- Board Meeting, Thursday, 11/17, 3-4pm, MIT (3)
- Members Meeting, Thursday, 11/17, 6:30-7:30pm, Salon C (4)
- Open Reception Honoring Elaine Hagopian, Thursday, 11/17, 7:30-8:30pm, Salon C (4)
Thematic Conversation: Global Arab America: Cosmopolitanism and its Discontents (Friday, 11/18/16 3:45pm)
Organized by Suad Joseph and Pauline Homsi Vinson
Chair: Pauline Homsi Vinson
Participants: Sarah Gualtieri, Carol Fadda, Bassam Haddad, and Lisa Hajjar
SUMMARY
This thematic conversation aims to look at current trajectories in Arab American studies through the lens of cosmopolitanism. It asks: How do Arab American engagements with questions of belonging, diaspora, and transnational affiliation intersect with concerns about world citizenship, moral obligations, and globalization? What are the tensions as well as productive overlaps between such terms as “Arab” and “American”; “America” and “the Americas”; “Arab” and “Global Arab”; “Middle Eastern American” and “Arab American”? How does the figure of the refugee at once expand and add stresses to notions of mobility, exile, transnationalism, the nation, and the very concept of cosmopolitanism?
Professional Development Workshop: Proposal Writing and Research Design: How To Fund Your Ideas (Saturday, 11/19/16 12:00nn)
SUMMARY:
Those embarking on academic careers must master the art of writing proposals for research funding. Whether you are conducting research for a dissertation or book or seeking support for a special project-locating and securing funding is critical. This workshop will provide expert guidelines on how to write compelling proposals from the initial phrasing of the research question, step by step, to the research outcomes, significance, dissemination, and public outreach. It will also address such issues as identifying and working with funding agencies, effectively communicating research methodology and goals, preparing budgets, and planning for the dissemination of results.
Presiding: The workshop will be led by Suad Joseph, Professor of Anthropology and Women and Gender Studies, University of California at Davis.
50 YEARS AGO: THE 1967 WAR’S IMPACT ON ARAB AMERICANS AND ARABS IN AMERICA (Sunday, 11/20/16 8:00am)
SUMMARY
This panel will explore how the 1967 June War impacted the lives and identities of Arab-Americans, Arabs and non-Arab identified organizations in the U.S. from the late 1960s into the 1970s. We will bring together scholars of modern history and cultural studies from a variety of institutions to discuss the impact the war in the Middle East had on Americans, recent Arab immigrants and Arab Americans, some of whom had been living in the U.S. for generations. This panel sets out to create a conversation on the evolution of perceptions of Arabs in the U.S. and on the ripple effects of the war on people as well as emerging and existent institutions.
Chair: Evelyn Alsultany
Presenters:
- Remembering the 1967 War: transnational politics, memory and identity by Randa Kayyali
- Transnational Alliances: The AAUG’s Advocacy for Palestine and the Third World by Suraya Khan
- From 1967 to Operation Boulder: The Erosion of Arab Americans’ Civil Liberties in the 1970s by Pamela Pennock
- A Widening Circle: Arab American and Non-Arab-Identified Activist Groups, 1967-1980 by Salim Yaqoub
Previous AASA Panels/Roundtables at MESA:
- MESA 2015: November 21-24, 2015, Denver, CO:
- Ethnic Minority or White? Social and Economic Lives of Arab Americans, November 22, 2015, 11:00 AM.
- Arabs in the U.S. Census, November 22, 2015, 4:30 PM
- MESA 2014: November 22-25, 2014, Washington, DC:
- Insiders/Outsiders: Arab American Transnational Engagements, Tensions, and Identities. November 23, 2014, 8:30 AM.
- Contested Voices: Gender, Narrative, and Subversion in Arab American Women’s Writing. November 24, 2014, 8:30 AM.
- MESA 2013: October 10-13, 2013, New Orleans, LA: AASA held its Business Meeting on October 10, 2013.
- MESA 2012: November 12-20, 2012, Denver, CO:
- Arab American Studies at the Crossroads (panel).
- Sources and Resources for Middle Eastern American Studies (panel).
- The Current State of Arab American Studies from Graduate Student Perspectives (roundtable).
