, RichardG. Hovannisian, Professor of Historyat U.C.L.A., spoke on "The Caucasusin Crisis: Armenia, Azerbaijan, andGeorgia." On October 27, Dr. IllanaBet-El of Tel-Aviv University lecturedon "Women's Role in the Mid-EastPeace Process." A panel discussionwas conducted by a group of Arabjournalists on "The Press and Media inthe Arab World" on November 8."Folklore in the Middle East: Narra­tives of Contagion and Constructionof Class in Morocco" was the title of apresentation by Deborah Kapcl1an(Anthropology) on November 12. Dr.Kapchan was sponsored by the Lib­eral Arts Council.

Duringthesummer,eightfac­ulty members from Mutah Universi,tyin Jordan visited the Center. Broughtby the Texas International EducationConsortium on June 2, they includedDr. Adel Tweissi (Dean of Faculty ofArts), Dr. Faeq Hamdan (Director ofPresidential Affairs), Dr. HasanTantawy (Civil Engineering), Dr.Fayez Alzuraigat (Comparative Poli­tics), Dr. Jamil al-Jalode (Economics),Dr. Qublan Majali (Sociology), Dr.Walied Awajan (Islamic Studies), andDr. Ihsan al Mahasneh (Dean of Scien­tific Research and Graduate Studies).

L ctures and Colloquia

Director Robert Holz at Graduate Seminar

The Center has continued thisfall with its regular ColloquiumSeries, its participation in perti­

nent public lectures, and a new seriesof seminars delivered by its graduatefaculty in order for graduate studentsto learn the facul ty's areas of expertisein research. During the fall in theGraduate Seminars, professors havelectured on Middle Eastern interestsin the areas of geography, literature,art history, government, history, Ara­bic, and Persian.

Colloquium speakers lecturedapproximately every other Tuesdaythis fall. On September 14, DarrowZenlund,recentAnthropologygradu­ate and instructor, lectured on "Pro­paganda and the Affective Force ofMemory: The Case of Syria."Manochehr Dorraj, Assistant Profes­sor of Political Science at Texas Chris­tian University, spoke September 28on "Impressions of the Republic ofAzerbaijan: Summer 1993." On Octo­ber 12, Yildiray Erdener, UT Lecturerin Turkish Studies, presented a pro­gram on "Turkish Minstrels' SongContests." Kamran Hooshmand, anM.A. student in Middle Eastern Stud­ies,gavea performance and lecture on"Current Trends in Persian Music:Impressions and Samples from a Sum­mer in Iran." Keith Walters, UT Assis­tant Instructor in Linguistics, talkedNovember 16 on "Linguistic Projec­tions of Identity: Language Use onMoroccan and Tunisian Television."

Round Table on Israeli-PLO Peace Accord

On September 14, two days af­

, ter the signing of the Israeli­PLO peace agreement, the

Center held a round-table discussionmade up of faculty, students, and resi­dents ofIsrad and the West Bank. Theseven participants tried to interpret toa large audience from the campus andthecommunity the fast-moving eventssurrounding the historic signing.Elizabeth Fernea (English and CMES)was moderator of the discussion.Otherparticipants were Martha Diase,(Radio-TV-Film), Robert Femea (An­thropology), Clement Henry(Govern­ment), Esther Raizen (OALL), YaronShemer(OALL),andAvrahamZilkha(OALL). Makram Copty, an IsraeliArab visiting in Austin, also spoke onthe practical aspects of the peace agree­ment.

After opening statements, thepanelists took questions from the au­dience concerning the agreement'spossibilities for Palestinian autonomyin the Israeli-occupied West Bank andGaza Strip. "As a Palestinian Ameri­can, I believe the pact that was signedMonday is potentially the most im­portant thing that's happened thiscen­tury to open the doors for peace,"affirmed Diase. Zilkha cautioned thatthe signing was "just an agreement toseek a peaceful solution." Raizen con­firmed the considerable division al­ready existing in Israel by translatingand reading poems written by Israelisof both sides during the week of thesigning. Henry spoke, nevertheless,of the "huge political momentum"growing during the week of the sign-

ing. When asked how other Arab coun­tries might affect the success of theagreement, Robert Fernea expressedthe hope that the movement in Israelmight promote more democracy insome of the Middle Eastern dictator­ships, since the easingof tensions couldresult in less internal interference fromthe West. The panel agreed that thestatus of the Palestinian refugees andthat of the Israeli settlers would proveto be the most chaBenging issue in theweeks ahead.

On September 27, the IsraeliConsul General from Houston, MeirRomen, continued the conversationby answering questions on the peaceagreement at a brown-bag luncheon.Both events were sponsored by theCenter.

Hafez Farmayan ReceivesAward

Anew award, given for the first

_ time this year by Center Direc­tor Robert Ho}z, was presented

to Hafez Farmayan (History) at theSeptember reception for faculty, staff,and students.

Professor Farmayan came tothe History Department of the Univer-

sity in 1969. He has taught ov,er theyears also at the University of Tehran,the University of Utah, and ColumbiaUniversity. Among his recent publica­tions is A Shiite's Pilgrimage to Mecca,published by the University of TexasPress in 1989.

Outreach News

The Outreach Program has con­tinued its development of newcurricular materials for pre-col­

legiate teachers. Four "mini teachingtrunks" are being developed, usingfunds from a department of educationgrant. Faculty traveiing to Israel, Syriaand Tunisia and a colleague in theUnited Arab Emirates puchased itemsillustrating contemporary life and cul­ture in those countries. The resultingtrunks are meant to help Social Studiesteachers bring the Middle East to lifefor their students.

An exhibit on the city ofIstanbul is being devleoped in con­junction with the Texas Committee forthe Humanities and Marmara Univer­sity in Istanbul. Project scholarsAbraham Marcus (History) and IanManners (Geography) are selectingthemes and materials, and writing aguide and essay to accompany the ex­hibi t, which will open on campus or inAustin in the fall of 1994.

Outreach CoordinatorDeborah Littrell has recently obtainedan account on TENET, the Texas Edu­cation Network, an electronic mail andinformation resource for educators,and is exploring ways of offering in­formation and assistance to SocialStud­ies teachers through this computernet­work.

Providing speakers to class­rooms is one way of reaching bothstudents and teachers. The au treachProgram would like to thank all thefaculty and students who have helpedprovide this valuable service to manyschools, with special thanks to gradu­ate students Kamran Hooshmand,Allison Hodgkins and Carol Macha,who spoke to over 19 classes this fall.

Faculty and Staff News

ildiray Erdener (Turkish Stud-

Y ies) had Teaching Turkish throughFolk Songs come out as Volume

13 in the Indiana University TurkishStudies series. He especially preparedthe text and accompanying cassettefor beginning as well as advanced stu­dents of the Turkish language.

Elizabeth Femea (English), asOhio State University DistinguishedVisiting Professor, spoke at a confer­ence in her honor called "Fantasy orEthnography? Irony and Collusion inSubaltern Representa tion." Herspeechwas entitled "Fiction as Truth: TheNew Believers."

Robert Femea (Anthropol­ogy) gave the College of Humanities25th Anniversary Special Event Pub­lic Lecture at Ohio State University onOctober 28. His speech was entitled"The Issues of Adoption and Custody:Attitudes and Practices in the MiddleEast and the West."

Kate Gillespie (Marketing)was sponsored by the United Sta.tesInformation Agency on a. speakmgprogram in Oman, Sri Lanka, andBahrain. She spoke tobusiness officialsin the countries on economic andmarketing issues, business priva­tization and development.

RobertHolz (Geography) wasnamed to the Erich W. ZimmermanRegents Centennial Profess?rship,beginning in September of thIS yea.r.Professor Holz will visit Saudi ArabIain December as a member of a teamsponsored by the National Council onUS-Arab Relations.

Clement Henry (Govern­ment) has had chapters published in

two books recently: "L'ouvertureturque aux capitaux de l'Islam" inElizabeth Picard, ed., La nouvelledynamique au Moyen-Orient, L'Orie,ntarabe et la turquie au toumant des annees1990. (Paris: Harmattan); and "Politi­cal Parties," in W.M. Habeeb and I.W.Zartman, cds., State and Society in Con­temporary North Africa, (Boulder,Westview). Henry chaired a panel atthe Conference Group on the MiddleEast of the American Political ScienceAssociation in Washington, where hepresented a paper, "Command orControl: the Collective Action ofCom­mercial Finance."

Michael Hillmann (PersianStudies), as the 1993-94 Will and ArielDurant Chair in Humanities, gave aMichaelmas Convocation address atSt. Peter's College (Jersey City) on Sep­tember 28. An exhibition organizedby HHimanncalled "The Iranian Revo­lution: a Philatelic Self-View" was ondisplay at the Middle East Institute inWashington, D.C. in the fall.

Roger Louis (Kerr Chair inEnglish History and Culture at t~e

Universi ty and Fellow of St. Antony sCollege, Oxford) has been ele~t.ed

Corresponding Fellow of the BntlshAcademy, the highest academic honorin the humanWes and social sciencesin Britain. He has also been appointedEditor-in-Chief of the Oxford Historyof the British Empire.

Faegheh Mahajan (HumanEcology) published with GrassoWimberley "Mainbocher's Work as aMaterial Culture" in the Journal ofCriti­cal Studies of Iran and the Middle East,1993, No. 37. She was also publishedin Critique, Journal of Critical Studies ofIran and the Middle East, Spring 1993.Her article was entitled "The Politicsof Clothing in the Middle East: TheCase ofHijab in Post-Revolution Iran."

Yair Mazor (Hebrew Stud­ies) has had published "Poetics ofPoverty:The Poetry ofNathan Zach,"in Hadoar, Vol. 71, Nos. 17-18; and"Psallm 24: Sense and Sensibility inBiblical Poetry" in Scandinavian Jour­nal of the Old Testament, V:0l.~, No.2.In May he delivered two mVlted lec­tures at Haifa University in Israel:"S.Y. Agnon's 'Ars Poetica"' ~nd

"Jacob Steinberg's Art of NarratIve:Deceptive Aesthetics and its Expres­sive Offspring."

Denise Schmandt-Besserat(Art His,tory) was listed in Who's Whoin America, 48th edition. She had "Im­ages of Enship" appear in MarcellaFrangipane, H. Hauptmann" M.Liverani et alii, eds, Between the RIVersand Over theMountains, ArchaeologicaAnatolica et Mesopotamica albaPalmieri Dedimta, Rome, 1993; and"The Origin of Visible Language," inJan Wind, Brunetto Chiarelli, B~r~ardBichakjian, eds., Language Ongm: aM ultidisciplinaryApproach,NATO ASISeries, Kluwer Academic Publishers,the Netherlands, 1992.

Abazar Sepehri (MiddIe EastCollection Librarian) is Project Direc­tor for a grant awarded to the Univer­sity of Texas under the U.s. Depart­ment of Education's Higher Educa­tion Act, Title VI, for Foreign Periodi­cals Program. The award is for. th~

acquisition ofTurkishand Aze.rbaljamperiodicals published ou tSldc theUnited States, which "are not com­monly held by academic libarariesand are of scholarlarly research inter­est." Sepehri wiu travel to Turkeyand Azerbaijan in January on an ac­quisitions trip.

New and Visiting Faculty

The Center is pleased to welcomethree new faculty to campusthis fall. YildirayErdenercomes----

to the University from Massachusettswhere he had worked as a specialistand consultant on multicultural artsprograms. He received his M.A. in1980 and his Ph.D. in 1987 from theFolklore/Musicology Program at In­diana University. He has taught Turk­ish at Indiana University, the Univer­sity of California at Berkeley, and theDefense Language Institute inMonterey, California. He has numer­ous publications on Turkish folkloreand ethnomusicology.

Walid Hamarneh comes to usfrom the Department of Near EasternLanguages and Civilizations at YaleUniversity. He received his M.A. in1988 and his Ph.D. in 1991 from theUniversity of Toronto. Born in Syria,Professor Hamarneh attended schoolsin Damascus, Lebanon, and Germany.As well as teaching, he has worked asa transla tor and librarian. He has forth­coming from the Univer~ityofTorontoPress a collection of papers entitledFiction Updated, which he edited withan introduction.

Deborah Anne Kapchancomes to us from a year as a VisitingProfessor at Indiana University. Shereceived her M.A. in 1987 from OhioUniversity and her PhD. from theUniversity of Pennsylvania in 1982.Her disserta tion won the first prize inthe Humanities dissertations at MESAthis year, and she has a book in presswith the University of Pennsylvania

Press enti tIed Gender on the Market: TheHybridization of Cultural Fonns in Mo­rocco.

Visiting Scholars at the Cen­ter this year include Jenny White, As­sistant Professor of Anthropology atthe University of Nebraska at Omah,who was here during the summer;Momamed Said Saadi, Professor ofEconomics in the Faculty of law atHassan II University in Casablanca,Morocco, who was here from Julythrough October; Majid Yazdi, Assis­tant Professor of Political Science atEast Texas State University, who willbe here this academic year; and NihadYasin Al-Musa, Professor and Chairof the Department of Arabic at theUniversity of Jordan who will be herein the spring.

Algerian Ambassador'sVisit

Algerian Ambassador Nourre­dineZerhouni visited theCen­ter on October 22. After being

greeted by Universi ty President Rob­ert Berdahl, he discussed his coun­try/sand Texas' rela tionship in termsof oil and other economic concerns.Interested faculty members at a lun-

cheon hosted by the Center discussedwith the Ambassador similarities be­tween Algeria and Texas concerningwater shor,tages, terrain, wine vin­yards, and otheragricultural concerns.The Ambassador described Algeria'snew program to democratize.

Ambassador Zerhouni wasbrought to the Center by petrochemi­cal businessman Robert January, whohas helped the Center's PublicationsProgram financially with its printingof books on Algeria. Over the week­end/ the Ambassador and his wife anddaughter were entertained by LadyBird Johnson at the Johnson Ranch inStonewall.

Summer Arabic StudentsCover Full Year's Course

T he Arabic program at theCenter's Summer Language In­stitutetested its forty students at

the end of the ten-week course andfound that the summer students ateach of the three levels taught wereable to cover the equivalent of a funyear's work, as determined by the per­formanceof a national samplingofstu­dents. Professors Peter Abboud andAman Attieh used the ACTFL OralProficiency Interview test for thespeaking skill and the Arabic Profi­ciency Test (APT) of the Center forApplied Linguistics for reading andlistening comprehension. Other pro­fessors in the summer program wereWalid Hamarneh and DrissOuaouicha, a visiting professor fromthe University of Meknes in Morocco.

Publications

The Cent r is proud to havebrought out a new publicationin its Modem Middle East Lit­

eratures in Translations Series. It isFragments of Memory by Hanna Mina,translated by Olive and Lome Kenny.Hanna Mina, perhaps Syria's mostwell-known novelist, tells a story ofthe first few years in the life of a boyborn to a poor family in northernSyria.The pre-industrial first years ofthis century form the background ofthis story of poverty and struggle forexistence. Mina sets his personal eventsagainst a richly detailed background,includingdescriptionsof the silkwormindustry as it was practiced by poorfarmers and their families. The trans­lation was done under the direction ofSalma Jayyusi, director of the Projectfor the TranslationofArabic (PROTA).

HA~NA j\·IINA

News from the FrontWe have below an E-Mail communication from RobertaMicat1~J in Uzbekista~,received the week of October 22. She is working with Fulbrigh.t funding in thearea of her dissertation research for a Ph.D. in ComparativeUterature.

This is avery exciting and interesting time to be in Tashkent,Alatis thangt,~ng.very rapidly. Tashkent is very easy to get around. It has awonderful clean:and safe metrosystem. I'm enjoying shopping in the bazaars. They are so amazed tHat aforeigner knows .their language that they:give you stufffor free. MyacademicworHsgoing great.lchavean office at the Institute of Literature and an advisor who is agr~i help. I sharean officewith three other women, one ofwhom specializes in Uzbek and·Tufldsh litetatute, SO wehave had some very interesting discussions. 1am sharing a wonderful apartment in avery nice neighbourhood with my friends Monica and Michael.1fwpuldo~rdifficult tolive alone in this town. Shopping and cleaning have to be dcme daily~andboththeSetaskstake some time because one often has to go to more than one bazaar/and all Cleaning andwashing is done byhand. Between the threeofus we barelymanage10get ev&yfhirigplusour own work done. We don't have a phone yet, and we have neVer seen a mail p&son,so the only form of communication I have access to at this timeisE Mail. Everyday isanadventure, but so far all ofmyadventures have been good. My worstexperiences havebeen funny rather than bad. [was invited to aKazakh wedding in the middle ofnowhere,··and as [ was the first and only American anyone had seen 1was a$.~d to do a speci41American dance for the bride and groom...l'm glad no one from that wedding will beheading to the States any time soon. One gets a lot ofexercise in this town. Thereisa lotofwalkingand climbingfor those who-don't like elevators,and although there are plentyof wonderful fruits and vegetables, dairy products, mea(sugar and {iour are verydifficult to find. 1hope all is well in Austin. 1 look forward to hearing fromy'all.

Roberta

Student NewsI f...YICJ liu. dw nhIt

hol:.... · I.'lf1'WKG\lIY\

In February, the Center willpublish a companion piece, Daughterof Damascus, by Siham Tergeman,translated and introduced by AndreaRugh. In this case, a woman describesthe first half of this century in Syria,but from the perspective of the cityrather than the rural point of view.Tergeman writes of her youth in thesuqSaruja ("old city") quarterof Dam­ascus. She relates the customspertain­ing to marriage, birth, circumcision,and death. She writes of Ramadan fes­tivities, family picnics to the orchardsof the Ghuta, weekly trips to the pub­licbath,herschoolexperiences, Dama­scene cooking, peddlers' calls, andproverbs. Dr. Rugh gives meaningandcontext to these events in her fine in­troduction about the social customs ofSyria.

T he Center is trying to composeadirectory of Middle EasternStudies graduates from U.T. in

order to establish a network regardingjob opportunities and shared experi­ences. In particular, Middle Eastgradu­ates in the Washington, D.C. area aretrying to start a U.T. alumni group. Ifyou or anyone you know is not receiv­ing the newsletter and would like toparticipate, please send in your name,address, and current status.

The Arabic Program at theDepartment of Oriental and AfricanLanguages will haveanopeningin thespring for a teaching assistant. Gradu­ate Students specialiZing in Arabic lin­guistics, Arabic literature, and theteaching of Arabic language are wel­come to apply.

Listed below are the recipi­ents of the FLAS scholarships for 1993­94. The students' majorsare given al so.

Academic YearAnne Baddour - MES/LBJJames Grehan - HISTORYRehana Ikramuddin - MES/LBJJason Leuck - MES/BUS.Harold Revelson - OALLLiesl Riddle - MESjBUSDylan Oehler-Stricklin - OALL

SummerJames Boujemaa - MESRobin Gallaher-Branch - OALLPersis Karim - COMPo LIT.Michelle Moosally - MESValerie Turner - MESSharon Silver-LINGUISTl ~

Center Establishes Electronic Linkages from the University in the spring of1993. Her dissertation title was liTheDevelopment and Decline of PublicLibraries in Egypt: A Shift in NationalDevelopment Priorities."

Dr. Bouri was head referencelibrarian at the ]afetMemorial Libraryat the American University in Beirutbefore she came to this country.

Editor: Annes McCann-Baker

Elizabeth Bouri, a new staff Re­search Associate, isexploring the

. opportunities for establishingin­teractive video communications forlong-distance education between theUniversity and the Middle East. Dr.Bouri has helped the Center staff get

Center for Middle Eastern StudiesThe University of Texas at AustinAustin, Texas 78712

onto Internet and is making informa­tion about the Center's courses, publi­cations and outreach activities avail­able to all users of Internet in thiscountry and abroad.

Dr. Bouri received her Ph.D.in Library and Information Science

EA SF DP 866DEBORAH LITTRELLMIDDLE EASTERN STUDIESCAMPUS 59400

Production, Design, and Photographs:Diane Watts

Not printed with state funds