ors students and am arranging for themto have the opportunity to discuss is-sues and ideas with students fromBirzeit University.

Excerpt from“Widening the Lens:Thechallenge of higher ed in the WestBank” in The Mankato Free Press,May 29, 2011.

“Our group visited five university cam-puses in the West Bank. During eachvisit, we received campus tours fromstudents or public relations officialsprior to meetings with faculty and ad-ministration for the rest of the day. Aswe walked around the campuses andlistened to the faculty, two points be-came increasingly clear. The conflict isnever very far from the minds of thosewho work and study on the campuses,

and Palestinians who serve in highereducation have a patient hope thattheir work will bring about a better,more prosperous and peaceful futurefor all.

Professors prepare for their semestersknowing that their courses might be in-terrupted. Blockades or strikes some-times halt classes, and checkpoints closewithout warning. Staff at Hebron Uni-versity, to the south of Bethlehem,

PARCPARCPALESTINIAN AMERICAN RESEARCH CENTER

Promoting Palestinian Studies andScholarly Exchange on Palestinian Issues

Fall 2011 • Volume 13, Issue One

A ME M B E R O F T H E CO U N C I L O F AM E R I C A N OV E R S E A S RE S E A R C H CE N T E R S

Reflections on the 2012Faculty Development Seminar

Please RENEWyour PARCmembership today and consider a donationto support scholarship on Palestine. (See back page for details.)

continued on page 4

TheManara Square in Ramallah

cerpts from some of their published ar-ticles, reports on their ongoing workand connections, and reflections ontheir experiences.

Chris Corley

In addition to several articles that Iwrote for the local newspaper while onmy trip, I’ve given talks at a local histor-ical society and a church, and havemore scheduled in January. In June,Minnesota State Mankato hosted theDean of Birzeit University’s Faculty ofNursing and Allied Health Professionsfor a two-day visit to discuss collabora-tion. I am teaching a one-credit seminaron the conflict this semester to our hon-

In late May of this year, PARC had theprivilege of leading 10 U.S. facultymembers on our second Faculty Devel-opment Seminar (FDS). Funded entirelyfrom private donations specifically forthe FDS, our donors demonstrated theirdeep commitment to this activity asparticularly valuable to continue. Onlyone of the FDS professors had traveledto Palestine before. They came to meetwith colleagues at five Palestinian uni-versities; tour the old cities of Jerusalem,Nablus and Hebron; participate in aroundtable discussion with Palestinianscholars; and visit several PalestinianNGOs, ranging from a research center toa music school. What follows are ex-

PARC/IJS roundtable

Around the PARCBy PenelopeMitchell, Executive Director

As most of you know by now, May brought a funding crisis toPARC in the form of the U.S. Department of Education’s cance-lation of its American Overseas Research Centers program. Thisprogram represented the entirety of our funding for our Pales-tine office, as well as support for other vital U.S. activities, suchas thewebsite and this newsletter. I amdelighted to report thatPARC supporters have rallied in terms of advocating on our be-

half and contributing many generous donations. We have been working hard atfundraising for the last several months and are hope that our efforts will be suc-cessful. Your continued support is deeply appreciated.

Due to funding uncertainty in May, we decided to postpone issuing our Springnewsletter. With adequate funds now in place for the newsletters, we wanted you toreceiveour Fall issue in time tobenefit fromourMESAhighlights.The“Spring”issuewillbemailed inmid-December.

Despite these obstacles, there is also good news. This is a banner year for PARC fel-lowships with 21 fellows for 2011. Eleven of the fellows are from Palestine, thanksto notable funding that we received from Palestinian institutions and individualdonors committed to supporting Palestinian fellowships. Ten fellows are from theUnited States, funded by the U.S. Department of State’s Educational and CulturalAffairs Bureau, a long-time supporter of PARC.We have fourteenwomen and sevenmen. Among these fellows, there are fifteen doctoral candidates and six post-doc-toral scholars. In addition to doctoral students and facultymembers from an-Najah,Bethlehem, Al Quds, and the Islamic University of Gaza, Hebrew and Tel Aviv uni-versities are represented. There are nine U.S. universities, three in England, and evenone in New Zealand among the fellows’home institutions. This demonstrates quitea remarkable scope for PARC. The fields of study reflect a wide variety of interests,including research in anthropology, history, political science, education, media, ge-ography, business, urban planning, social work and sociology. Additionally, we havethree Palestinian researchers focusing their studies on hypertension, a serious andgrowing health problem in Palestine. This issue includes profiles for 10 of our 2011fellows. The remaining profiles will appear in the Spring 2012 issue.

In addition to these research fellowships, thanks to thegenerosityof Phil Schrodt, PARCwasable toconfer twoGernerawards this year toPalestinianmaster’sdegree students.

We are pleased to announce four competitions for this year. In addition to our U.S.and Palestinian research fellowship programs, we are delighted to announce a newGettyResearchExchangeFellowshipProgram for theMediterraneanBasin andMid-dle East that concentrates on art history with programs in Algeria and Turkey.We arealso committed to offering our third annual Faculty Development Seminar in 2012,pending secure funding for this critical program.

TheU.S. professorswho joinedour secondFacultyDevelopmentSeminaroffer theirreflections on their experiences in this issue. Their writings attest to the powerfullytransformativenatureof this trip and its significance for increasing interest andknowl-edge about Palestine amongU.S. facultymembers.

We look forward to seeing many of you at the annual meeting of theMiddle EastStudies Association inWashington, D.C., December 1-4. PARC’s panel this year,“The-orizing the Palestinian Colonial: Segregation and Subjects,” brings five Palestinianwomen to deliver their papers on Friday at 4:30 PM. Immediately following the panel,we welcome all of you to join us from 6:30 to 7:00 PM in the same room as our paneltomeet andnetworkwith scholars interested inPalestine.Thoughour scarcity of fundsprevents us from being able to offer food and drink, we look forward to much cama-raderie and hope youwill be there to demonstrate your support for PARC. A guide topanels and presentations on Palestine, as well as a listing of PARC fellows and boardmembers delivering papers on other subjects, appear elsewhere in this issue.

2

2011 PARC Board of DirectorsOfficers

Najwa al-Qattan, PresidentJulie Peteet, SecretaryKimberly Katz, Treasurer

MembersBeshara DoumaniNathan BrownRochelle Davis

Dina Rizk KhouryAnn M. Lesch

Zachary LockmanLoren LybargerPhilip Mattar

Jennifer OlmstedSusan SlyomovicsCharles D. Smith

Palestine Advisory BoardMkhaimar Abusada, Chair

Najwa Rizkallah-Khader, TreasurerAkram Daoud

Anita Vitullo KhouryMohammed al-Mbaid

Mouin RabbaniMira Rizek

Nadim N. RouhanaSabri Saidam

Jacqueline Sfeir

U.S. OfficePenelope Mitchell, Executive Director

Basma Gutherie, Administrative AssistantShelby Kinnaird,Webmaster

6520 E. Halbert Rd.Bethesda, MD 20817-5414Phone: 301-229-4606

E-mail: us.parc@gmail.comWeb Site: http://www.parc-us-pal.org

Palestine OfficeHadeel Qazzaz, Palestine Director

Zena Erikat, Administrative AssistantSally Abu Bakr, Librarian

6 Tel al-Zaatar St.3rd Floor, Al Amin Building

Ramallah,West Bank, PalestinePhone: +970-2-297-4240E-mail: parcpal@palnet.com

Palestinian AmericanResearch Center Newsletter

Fall 2011Editorial CommitteePenelope MitchellBasma GuthrieCharles D. Smith

Morris Cobern, EditorRoss Feldner, New Age Graphics, Design & Layout

This newsletter is published twice yearly, spring and fall, by thePalestinian American Research Center. Material for publication inthe newslettermay be submitted to the U.S.office. PARC does notguarantee that any materials submitted will be published in itsnewsletter or in any other publication under its control. Publica-tion by PARCwill be determined solely by its officers and directorson a space-available basis.

Our Palestine Advisory Board wel-comes sevennewmembers toourboardof ten, infusing the board with renewedenergy and commitment to PARC. Weheld the newboard’s firstmeeting at ourRamallah office in May and are gratefulfor the service of these distinguishedscholars andprofessionals. A full listingofourAdvisory Boardmembers is foundonpage 2. Their full biographies will beposted on our website soon.

PARCwelcomesournewadministrativeassistant, Basma Guthrie, who is in her

first year of the ArabStudies M.A. pro-gramatGeorgetownUniversity. Basmagraduated fromSmithCollegewith aB.A. in anthropologyand a concentration

in African studies and development. Sheacquired her Arabic nickname, whichmeans “smile,”while studying in Tunisia.Sheworked inAmmanwhere she taughtatAMIDEASTand laterwaswith the com-munications office of theNGOCoordina-tionCommittee for Iraq. Last summer, shewas with PARC’s sister center in Amman,the American Center of Oriental Re-search, where she helped organize theCritical Language Scholarship program.Basma’s academic focus lies in the trans-formation of colonial legacies, particu-larly in occupied Palestine and Iraq.Currently, she is researching the interna-tional Boycott, Divestment, Sanctionsmovement. She looks forward to assist-ing PARC in enriching and supportingPalestinian studies.

Hopefully you have recently visited thePARC website and seen our newJerusalem Archives. Philip Mattar, whohas shepherded this project since its in-ception, presents anarticle in this issuede-scribing PARC’s annotated listing of manyof the rich archival resources in Jerusalem.

Recently PARC completed a survey of 22Palestinian, Western, and Israeli archivesand libraries in Jerusalem that have hold-ings covering Palestine and the Palestini-ans. The survey includes the generalholdings of each institution, as well aspractical data such as each institution’saccessibility, contacts, location, andhours of operation. You may access theJerusalem archives and libraries on ourwebsite at this address: http://parc-us-pal.org/resources/jerusalemArchives.htm.

Jerusalem is rich in archives with valu-able material that documents the longhistory of the city, Palestine, and thePalestinians, for whom the city was theadministrative capital for most of Pales-tine for centuries. Jerusalem was hometo major institutions—such as Shari’acourts and churches, as well as family li-braries—that housed valuable recordsof the city’s religious, political, and sociallife. Yet researchers interested in Pales-tine and the Palestinians might notknow of the existence of these archivesand libraries, nor about their contentsand accessibility. Consistentwith PARC’smission to promote Palestinian studies,PARC applied for and received a grantfrom theU.S. Department of Education’sTechnological Innovation and Coopera-tion for Foreign InformationAccess (TIC-FIA) program through the AmericanInstitute for Yemeni Studies (AIYS) andthe Council of American Overseas Re-search Centers (CAORC) to survey thearchives and libraries in East Jerusalem,while the Albright Institute surveyedthose inWest Jerusalem.The projectwastitled Local Archives and Libraries atOverseas Research Centers (LALORC)and was under the larger rubric of theDigital Library for International Researchhttp://www.dlir.org.

But which institutions to survey? Forthat, we were guided by a group ofPalestinian scholars who held a work-shop inMay 2004 in Ramallah.Thework-shop was chaired by Ibrahim Dakkakand included George Hintilian, PennyJohnson, Adel Manna’, Issam Nassar,Khader Salameh, Salim Tamari, andNazmi Jubeh. These scholars identifiedmost of the institutions that were even-tually surveyed. Under the direction of

PenelopeMitchell (PARC’s U.S. ExecutiveDirector) and Hadeel Qazzaz (PARC’sPalestine Director), two workshop par-ticipants—Khader Salameh (Director ofthe Islamic Museum and al-Aqsa Li-brary), Nazmi Jubeh (professor at BirzeitUniversity and co-director of al-RiwaqCenter), with the addition of RandaKamal (Librarian at al-Quds Univer-sity)—undertook the survey.While serv-ing the need of the overall projectcoordinated by Diane Ryan, PARC alsoadapted the survey for the needs ofPARC and its website. What we wantedwas not just an overviewof each institu-tion’s holdings, but practical data aswell:names, addresses, hours of operation,accessibility to researchers, internet ac-cess, availability of faxmachines, and thelike. The raw data and the various formsof transliteration had to be heavily ed-ited and systematized, all under the ca-pable leadership of Penelope Mitchell,working with Abbie Taylor. This entireproject, consuming amajor expenditureof time, was an admirable team effort ofdedicated people primarily at CAORC,AIYS, PARC USA, and PARC Palestine, towhomwe are most grateful.

I always considered this project as part ofa larger one. My dream since we first es-tablished PARC in 1998 was to constructan indispensible website that wouldserve the needs of scholars interested inresearch on Palestine and the Palestini-ans. So far, we at PARChave put togetheroneof thebest annotatedbibliographiesand chronologies on the Palestiniansanywhere. The survey of archives and li-braries is part of this overall effort. Even-tually I hope thePARC surveywill includeinformation not just from 22 libraries inJerusalem, but also from other parts ofPalestine and those in Israel, the Arabworld, Europe (especially theUK), and theUnited States.With this resource, anyonewanting towrite about Palestine and thePalestinianswould have the opportunityto view thegeneral contents andaccessi-bility of these institutions before startingthis journey.Ultimately,withprimaryma-terial on thePalestiniansmore accessible,scholarswill bebetter able tounderstandPalestinian social, historical, cultural andpolitical environments.

3

Around the PARC

Basma Guthrie

Jerusalem Archives and Libraries ProjectBy Philip MattarA founder and Boardmember of PARC

4

claimed that Israeli authorities culledthrough their library book orders. Me-morials to students killed in the conflictsit near the center ofmany campuses. Inthis context, pursuing a university edu-cation takes on layers of meanings thatgo unnoticed in more serene surround-ings. Themes of emancipation and free-dom are woven into courses in diversedisciplines, and students are encour-aged to think independently aboutidentifying problems and posing solu-tions for them. Professors describedhow

courses that explored different culturesand places allow the students to seetheir own situation in a broader context,and gave them hope that they could beagents of change for their own lives...This message of persistence and hopewas repeated among the faculty at uni-versities throughout our visit. As awhole, faculty and administrators seethemselves as “building capacity” for abetter Palestine, regardless of the spe-cific political solutions that develop. Al-though many faculty hold Ph.D.s frominternational institutions, building aconsistent research agenda is very diffi-cult because the scholars are relativelyisolated, mobility is limited and fundingis scarce for such endeavors. A lack of re-search capacitymeans that Palestinewill

have to look elsewhere for innovationsrather than developing them at home.

Faculty and student exchanges remaindifficult. All of the universities are mov-ing toward developing further interna-tional exposure for their students andfaculty, but the more serious problemslie with visitors coming to the WestBank. With the exception of a programor two, only European universities sendvisiting students and faculty in consis-tent numbers. Few Americans visit andstudy in theWest Bank, which is whywecame. Meeting potential partners andlearning about their institutions occu-pied our main business activities each

day. Although some lifelong profes-sional and institutional relationshipsmay emerge, it seemed to me thatmany faculty were happy to have us lis-ten, to understand their stories fromtheir perspective. In the end, that maybe the most important outcome of all.”

Christopher Lee

Excerpt from “Beyond the madrasaparadigm” in Foreign Policy, June 16,2011

“... the most significant quality amongthese schools is the level of active in-vestment being made into their pro-grams and infrastructure. With theexception of Hebron, each of these uni-versities is attracting donations through

a method that would be familiar tomany university presidents in theUnited States. To walk across the cam-pus of Birzeit is to see newbuildings en-cased in modern architectural featuresof glass and stonework, with the namesof prominent donors inscribed acrossthe front. These donors are mostlyPalestinian, with many having earnedtheir considerable wealth working inthe Persian Gulf, an economic conse-quence of the diaspora created throughyears of conflict and displacement...

Yet, as with many aspects of life withintheWest Bank, vulnerabilities and gen-eral uncertainty remain. Despite invest-ment in infrastructure, endowmentsappear to be next to nothing, with tu-ition allocations providing much of theincome for annual budgets. More sig-nificant, these universities have notbeen immune to the ongoing politicalsituation. Students face recurring diffi-culties with commuting to schoolthrough roadblocks and checkpoints.During the brief Israeli invasion of Beth-lehem in 2001, two buildings on theuniversity campus were hit by missilestrikes.

The larger point to be made, though, isthat, despite such setbacks, enrollmentcontinues, a reflection of the impor-tance of education and, indeed, its val-ued portability for a people that hasfaced the predicament of displacementfor six decades.”

JessWhite

Through participation in the Faculty De-velopment Seminar, I was able to en-gage with perspectives from theacademic world that would usually notbe as accessible through other political

Reflections on the 2012 FacultyDevelopment Seminar(continued from page 1)

Jerusalemwith guideMahmoud Jadeh

Al-Kamandjti with Ramzi Aburedwanand PARC fellow Nili Belkind

5

continued on page 11

or solidarity activities. As a professor ofanthropology, I am concernedwith howstudents gain their knowledge, andhow it is applied to real-world settings.Being able to speak with students andfaculty at the institutions in the WestBank has providedme great insight intothe role that we all have to play in en-suring that our next generation of lead-ers, be they American or Palestinian,have access to and experience with aneducational system that is nurturing,stimulating, and productive.

What I witnessed in looking at the chal-lenges Palestinian students faceseemed unreal: evidence of bombblasts and bullet barrages in campusbuildings; libraries that are unable toprocure some of the basic textbooks forsubjects because they must meet therestrictions of Israeli occupation poli-cies; students literally unable to reachcampuses due to roadblocks and mili-tary checkpoints; portions of the“Secu-rity Barrier” (née,Wall) running throughcampus grounds; Israeli watchtowersmonitoring campus activity and move-ment; and student body leaders beingharassed, arrested, and jailed indefi-nitely. Yet students continue to attendand excel at universities. I am inspiredby the attitude of Palestinian faculty asthey attempt to balance the socialchaos caused by the continued Israelioccupation with the expression of re-silience by a population who demandto continue living. I bring these storiesback to our own students through myteaching in the areas of cultural anthro-pology and regional studies. Addition-ally, I am in the final stages ofcompleting a peer-reviewed publica-tion on economic adaptation by Pales-tinian women, and have additional

projects ready to start. I will be return-ing to the West Bank in the next 12months to continue my work on eco-nomic development, women’s empow-erment, and peace building and hopeto continue to foster the relationshipsthat were started during the FDS.

John Ferré

The Issues Class at a church in Louisvilleinvited me to speak about my trip toEast Jerusalem and the West Bank lastMay. I began by saying that I would notpropose a way through the stalledpeace process in Israel and the occu-pied Palestinian territories.“If I had a so-lution,” I said,“I would be giving this talkin Stockholm, not in Louisville.” Then Iproceeded to share what I saw andheard on PARC’s Faculty DevelopmentSeminar on Palestine. I told them aboutthe settlements. I explained how Israel’srelentless expansion into theWest Bankand East Jerusalem displaces Palestini-ans, impedes commerce, and makes amockery of claims to peacemaking. Ishowed photographs of refugee camps,enclaves that crowd increasing num-bers of Palestinians into grim and un-safe structures. I described thefrustration of chemists at Birzeit Univer-sity who cannot obtain most chemicalsand much technology for their labora-tories. I also relayed the pride of thewomen’s cooperative that took firstplace in an international competitionfor the couscous they produced. And I

recalled the music school that addsbeauty to the lives of children growingup under military occupation in Pales-tinian villages and refugee camps.

The talk highlightedwhat I witnessed onthe PARC trip to the occupied Palestin-ian territories: ongoing Israeli expansion,contradicting hopes for a negotiatedend to the occupation, as well as hospi-tality, pride, hope, and frustration on thepart of Palestinians. If there was an ob-ject lesson for me, it occurred at theGolden Walls Hotel in East Jerusalemwhere we stayed. One night as weprocessed what we had learned thatday, English pilgrims began a sing-a-long, accompanied by the upright pianoin the lobby. They sang “Daisy Bell” and“It’s a LongWay toTipperary,”songs pop-ular even before the British Mandate inPalestine, songs that expressed the pil-

Al-Amari refugee camp

The wall in Bethlehem

Lunch with Hebron University ChairmanNabil Al-Jabari

6

Substantial socioeconomic and demographic changes havetaken place in countries of the Eastern Mediterranean regionover thepast twodecades.Thepopulationof this regionhas al-most doubled, more people are living to an older age, and theproportionof theurbanpopulation is increasing.The transitionfroma rural to urban lifestyle is associatedwithdeterioration inthe cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk profile becauseof adversechanges in dietary habits and patterns of physical activity.

Several lines of evidence suggest that hypertension and itscomplications are amajor health problem in Palestine. The in-cidence of blood pressure-related clinical events, such as my-ocardial infarction, stroke, andend-stage renal disease, appearsto bedramatically increasing.Vital statistics, such as cause-spe-cific mortality and hospitalization discharge diagnoses, alongwith clinical observations support this notion.The prevalence,awareness, treatment, and control of hypertension have notyet been carefully studied in the West Bank. Maher Khdour’sproject has the following objectives: (1) to determine theprevalence of hypertension and blood pressure-related pre-

clinical and clinical complications in Palestinian adults, (2) toidentify environmental factors associated with high bloodpressure, and (3) to build an infrastructure for research and ed-ucation on cardiovascular disease prevention in Palestine.

Three Palestinian communities in Nablus (Northern WestBank), Ramallah (Central West Bank) and Hebron (SouthernWest Bank) will be surveyed between May and September2011. Urban and rural communities will be included in thesurvey. A stratified sampling method will be used to select anationally representative sample of the general population,ages 20 to 75 years, to identify people who are hypertensive(i.e., those with systolic pressure ≥ 140 mm Hg and/or dias-tolic pressure ≥ 90mmHg). Medication utilization, control ofhypertension, complications, and awareness related to hy-pertension will be identified and documented.

Khdour will develop a database from his study that can pro-vide relevant information to scientists, medical providers, andpublic health communities in the West Bank. He intends topublish and disseminate the results from this study to providea keydata sourceunderpinningmedical practices in the areaofhypertension management. His research will also provide thescientific basis for launchingnational initiatives focusingon theprevention of blood pressure-related clinical complications inPalestinian adults. Additionally, Khdour’s research has the po-tential to serve as a valuable model for future surveys of hy-pertension andother chronic diseases in developing countries.

Dr. Maher Khdour is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Phar-macy and Practice at Al-Quds University. Hemay be reachedatmaher.khdour@gmail.com.

2011-2012 FeLLowS’ PRoFILeS

Maher KhdourPrevalence, Awareness,Treatment, and Controlof Hypertension in thePalestinian Population

The early onset of obesity and elevated blood pressure haspotential public health affects because it is associated withthe development of cardiovascular diseases, hyperlipidemia,and diabetesmellitus. The prevalence of pediatric primary hy-pertension and obesity in developing countries has increasedover the last three decades. However, thesemajor health con-cerns remain largely understudied, under-diagnosed, andunder-treated. Yasin Tayem’s study explores the relationshipbetween high blood pressure, obesity, and a family history of

hypertension among Palestinian adolescents. This is likely tobe the first study investigating thismajor health issue amongyouth in theWest Bank.

This cross-sectional, school-based study targets 400 ran-domly selected boys and girls aged 14 to 18 years from fourpublic and private schools in Bethany andAbuDis,West Bank.Tayem will collect data concerning the body mass index(BMI), blood pressure, and family history of hypertension foreach individual in the sample. Studentswill be considered hy-pertensive or obese if their blood pressure or BMI exceed theninety-fifth percentile for their respective age and gender.

An understanding of the correlates of early hypertensionwillhelp identify risk factors occurring at a young age and guidethe development of pediatric programs focusing on hyper-tension and obesity prevention in Palestine.

Yasin Tayem is an Assistant Professor of Pharmacology at Al-Quds University School of Medicine. He may be reached atyasin.tayem@gmail.com.

Yasin TayemCorrelates of Hypertensionamong Adolescents in

theWest Bank

7

Hypertension remains an important public health challengeand one of themost important risk factors for coronary heartdisease, stroke, heart failure, and end-stage renal disease.Lowering blood pressure with antihypertensive drugs re-duces the risks of cardiovascular events, stroke, and totalmor-tality. However, poor adherence to antihypertensivemedications reduces their effectiveness and increases the riskof adverse events and health care costs. Hypertension and itscomplications are very common among the elderly in Pales-tine. Rowa Al-Ramahi’s study aims to measure adherence toantihypertensive therapy in a representative sample of thehypertensive Palestinian population, and investigate factors

associated with adherence and non-compliance in the stud-ied population.

The study will be a questionnaire-based, cross-sectional de-scriptive study. It will be undertaken at a group of outpatienthypertension clinics of theMinistry of Health, in addition to agroup of private clinics and pharmacies in theWest Bank. Re-searchers will ask patients who visit the selected clinics andpharmacies andmeet the study’s inclusion criteria to answerthe questionnaire. Statistical analyses will be performed onthe ensuing data.

Studies on patient compliancewithmedications are very lim-ited in Palestine. It is likely that this will be the first study to in-vestigate the rate of medication adherence and the factorsassociatedwith non-compliance in a representative sample ofhypertensive patients from theWest Bank.This studywill helppolicymakers in Palestine design and implement health edu-cation strategies to reduce non-compliance, and thus con-tribute toward reducing national health care expenditures.

Rowa’Al-Ramahi is anAssistant Professor in the Faculty ofMed-icineandHealthSciences,Departmentof Pharmacyat an-NajahUniversity. Shemay be reached at rowa_ramahi@yahoo.com.

Rowa’ Al-RamahiFactors AssociatedwithAdherence toMedicationsamong Hypertensive

Patients: A Survey Studyin Palestine

actual demands of themarket. Shahwan’s informal meetingsand encounters with both alumni and companymanagers in-dicate a lack of what is scientifically referred to as“content va-lidity” between the curriculum of business faculties andmarket needs. Shahwan feels that the issue requires furtherinvestigationwith thorough field research that considers theopinions of both company managers and a large sample ofbusiness graduates who work in the Palestinian private sec-tor. Shahwan’s research design adopts a descriptive analyticapproach and the methodology includes empirical data col-lection techniques of structured questionnaires and in-depthinterviews, preceded by focus groups conducted for the pur-pose of gaining more insight into the problem.

The findings will have significant implications for designingbusiness curricula in Palestinian universities, which normallyadopt, without modification, curriculum used in more ad-vanced, industrial countries. If the research results confirmthe main hypothesis of the study, then Palestinian universi-ties should start addressing the matter in earnest to buildmore solid bridges between the academic and business com-munities. Educational and private sector partnerships of thisnature remain a cornerstone of any sound policy for eco-nomic development.

Usamah Shahwan is an Associate Professor of Business Ad-ministration at Bethlehem University. He may be reached atusamas@bethlehem.edu.

Usamah ShahwanCompatibility of BusinessCurriculum at PalestinianUniversities with ActualDemands of the LocalMarket, as Perceived byBusiness Graduates andPrivate Sector Managers

With the rate of unemployment among Palestinian youthreaching 20 percent in theWest Bank and 30 percent in Gazaaccording to the latest statistics published by the PalestinianCentral Bureau of Statistics, job creation has become a chal-lenge of paramount importance for policy-makers in the oc-cupied Palestinian territories. Unemployment has been amajor cause for the emigration of large numbers of Palestin-ian university graduates in recent years, resulting in the seri-ous depletion of skilled human resources. Usamah Shahwanbelieves that local universities, and particularly the faculties ofbusiness administration that graduate hundreds of studentseach year, are partly responsible for the problem.

Many business graduates find that the skills that they acquirethrough their college education are not congruent with the

2011-2012 FeLLowS’ PRoFILeS

8

Ryvka Barnard’s research focuses on the practices, politics,and meanings of contemporary tourism in the PalestinianWest Bank city of Bethlehem.Through ethnographic research,including interviews with diverse participants in the Pales-tinian and Israeli tourism industries, she explores the ways inwhich tourism in Bethlehem operates, and particularly theways in which narratives about the city are developed as re-flections of political circumstances.

Tourism provides a lens through which important political in-sights can be gained by critically viewing what is often other-wise seen as an arena of simply cultural or economic concern.There is ample data available on tourism statistics, and pro-jected outcomes of investment in tourism in Bethlehem. How-ever, there is a gap in research focusing on the material anddiscursive production of tourism as an economic industry andas apedagogical space throughwhichnarratives of history andheritage are shaped, promoted, andoftentimes changed to ac-count for dynamic political and social realities.

Throughher research, Barnardwill try to fill this gapby studyingstreet-leveloperationsof the tourism industry inBethlehem.Shealso will explore the role that tourism has played in diplomaticnegotiations with Israel, as well as development projects un-dertakenby the PalestinianAuthority and international donors.

Ryvka Barnard is a doctoral candidate at NewYork Universityin the department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies. Shemay be reached at ryvka@nyu.edu.

Ryvka M. BarnardTourism in Bethlehem:

The Politics ofRepresentation

versity EFL writers have no person to turn to when producingacademic written work, other than their writing teachers.

With the objective to render an in-depth depiction of EFLwrit-ing teachers’beliefs andpractices and their impact on their stu-dents’ perception, Alzaanin’s study adopts a qualitative designwithin the paradigm of social constructivism and the traditionof grounded theory. In-depthqualitative interviews, classroomobservations, anddocument analysiswill beused to collect thedata. The data will then be rigorously analyzed through a sys-tematic process of coding, categorization, and theoretical de-velopment to produce findings that are grounded in teachers’personal comments and lived experiences.

In addition to contributing to an increasing volume of scholar-shipon studies of teachers’beliefs, Alzaanin’s studywill addressa gap in the literature relating to the context of less developed,non-Western countries, where teachers are non-native speak-ers of the target language and teach large classes of learnerswithmixedabilities/levels.Todate, EFLwriting research inPales-tine has focused on issues related to students’ linguistic prob-lems with writing or on the relationship between writing andreading. Studying teachers’beliefs andpracticesmayhelp raiseteachers’ awareness of limits in their current knowledge andpromote self-reflection about their teaching methods. Finally,Alzaanin hopes her study may stimulate similar work that caninform educators, policy makers, and other stakeholders andprovide a basis for improving education in Palestine.

Eman Alzaanin is a doctoral candidate in education atVictoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. She may bereached at ezaanin@yahoo.com.

eman AlzaaninThe Interplay amongPalestinian EFLWritingInstructors’ Beliefs,

Practices and Context andtheir Impacts on Students

Eman Alzaanin’s study investigates Palestinian English lan-guage teachers’beliefs about approaches to teachingwritingin English as a foreign language (EFL) classes and the impactof these beliefs on their classroom practices. This study willalso include the students’ perceptions of their teachers’ in-structional approaches, which is important in light of the con-sensus in ESL/EFL research literature that teachers’beliefs havea critical impact on the way they teach in the classroom.

In addition to determining grades on tests and research pa-pers, writing also provides a tool for supporting and extend-ing students’ learning of content material. After graduation,writing is considered anessential skill for employment andpro-motion, especially for jobswith international organizations andgovernmental agencieswhere employees are expected to cre-ate clearly written documents, technical reports, and emails.Another motive for conducting this research is that teachingand learning EFLwriting are demanding and challenging tasks.Being in a non-English speaking environment, Palestinian uni-

9

movement, and socialization from the governmental leveldown to the grassroots. Toufic Haddad’s research delineatesthe specific architecture and practices of the neoliberal con-flict resolution and state building agenda by exploring poli-cies and projects where the exogenous and endogenoustrajectories meet. Moreover, this research analyzes how thebalance of forces within Palestinian society and politics is in-fluenced by this agenda and its respective agents, transform-ing economic realities, social relations, and political ideas.

Haddad’s research will employ a macroeconomic approach,concentrating on the overall patterns to emerge from ne-oliberalism’s praxis across various sectors of the political, so-cial, and economic fabric of Palestinian life in the oPt. WhileHaddad’s approach is rooted in political economy, he willcomparemainstream theories, policies, and practices with re-ality on the ground.

This research will contribute new insights about the particu-lar architecture, tools, mechanisms, and features of contem-porary neoliberal conflict resolution/state building praxis.More specifically, Haddadwill examine towhat extent effortsaimed at reconstituting a newPalestinian social order and po-litical reality were successful, and shed light upon the role ofthe state and social engineering practices in theworld today,and particularly within colonial contexts.

Toufic Haddad is a doctoral candidate in the School of Orien-tal and African Studies (SOAS) in London. Hemay be reachedat 298377@soas.ac.uk.

Toufic HaddadPolitical Economy of

Neoliberal InternationalApproaches to Conflict

Resolution, State Buildingand Development in theOccupied Palestinian

Territories, 1993 - Present

Contemporary neoliberal development praxis of Westerndonor governments and international financial institutions ispremised upon the assumption that economic and politicalliberalization is the winning formula for achieving sustainedeconomic and social development. In the context of the oc-cupied Palestinian territories (oPt), the lack of statehood andthe persistence of the national liberationmodality havemeantthat the very instruments for leveraging any kind of macro-developmental approach have always been in non-Palestin-ian hands. The neoliberal agenda purports to support thecreation of a Palestinian state, albeit in its own image. Exoge-nous efforts for state building dovetail with the endogenousimpetus of the PLO leadership, influencing or recreating pre-existingmodes of social, economic, and political conduct, to-gether with their affiliated circuits and patterns of exchange,

the British colonial administration in Palestine that introducedits own distinct ideas about religious education and the com-munities that imparted it.

Schneider’s project advances the theoretical proposition thata comparative study of Arab and Jewish Modernism can behistorically substantiated by examining the role of religiouseducation within the matrix of national reform projects. Shealso aims to bridge the gap between opposing narratives:social change among subaltern peoples conceptualized asthe result of an organically generated internal process, ver-sus the process of reform viewed as externalmanipulation byEuropean power.

Schneider hopes that her research will demonstrate howreligious education operates as a major factor that positionsJewish and Islamic Modernism in Palestine as parallel, notsimply rival, movements. Schneider believes that this per-spective is key to understanding the limits of the colo-nizer/colonized binary that is often applied to the roots of theIsraeli-Palestinian conflict, and as such, can help inform at-tempts to bring about its resolution.

Suzanne Schneider is a doctoral candidate at Columbia Univer-sity. Shemay be reached at sls2001@columbia.edu.

Suzanne SchneiderReligious Educationin British Mandatory

Palestine

SuzanneSchneider’s researchexplores thedynamicsof religiouseducation among Jewish and Muslim communities in Manda-toryPalestine. Identifiedbynationalists and reformers across thecolonialworld as a crucial component of identity formation, ed-ucation representedanexplosive fieldof confrontationbetweencompeting forces over the right to define its proper structure,content, and purpose. Despite their differences, Schneider ar-gues, Jewish and Islamic Moderist movements sharedmany ofthe same anxieties and singled out education as the leadingagent of social change. Both viewed their efforts as libera-tionist vis-à-vis the political, economic, and cultural power ofChristian Europe on one hand, and the traditional religiousorder on the other. These movements came face-to-face with

10

continued on page 13

The fabric and order of the old town of Nablus, which con-tains many buildings of cultural, religious and historic sig-nificance, has alwaysmaintained a certain archaic simplicity.The old town has the flexibility to incorporate both the phys-ical needs of its current inhabitants and the historical, social,and cultural past of their ancestors. Furthermore, SaheraBleibleh argues, the actual structure of the old town providesa critical dimension of its resilience to withstand continuousIsraeli occupation.

Bleibleh’s research focuses on the relationships between so-cial and political products of space and the processes of itsproduction and operation in order to study and conceptual-ize the different layers embeddedwithin: (1) the everyday liv-ing experiences and practices under Israeli occupation, (2)the Israeli military invasion of the old town of Nablus in 2002,(3) the spatial consequences of damages to the old town afterthe 2002 invasion, and (4) the dynamics of relations between

people and institutions involved in repairing damages afterthe 2002 invasion.

The responsive ways in which everyday patterns of living inthe old town of Nablus adapted to socio-economic needs,particularly in a time of rapid political change, is a phenome-non that deserves scholars’attention. Bleibleh’s research takesinto consideration how residents in the old town of Nablusinteracted and transformed the space, mainly in response todestruction caused by Israeli military operations and the Is-raeli occupation. She also focuses on local people’s and insti-tutions’ construction projects in the old town, where theybuilt a space of resilience despite oppression. Bleibleh’sethnographic research aims to document this phenomenonusing descriptive, investigative, and interpretive approaches.Shewill conduct her fieldwork using participant observation,interviews, mapping, photographs, narratives, and literature.

Understanding the old town’s everyday dynamic strengths inresponse to military occupation will make it possible forurban planners to learn more about grassroots planningprocesses, thus enabling urban planning institutions andother parties to propose more effective ways to address theneeds of residents who live in a constant state of uncertainty.Bleibleh’s study will document not only Israeli strategies ofoppression in the space of the old town, but alsowill proposeplanning policies and interventions to deal with this reality.

Sahera Bleibleh is a doctoral candidate in Urban Design andPlanning at the University ofWashington, Seattle. She can bereached at bleibleh@uw.edu.

Sahera BleiblehEveryday Life:

Spatial Oppraessionand Resilience under theIsraeli Occupation: TheCase of the Old Town of

Nablus, Palestine

Over the last twenty years, the Naqab Bedouin have been cre-ating ‘new knowledge’ about their community by collectingstatistics, recording local socio-economic conditions, andremapping their geographical presence in the region.This‘newknowledge’ has resulted in greater regional and internationalrecognition of the Bedouin, yet Emilie Le Febvre suggests thata significant andunexplored aspect of this enterprise is howvi-sualmaterials are usedbyBedouin, their unique techniques forappropriating them, and the issues of contention surroundingimage-based representations andauthority in their community.

Le Febvre’s research will document how Bedouin engage vi-sual materials by investigating social practices associatedwith the collection of historical photographs and productionof contemporary indigenous media. Her fieldwork employsmethods such as interviews, historiographical surveys,photo/film elicitation, and participant observation to exam-ine diverging visual knowledge claims in the Naqab. She willbegin by surveying the display of archival photos that holdparticular significance for community members in venuessuch as guest reception areas, community centers, and localmuseums. She suggests that one of most powerful sites forprojecting Bedouin identity is the selection and display ofphotographs in public spaces. The second part of her studyinvestigates the production of indigenous media by Pales-tinian Bedouin and their engagement with local media out-lets, photographers, and film producers. It specificallyfocuses on the making of documentaries about PalestinianBedouin society.

Le Febvre contends that the rereading and creation of visualimages has become a highly contested, political activity that

emilie Le FebvreThe Production of VisualKnowledge in the Naqab:Palestinian BedouinEngagement with theVisual Archive andIndigenous Media

2011-2012 FeLLowS’ PRoFILeS

11

grims’sentimentalism aswell as their ap-parent obliviousness to the oppressionexperienced by Palestinians who live inoccupied East Jerusalem. Witnessingthis disheartening experience remindedme that travelers often see only whatthey expect to see before they leavehome, a common scenario that thePARC seminar challenged.

Denise DeGarmo

The trip afforded me first-hand experi-ence with the politics of occupation.Being able to speak with scholars andsee the variousways in which the Israeligovernment uses“occupation”to annexdesired territories and control peoplecannot be understood from thewesternnarrative. Therefore, this experiencehelped me to create a more objectivenarrative to present to the public in myregion. I have made several presenta-tions to the local community includinga community center, a women’s organi-zation, and my university.

I will be presenting a conference paperentitled “Defying Rules of Conflict Res-olution: The Case of the Palestinian-Is-raeli Conflict” at the InternationalStudies Association - Midwest Confer-ence in November and at the MidwestPolitical Science Association Conferencein March. Furthermore, I will return to

Reflections on the 2012 FacultyDevelopment Seminar(continued from page 5)

Nablus with Naseer Arafat

an-Najah University

2011 Faculty DevelopmentSeminar Participants

Afshan BokhariAssistant Professor of Art HistorySuffolk University

Craig CampbellAssociate Professor of Public

Safety ManagementSt. Edward’s University

Chris CorleyHonors Program Director and

Associate Professor of HistoryMinnesota State University,

Mankato

Denise DeGarmoAssociate Professor and ChairDepartment of Political Science:

International Relations andPeace Studies

Southern Illinois University

John FerréProfessor of Communication

and Associate Dean of Artsand Sciences

University of Louisville

Persis KarimAssociate ProfessorDepartment of English and

Comparative LiteratureSan Jose State University

Elizabeth KolskyAssociate Professor of HistoryVillanova University

Christopher LeeAssistant Professor of African

HistoryUniversity of North Carolina

JessWhiteAssistant Professor of

AnthropologyWestern Illinois University

Charles ZernerProfessor of Environmental StudiesSarah Lawrence College

continued on page 12

Palestine in July 2012 to continue re-search with the Applied Research Insti-tute - Jerusalem and Al Quds University.

Craig Campbell

I have been in plenty of prisons and jailsin my life, working for a state depart-ment of corrections, serving six years asthe director of a county jail. My impres-sions fromwhat I sawonour trip are thattheWest Bank is a prison. I was most in-spired to see the people who practicenon-violent resistance every day. I wasinspired by the struggles of the facultyand students to pursue their education.

Persis Karim

Since returning from the FDS seminar inthe West Bank, I’ve grown more con-vinced that telling the stories ofwhatwewitnessed, experienced, andheard is themost important tool we have as educa-tors. When I returned, I called Amy Ka-plan, one of last year’s FDS participants,to talk about potential collaborations. I

12

told her that I was having trouble pro-cessingwhat I saw now that I was homebecause I could not believe the condi-tions in which Palestinians were teach-ing, working, and simply living. Shecommented back something that I haverepeated many times since: “When yougo to Palestine, you cannot believewhatyou are seeing. But once you have seenit, you really cannot believe it.”

I have spent much of the fall semestergiving talks at my university and atclasses of colleagues at other universi-ties, where I show my slides and tellsome of the stories of daily life that I wit-nessed and heard. I’ve been moved bypeople’s response tome, not because ofme, but because of their desire to knowandunderstand, and their willingness toentertain a truth that has not been pre-sented to thembefore: that the occupa-tion undermines the rights andexistence of both Israelis and Palestini-ans and is a historical tragedy that wecannot afford to ignore. In addition tomy own talk “Occupied Minds: Life andEducation underOccupation in theWestBank,”I’ve also helpedbring a few speak-ers to my campus. We invited an Israelipeace activist and co-founder of theSheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement (aPh.D. student in urban history at UCBerkeley), to come to our campus. Shemade compelling arguments for whythis occupation is untenable. I am cur-rently working on curating a specialissue of World Literature Today “Writingin State of Conflict” that will include anarticle by one of our colleagues at AlQuds University, about Palestinian liter-ature under occupation. I’ve tried towrite and speak wherever I can, and amwriting poetry about the intensely beau-tiful and generous spirit I encounteredamong Palestinians. I’ve also tried to re-member how it is that people continueto find hope, so that theywill not be bro-ken. The checkpoint stories I collectedare a reminder. I’m grateful for the FDSexperience and the ways it made whatwas an intellectual interest a passion forsocial justice andhuman rights that I feelevenmore committed to than before.

Reflections on the 2012 FacultyDevelopment Seminar(continued from page 11)

Thanks to the generosity of PhilSchrodt, PARC conferred two Gernerawards this year: one in the West Bankat Hebron University and one in Gaza atal-Azhar University. This is the firstaward to be conferred at Hebron andthe second at al-Azhar. The award com-memorates the life of beloved PARCboardmember Deborah“Misty”Gerner.Since PARC’s support is largely at thedoctoral and post-doctoral level, we areparticularly pleased tooffer these encourag-ing andmuch appreci-ated awards formaster’s level study inPalestine. Both Gernerawardees this year areolder students who,having done well intheir first degrees, pur-sued careers as teach-ers before theydecided to return touniversity to study fortheir master’s degrees.

Mohammad MuntherAlsharabati was bornin Hebron where hestill lives. He obtainedhis B.A. in History fromHebron University,later joined the Min-istry of Education, andcurrently teaches his-tory and civic educa-tion. During his career,hemaintained his pur-suit of further academic study and par-ticipated in training courses as well asactivities he designed to involve his stu-dents in civic education. In one of hisprojects, he encouraged his students toresearch and lobby against air pollutionfrom car exhaust in their town. Hejoined Hebron University again in 2009to pursue an M.A. in history. Alshara-bati’s goal is to improve his capacity asan historian and teacher. He conductedresearch on “The Movement of Fakharal-Din al-Ma’ani 1585-1635” and “ThePolitical Thought of Gamal Abdel-

Two Gerner Awards for 2011Nasser.”Currently he is finishing hisM.A.thesis on “U.S. policies related to Pales-tinian refugees from 1948 to1960,” fo-cusing on Truman and Eisenhower erapolicies.

Mariam Mozayen is from Gaza andstudies at al-Azhar University. Excellingat both school and university, Mozayenworked as a teacher for 13 years andthen as a head teacher for another

three years, before shedecided to further herown studies. As awoman activist, shehas a long history ofinvolvement with civilsociety as amember ofthe General Union ofPalestinian Womenand participated inmany other women’sorganizations. Her ac-tivism led her to studyat Al-Quds Open Uni-versity for her first de-gree. Joining the M.A.program in MiddleEastern politics at al-Azhar University in2009, hermain interestis women’s politicalparticipation and theirsocial and politicalagency. Her thesis titleis “Social and politicaldiscourse for Palestin-ian women in the GazaStrip, 1994-2010: Ananalytical review of

the Palestinian women’s movement.” Inaddition to reviewing the theoreticalbackground of the Palestinian women’smovement, she also examines howwomen’s discourse is implemented ona practical level. She is interviewingwomen’s organizations and their con-stituents in Gaza to trace the connec-tion between theory and practice.Mozayen is praised by her professorsfor her dedication and commitment toher studies and for her insightful analy-sis of sensitive issues in the Palestiniancontext.

Mohammad MuntherAlsharabati

MiriamMozayen

13

The Palestinian American Research Center (PARC) an-nounces its 13th annual competition for post-doctoraland doctoral research fellowships in Palestinian studies.

Important information about the fellowship competition:

• Research must contribute to Palestinian studies. Anyarea of Palestinian studies will be considered, includingthe humanities, social sciences, economics, law, healthand science. Purely scientific research is not eligible forthis fellowship competition.

• Research must take place in Palestine, Israel, Jordan, orLebanon.

• PARC funding is for one year only.

• Applicants must be post-doctoral scholars, establishedresearchers, or full-time doctoral students enrolled in arecognized degree program. Doctoral students musthave fulfilled all preliminary requirements for the doc-torate degree except the dissertation by the time theresearch commences. The fellowship will not cover tu-ition fees. Senior researchers without doctorates butwith a record of academic publication are eligible. Ap-plicants with a master’s degree may only apply jointlywith a post-doctoral scholar.

• Applicants must be U.S. citizens. Permanent residentsare not eligible.

• Applicants must be PARCmembers. See the PARCweb-site for membership information.

• Individual and joint research projects are eligible.

• Former PARC fellows who received grants in the lastthree years are not eligible to apply.

• Applications from women are especially encouraged.

In addition to sending all applicationmaterials by email tous.parc@gmail.com,applicantsmust send four copiesof thefull application (except for letters of recommendation) to:

PARCPenelope Mitchell, Executive Director,6520 East Halbert RoadBethesda, MD 20817-5414

For more information on PARC, PARC membership, andthe application process, go to http://parc-us-pal.org/ orcontact us at us.parc@gmail.com.

Palestinians who are not U.S. citizens should direct in-quiries to: Dr. Hadeel Qazzaz, Palestine Director, at parc-pal@gmail.com. Palestinian applicants must submit apreproposal to PARC’s Palestine office byOctober 25, 2011.

Funded by the U.S. Department of State’s Educational andCultural Affairs Bureau throughanagreementwith CAORC.

PARC 2012-13 Fellowship Competition for U.S. ScholarsConducting Field-Based Research on Palestine

Fellowship awards from $6,000 to $10,000Full proposals due January 12, 2012Awards announced March 12, 2012

2011-2012 Fellowships(continued from page 9)

Palestinian Bedouin communitymembers use as evidence forcompeting histories, status, and identities in the Naqab. Ad-ditionally, visual knowledge is increasingly appropriated byvarious Bedouin sectors in order to push different agendas,compete for socio-political power, and legitimize control overlocal and regional resources in light of the Bedouin’s ongo-ing marginalization by Israel.

Le Febvre’s work supports past anthropological research doc-

umenting the ways in which communities locate and dissem-inate their histories and contemporary experiences in theMid-dle East. Her project sets out to highlight how visual imagescontribute to these processes with particular attention to un-derstanding how marginalized people like the PalestinianBedouin of the Naqab desert use this visual material toreassert cultural identities and localizedhistories and to record,mediate and understand their past and present narratives.

Emilie Le Febvre is a doctoral candidate at the University ofOxford in the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology.She may be reached at emilielefebvre@hotmail.com.

14

MeSA HIGHLIGHTS

MeSA 2011 ConferenceDecember 1-4-Marriott wardman Park-washington, DC

We have compiled two lists of MESA highlights: one list in-cludes conference sessions andpresentations related to Pales-tine; a second list shows current and past PARC fellows, boardmembers, and directors presenting on topics not related toPalestinian studies. An asterisk (*) by a name indicates a pastor current PARC fellow, board member, or director.

MeSA Conference SessionsRelated to Palestinian StudiesSESSION I: THURSDAY, DEC. 1, 5PM-7PM

(2645) Grassroots Syria: New Insights into ContemporarySociety, Politics and Economics

Erik Mohns (U of Southern Denmark) Representations of Nationnessamong Palestinians in the ‘Yarmouk Camp’ of Damascus

(2961) Thematic Discussion: Rethinking Palestine/Israelthrough the Arts

Organized by Nadia G. YaqubSession Leader: Nadia G. Yaqub (UNC Chapel Hill)

Najat Rahman (U of Montreal)Nasrin Himada (Concordia U)Ella Shohat (NewYork U)Gil Hochberg (UCLA)Amal Amireh (George Mason U)

SESSION II: FRIDAY, DEC. 2, 8:30AM-10:30AM

(2893) On the Margin of the State: Alternative NationalismLucy Chester (U of Colorado) ‘Palestinian Pakistans’: Arab and IndianMuslim Views on Partition in South Asia and the Palestine Mandate

(2806) Constituting Subjects: Subjectivity and Subject-Making in the Anthropology of the MENA Region

Khaled Furani* (Tel-Aviv U) Palestinian Subjectivities in Anthropology

(2910) Vice in the Modern Middle EastHaggai Ram (Ben Gurion U) A Social History of Hashish in Israel-Palestinefrom the 1920s to the Present

(2914) Mandate Palestine: Memory, Media, and MedicineChair:Michael Bracy (Oklahoma State)

Aida Essaid (U of Jordan) Colonial-Settler Methods of LandAcquisition in British Mandate PalestineAndrea L. Stanton (U of Denver) Shortages and Expenditures:ManagingMusic andMusicians on the Palestine Broadcasting ServiceShay Hazkani (NewYork U) The 1948War from Below: Reflections ofArab Soldiers and Palestinian SpectatorsAnatMooreville (UCLA) The ‘War Against Trachoma’: ColonialOphthalmology inMandate PalestineMark Sanagan (McGill U) ‘Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Remembered?

SESSION III: FRIDAY, DEC. 2, 11AM-1PM

(2598) Israel’s Peace-Making Challenges in 2011Organized by Robert O. FreedmanSponsored by the Association for Israel Studies

Chair/Discussant: Robert O. Freedman (Johns Hopkins U)Laurie Zittrain Eisenber (Carnegie Mellon U) and Neil Caplan(Concordia U, Montreal) Personality and Peace-Making: Case Studiesfrom the Arab-Israeli ConflictIlan Peleg (Lafeyette Col)Will the Real Bibi Please Stand Up?: Under-standing Netanyahu’s Policies on the Israeli-Palestinian Peace ProcessEyal Zisser (Tel Aviv U) Israel and the ArabWorldUzi Rabi (Tel Aviv U) Israel and the Changing GeopoliticalCircumstances of theMiddle East

(2738) Memory Matters: Anthropology in the Middle EastChairs:Aseel Sawalha (FordhamU) and LuciaVolk (San Francisco State U)Discussant: Susan Slyomovics* (UCLA)

Rochelle A. Davis* (Georgetown U) Palestinian Posters: RevolutionaryRemixes and Visual RememberingsLucia Volk (San Francisco State U)Memories of Massacres: LocatingNational Narratives in Lebanon’s MarginsNadia Latif* (Bard Col) Recounting and Omitting, Remembering andForgetting: Nationalist Narratives of the Nakba and Palestinian CampRefugeeMemory in Lebanon

(2799) The Politics of NewMedia in the Middle EastOrganized by Rebecca Luna Stein*Chair: Ted Swedenburg (U of Arkansas)Discussant:Melani McAlister (GeorgeWashington U)

Amahl Bishara* (Tufts U) Community NewsWebsites and PoliticalCommunication among Palestinians across the Green LineRebecca Luna Stein* (Duke U) YouTube Occupations: NewMedia andthe Israeli State

SESSION IV: FRIDAY, DEC. 2, 2PM-4 PM

(2892) Privatization and the Private Sector in the Middle EastChair: SebnemGumuscu (Yale U)

Diana Greenwald (U of Michigan) Building a StateWhile SpendingLess: National Identity and Bureaucratic Reform in the PalestinianTerritoriesMaya Rosenfeld (Hebrew U)World Bank Dictates, Public SectorRetrenchment and Rising Unemployment among University Graduatesin the Occupied Palestinian Territories

PLEASE JOIN US FORThe PARC-sponsored panel on Friday, December 2,4:30-6:30 pm entitled“Theorizing the Palestinian Colo-nial: Segregation and Subjects.”

A PARC gathering to network with scholars interestedin Palestine and show support for PARC. Immediatelyfollowing the PARC panel and in the same room onDecember 2 from 6:30 PM to 7:00 PM.

It is also worthy of note that Georgetown University’sCenter for Contemporary Arab Studies will hold areception to honor its cofounder and former director,Dr. Michael Hudson, on Saturday, December 3, from8:30-10 pm in Delaware A (L).

15

(2920) Intersecting Identities: Jewish, Arab, and MuslimChair: Howard Eissenstat (St. Lawrence U)

Drew Paul (UT Austin) Crossing Over: Return as Displacement inPalestinian Narratives of ExileRachel Levine (UT Austin) Samir Naqqash, Trauma, and Arab-JewishCultural Memory

(2611) Islamic Law and ColonialismIris Agmon (Ben Gurion U) Colonialism and the Sharia Courts inPre-Mandate Palestine, 1917-1922

(2624) Brokering Peace in the Middle EastOrganized by Noa SchonmannDiscussant: Neil Caplan (Concordia U, Montreal)

Marwa Daoudy (U of Oxford) Negotiating to Avoid Settlement?Hilde HenriksenWaage (U of Oslo) Norway-Champions of Peace?Tools inWhose Hands?: Norwegians and Peace-Broking in theMiddleEastShelley Deane (Bowdoin Col) Compass or RelativeWind: NavigatingIsraeli Third Party NegotiationsNoa Schonmann (U of Oxford) An Actor in Search of a Role: Turkeyand the Arab-Israeli Peace Process

(2671) Ottoman Identity, Part II (15-17th C.): MilitaryConquest State toWorld Empire

Amy Singer (Tel Aviv U)Making JerusalemOttomanNadia G. Yaqub (UNC Chapel Hill) A Case Study of Cultural Communitiesof Politics and Freedom: Annemarie Jacir’s ‘Salt of this Sea’

SESSIONV: FRIDAY, DEC. 2, 4:30PM-6:30PM

(2642) Anthropological Approaches to Gender, War &Displacement in the Middle East

Organized by Nadje Al-AliSponsored by the Association for Middle EastWomen’s StudiesChair:Nadje Al-Ali (SOAS, U of London)Discussant: Frances S. Hasso* (Duke U)

Sophie Richter-Devroe (U of Exeter) Between ‘Normality’ and‘Normalisation’: PalestinianWomen’s Everyday ResistanceKatherine Natanel (SOAS, U of London) ‘The Privilege to Feel ItWhenWeWant To’: Gender and Political Apathy in IsraelRuba Salih (SOAS, U of London) PalestinianWomen andIntergenerational Narratives on Displacement and Return

SESSIONVII: SATURDAY, DEC. 3, 8:30AM-10:30 AM

(2737) Anthropological Approaches to Queer and SexualityStudies in the Middle East and North Africa

Jason Ritchie (Bucknell U) Suffering Nations/Suffering Queers: QueerPalestinians, the Politics of Affect, and theWill to Survive

(2778) The ‘Humanitarian’Present in Israel/Palestine:Forensic Architecture, Estrangement and Lawfare

Organized by Lisa HajjarChair: SalimTamari* (Inst of Jerusalem Studies)

Nasser Abourahme (Palestinian Inst for the Study of Democracy)Spectres of Estrangement: The ‘Ungovernable’ Camp and the Figure ofthe ‘Irreconcilable’ RefugeeEyalWeizman (Goldsmiths, U of London) Forensic Architecture andthe Politics of War Crime InvestigationLisaHajjar (UCSB) Israel/Palestine as a 21st Century Lawfare Laboratory

(2888) Transnational Schooling in the Middle East andBeyond

Louise A. Cainkar (Marquette U) ‘Half/Half’: The Experiences ofPalestinian American Teens Brought Back ‘Home’ for High School

SESSIONVIII: SATURDAY, DEC. 3, 11AM-1PM

(2696) Anthropology of MasculinitiesSylvain Perdigon* (Johns Hopkins U) Sexual Honor, Masculinity, Ethicsin the Palestinian Community of Tyre, Lebanon

(2623) Colonial Rule and Its Fissures: Arabs under the IsraeliMilitary Government (1948-1966)

Organized by Seraj Assi and Arnon DeganiChair: Liat Kozma (Hebrew U, Jerusalem)Discussant: Shira Robinson* (GeorgeWashington U)

Leena Dallasheh* (NewYork U) TheMilitary Government andMunicipal Elections in NazarethSeraj Assi (Georgetown U) The Quest for Identity: Arabs in Israelunder theMilitary Rule (1948-66)Arnon Degani (UCLA) Colonial Agency: TheWeakness of the IsraeliMilitary Government as Power

(2679) Examining Environments: New Themes in theEnvironmental Anthropology of the Middle East

Emily McKee (U of Michigan) Clinging through Land: Culture and thePolitics of Belonging in the Negev/Naqab

DON’TMISS THE PARC PANELOrganized by Rochelle A. Davis* (Georgetown U)Sponsored by the Palestinian American ResearchCenter and Mada Al-Carmel (Arab Center for AppliedSocial Research)

SESSIONV: FRIDAY, DEC. 2, 4:30PM-6:30PM

(2682) Theorizing the Palestinian Colonial: Segregationand Subjects

Chair: Penny Johnson* (Birzeit U)Discussant: Jennifer Olmsted* (Drew U)

Penny Johnson* (Birzeit U) ‘Strange to Palestinian Society’:Young People’s Talk about Urfi Marriage, Moral Dangers andthe Colonial PresentAitemadMuhanna (SOAS, U of London) Israeli SpatialControl, Women’s Reliance on Humanitarian Aid and theDistortion of Gendered Subjects in GazaNadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian (Mada al-Carmel - Haifa)Trapped Bodies, Confined Lives and the Politics ofEverydaynessLenaMeari (UC Davis) Re-structuring the Self and Politics:The Experience of Palestinian Political Activists underInterrogationHadeel Qazzaz* (Palestinian American Research Center)‘The Ultimate Frontier’? Cyberspace Defies Isolationand Closure

continued on page 16

16

(2836) Palestine Now: Solidarity and Self Determination inthe Post-Oslo Context

Organized by Salah D. HassanChair: Chris Toensing (MERIP)

Sherene Seikaly* (American U in Cairo) Solidarity after the RevolutionSalah D. Hassan (Michigan State U) Internationalizing GazaNoura Erakat (Georgetown U) Palestinian Representation, Diaspora,and BDSThomas Abowd* (Tufts U) The Politics and Principles of North Ameri-can Cultural Boycotts: An Historical Comparison between Contempo-rary Israel and Apartheid South Africa

SESSION XI: SUNDAY, DEC. 4, 8:30AM-10:30AM

(2896) Displacement: Refugee Communities in the MiddleEast

Mezna Qato* (St. Antony’s Col, Oxford) Socialization and Surveillance:Refugees in the Hashemite Classroom (1948-1959)May Farah (NewYork U) Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon: LivesWorthy ofLiving

(2925) Literature and Authority in Early and Classical IslamDaniella Talmon-Heller (Ben-Gurion U of the Negev) Bonding withBilad Al-Sham: The Familiarization and Sanctification of Palestine

(2941) Non-State Actors in Israel-PalestineBarakMendelsohn (Haverford Col) Ideological Entrepreneurs and Chal-lenged State Authority: The Israeli State and Violent Jewish Non-State Ac-torsItzchakWeismann (Haifa U) Preaching and Politics in the Islamic Move-ment in IsraelHarel Chorev (Tel Aviv U) Changes in the Status of West Bank Elite Fami-lies: The Network of the Al-Masri Family

SESSION XII: SUNDAY, DEC. 4, 11AM-1PM

(2631) Media Personalities and the Makings of PublicSpheres in the Middle East

Sune Haugbolle (Copenhagen U) Art, Iconicity, andMass Mediation: AComparative Analysis of Ziad Al-Rahbani and Naji Al-Ali

(2933) Activism in the NewMedia AgeMaia Carter Hallward* (Kennesaw State U) Exploring theMechanismsof the BDSMovement against Israeli Occupation

(2947) Neutralizing the Arab Israeli ConflictChair: Zaha Bustami

Eulalia Han (Griffith U, Australia) Australia’s Policy on the Israel-Pales-tine Peace Process: Influences and ImplicationsCanOzcan (U of Utah) Turkey’s International Mediation Efforts in Syr-ian-Israeli and Palestinian-Israeli Conflicts since 2002: Impact of Impar-tiality of theMediator on theMediation Outcomes

MeSA HIGHLIGHTSSESSION IX: SATURDAY, DEC. 3, 2:30PM-4:30PM

(2639) Maps, Borders, and Spatial Perceptions in theArab-Israeli Conflict

Organized by Asher KaufmanChair: Asher Kaufman (U of Notre Dame)

Asher Kaufman (U of Notre Dame) Between Sealed and PermeableBorders: The Trans-Arabian Pipeline and the Arab-Israeli ConflictKaren Culcasi (West Virginia U) Geopolitics and Cartography in the‘Arab Homeland’Christine Leuenberger (Cornell U)MakingMaps andMaking Statesin Palestine/IsraelEfrat Ben Zeev (Ruppin Academic Ctr) Elusive Boundaries: CognitiveMaps of Palestinians and Jews in Israel Today

(2874) Anthropology (of Sound) in the Middle East andNorth Africa: A NewMillennium, Part I

Organized by Deborah A. KapchanChair: Deborah A. Kapchan (NewYork U)

Galeet Dardashti (Purchase Col SUNY) Listening for ‘Peace’:Middle EasternMusic in Israel during the 2000sAmyHorowitz (Ohio State U) Scholarly Compositions:Writing acrossSound Barriers and Resolutions in Israel-PalestineTed Swedenburg (U of Arkansas) The Sounds of Palestinian Rap andAlgerian Rai

(2938) Lebanon and the UN Special Tribunal: BalancingJustice and Stability

Omri Nir (Hebrew U of Jerusalem) Sectarian Politics in Lebanon: AnObstacle or an Encouraging Factor for Inter-Community CooperationAhmedDardir (Columbia U) Homo Sacer: Nahr Al Bared, the SacredCampDaliaMikdahi (American U of Beirut) Lebanese Views on Palestinian-Rights in Lebanon: A Recipe for Economic and Political Instabilities

SESSION X: SATURDAY, DEC. 3, 5PM-7PM

(2612) Coming of Age: Rethinking Youth and Childhood inthe Middle East and North Africa

Aomar Boum (U of Arizona) ‘Net-Intifada’: Moroccan Youth, Cyberspaces,and the Palestinian Conflict

(2725) Rethinking Public Violence in Modern MiddleEastern Cities

Roberto Mazza (Western Illinois U) Re-Shaping the Holy City: The NebiMusa Riots in 1920

(2747)Why is Arabic ‘Untranslatable?’Organized by Dima Ayoub

Sabah Fatima Haider (Independent Scholar) The Translatability ofLanguage, Themes and Aesthetics of Resistance in Films of the ‘Pales-tinian NewWave’Najat Rahman (U of Montreal) ‘TranslatingWaves into Language’:Suheir Hammad’s Breaking Poems

Alumni Updates and Final Report SynopsesAll PARC fellows are invited to submit their news for the Spring 2012 newsletter. Please send information on promo-tions, new positions, publications, conferences, etc.We also invite you to submit a synopsis of your final report for thenewsletter. We look forward to hearing from you! Please send all information to us.parc@gmail.com

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Avi Raz (U of Oxford) The Phone Call Israel Dreaded: King Hussein’sPeace Initiative, July 1967AaronY. Zelin (Brandeis U) The Neglected Duty and Sadat’s Assassi-nation, a 30 Year Retrospective

SESSION XIII: SUNDAY, DEC. 4, 1:30PM-3:30PM

Miriyam Aouragh (Oxford Internet Inst) Challenges of Palestinian InternetActivism

Conference Sessions Not Related toPalestinian Studies with PARC Fellowsor Board Members

SESSION III: FRIDAY, DEC. 2, 11AM-1PM

(2620) Thematic Conversation: Disciplining a Religious/Secular Divide

Participant: Loren Lybarger* (Ohio U)

(2738) A-ME Session: Memory Matters: Anthropology in theMiddle East

Discussant: Susan Slyomovics* (UCLA)

SESSION IV: FRIDAY, DEC. 2, 2PM-4 PM

(2628) Rethinking Communism and Anti-Colonial Strugglesin the Middle East

Chair: Zachary Lockman* (NewYork U)

SESSIONV: FRIDAY, DEC. 2, 4:30PM-6:30PM

(2909) Constructing Collective IdentitiesKimberly Katz* (Towson U)Whose Historic Monuments?: RestoringQayrawan during the French Protectorate

SESSIONVII: SATURDAY, DEC. 3, 8:30AM-10:30 AM

(2844) Change and Continuity in Middle East PoliticsWendy Pearlman* (Northwestern U) Emigration and Power: The Case of

Lebanon

(2700) Between Law and State: The Politics of Acting-Up inthe Middle East

Chair: Zachary Lockman* (NewYork U)

(2761) New Perspectives onWomen,Work, and Islam fromRecent FieldWork

Jennifer Olmsted* (Drew U) Unraveling the Gender/Poverty/Employment Puzzle in the ArabWorld

SESSIONVIII: SATURDAY, DEC. 3, 11AM-1PM

(2833) Gender Quotas in the ArabWorld: Political and SocialImplications

Chair and Discussant: Laurie Brand* (U of Southern California)

SESSION IX: SATURDAY, DEC. 3, 2:30PM-4:30PM

(2765) The Gulf across East andWest: Charting GCC andIranian Inter-Asian Relations

Fred H. Lawson* (Mills Col) Deciphering China’s Relations with the Gulf:Old Assumptions, New Initiative

SESSION X: SATURDAY, DEC. 3, 5PM-7PM

(2798) The Collateral Effects of the Syro-Lebanese PoliticalCrisis Post 2005: Army, Non-state Actors, and ExternalMeddlers

Chair: Fred H. Lawson* (Mills Col)

SESSION XII: SUNDAY, DEC. 4, 11AM-1PM

(2932) Change and Continuity in State-Society RelationsChair: Fred H. Lawson* (Mills Col)

(2912) Constructing Nationalism and Narrating the Nation:Turkey and North Africa

Laurie Brand* (U of Southern California) National Narrative and Reli-gion: The Case of Algeria

SESSION XIII: SUNDAY, DEC. 4, 1:30PM-3:30PM

(2637) Roundtable: Thinking beyond Cooptation andResistance in Authoritarian States: Iraq, Bulgaria andStalinist Soviet Union

Chair: Dina Rizk Khoury* (GeorgeWashington U)

PARC Membership RenewalPARC appreciates the many institutional and individual members who have taken the time to renew their member-ships. If your membership has lapsed, you are receiving this newsletter as a courtesy. Please fill out the membershipcoupon and send it inwith your payment. Any donations above the basicmembership cost help to fundmuch neededresearch fellowships.

PARC is grateful for your continuing support.

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PARC U.S. Faculty DevelopmentSeminar on Palestine

May 17-28, 2012 in Jerusalem and the west BankApplication deadline: February 1, 2012

Award notification: March 20, 2012

PARC announces its third Faculty DevelopmentSeminar on Palestine. This 12-day seminar is for U.S.faculty members with a demonstrated interest in,but little travel experience to, Palestine. PARCwill se-lect 10 to 12 U.S. faculty members to participate inJerusalem-based activities that will include lectures,workshops and visits to local universities and otherrelated institutions in theWest Bank. Through theseactivities, participants will learn about the region,deepen their knowledge of their particular fields ofinterest as they relate to Palestine, and build rela-tionships with Palestinian academic colleagues.

Applicants must:

• Be U.S. citizens.

• Be full-time facultymembers at recognizedU.S. col-leges or universities. Applicants may come fromany academic discipline, including the humanities,social sciences, economics, law, health, and science.

• Have a demonstrated interest in Palestine.

• Have little travel experience to Palestine.

• Be willing to integrate their experiences from theseminar into their own teaching and/or pursue ajoint research project or publication with a Pales-tinian colleague.

• Be a member of PARC.

PARC will make all arrangements for seminars, work-shops, tours andmeetingswith Palestinian academiccolleagues. PARC will also make arrangements andcover all expenses for in-country groupground travel,accommodations, andgroupmeals. Personal and freeday expenseswill be the responsibility of each facultymember. Facultymembers will need to provide theirown international airfare. In cases of need, PARC willconsider partial funding for international travel. Formore information about this program, please visitPARC on theWeb at http://parc-us-pal.org or send anemail to us.parc@gmail.com. (Program contingentupon funding.)

PARC Panel at MeSA 2011:Theorizing the Palestinian Colonial:Segregation and SubjectsMuch scholarly and popular attention has focused on theme-chanics of Israel’s regime of spatial control and segregationand the direct effects of violence and insecurity on Palestin-ian individuals and communities. Less attention, however, hasbeen paid to how segregation and the struggle over spacecontribute to producing, transforming or distorting subjec-tivities, socialities, social and gender relations, and roles andcultural practices and ideologies among Palestinians in his-toric Palestine. This panel will explore key and contested shiftsin subjects and sites in the colonial presence in Palestine. Thedynamics of increased social isolation and the shrinking ofcollectivities in an age of virtual space and the wide circula-tion of ideas will also be taken into account.

There has long been an attempt in colonial studies to theorizehow race, class, and gender intersect. The panel will explorethis intersectionality by looking closely at these policies andpractices of segregation and exclusion, and their social andcultural effects. How is segregation raced, gendered andclassed? Are new forms of social and cultural practices andrelations in Palestinian communities—sometimes groupedas “growing conservatism” and often expressed in genderedterms—related to regimes of exclusion and segregation, aswell as to regional influences? Are there counter-practicesand discourses? Through exploring these interrelated ques-tions, this panel hopes tomove beyondmodels that considersegregation as a separate system of oppression and to askhow such systems reflect, contribute to, or sustain colonial-ism. The panel will include the following papers:

Re-structuring theSelf andPolitics: TheExperienceof Pales-tinian Political Activists Under Interrogation Lena Meari,Ph.D. candidate, Department of Anthropology, University ofCalifornia, Davis and faculty member, Institute of Women’sStudies, Birzeit University

Trapped Bodies, Confined Lives and the Politics of Every-dayness Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, Institute of Criminol-ogy, Faculty of Law& School of SocialWork and SocialWelfareat Hebrew University, and Gender Studies Program Director,Mada al-Carmel

‘Strange to Palestinian Society:’ Young People Talk AboutUrfiMarriage,Moral Crimesand theColonial PresentPennyJohnson, Institute ofWomen’s Studies, Birzeit University

‘The Ultimate Frontier:’ Cyber space defies isolation andclosureHadeel Qazzaz, Palestinian American Research Center

Israeli Spatial Control,Women’s Reliance onHumanitarianAid, and the Distortion of Gendered Subjects in GazaAitemad Muhanna, Research Fellow, School of Oriental andAfrican Studies, London

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The Council of American Overseas Research Centers(CAORC) is pleased to announce the Getty Research Ex-change Fellowship Program. The fellowship program isopen to scholars in participating countries* who have al-ready obtained a Ph.D. or have professional experience inthe field of art history and who wish to undertake a spe-cific research project in Algeria or Turkey related to theseminar theme: Art and Archaeology of the Sacred (Alge-ria) or Vision and Visual Culture in Byzantium (Turkey).

Funded by the Getty Foundation, the fellowship includesa travel and living expense stipend of $7,500. The fellow-ship tenure will be June 9 to July 16, 2012, including anopening and closing seminar. Fellows will be required toconduct their research during this time period.

Palestinian scholars must apply through PalestinianAmerican Research Center (PARC). Final award selectionwill be conducted by CAORC. Notification of fellowshipstatus will be made available to each applicant via emailby April 16, 2012.

* Participating countries include: Afghanistan, Algeria,Bulgaria, Cyprus, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Iraq, Israel, Jordan,Morocco, Palestine, Tunisia, Turkey, and Yemen. Pleasenote: Algerian scholars may apply only for the fellowshipin Turkey and Turkish scholars may apply only for the fel-lowship in Algeria.

Application Deadline: January 5, 2012For details and application, please see http://parc-us-pal.org (Getty fellowships page) or caorc.org/programs

Art and Archaeology of the Sacredoran, Algeria9 June-16 July 2012Fellows should plan to arrive in Oran no later than 9 June2012 and depart no earlier than 16 July 2012. The fel-lowship tenure is comprised of three sections:

1. Opening Seminar, 10-11 June 2012: Fellowswill gatherwith scholars from the Algerian academic communityat an opening seminar.

2. Independent Research, 12 June - 14 July 2012: Fellowswill conduct independent research as described intheir application. Research projects should relate to theseminar theme of Art and Archaeology of the Sacred.

3. Closing Seminar: 15 July 2012: Fellows will reconveneto share the preliminary findings from their research.

Vision and Visual Culture in ByzantiumIstanbul,Turkey9 June-16 July 2012Byzantiumwas a profoundly visual culture, which has leftus some of the singular monuments from the history ofart and architecture, such as Hagia Sophia or the ChoraMonastery. The purpose of the seminar is to investigateways of looking and ways of seeing Byzantine art and ar-chitecture - that is, learning to“read”themonumentswiththe samenuance and insight a philologist would apply toa text. This may encompass several approaches, such asrecreating the cultural context in which the monumentor imagewas constructed or experienced; understandingthe dynamic relationship of a painted ormosaic programand its architectural setting; interrogating the science ofvision itself, as the Byzantines understood it; or contem-plating the relationship of the cognitive visual process tospiritual understanding.

Fellows should plan to arrive in Istanbul no later than 9June 2012 and depart no earlier than 16 July 2012. Thefellowship tenure is comprised of three sections:

1. Opening Seminar, 10-11 June 2012: Fellowswill gatherwith scholars from theTurkish academic community atan opening seminar.

2. Independent Research, 12 June - 14 July 2012: Fellowswill conduct independent research as described in theirapplication. Research projects should relate to the sem-inar theme of Vision and Visual Culture in Byzantium.

3. Closing Seminar: 15 July 2012: Fellows will reconveneto share the preliminary findings from their research.

2012 Getty Research exchange Fellowship Programfor the Mediterranean Basin and Middle east

9 June-16 July 2012

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PARC Membership RenewalPARC appreciates themany institutional and individualmemberswhohave taken the time to renew theirmem-berships. If your membership has lapsed, you are receiving this newsletter as a courtesy. Please fill out themembership coupon and send it in with your payment. Any donations above the basicmembership cost helpto fundmuch needed research fellowships. PARC is grateful for your continuing support.

You may join, renew and contribute to PARCin two ways:

1. Via ourWeb site: http://www.parc-us-pal.org using PayPal or a credit card or;

2. By completing this form, making a checkpayable to PARC and mailing them to:

PARC c/o Penelope Mitchell6520 E. Halbert RoadBethesda, MD 20817-5414

PARC is a private, nonprofit educationalresearch institute, registered in the UnitedStates as a tax-exempt 501(c)3 organization.

� Palestine Institutional Member $50

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(PARC publishes the names of all individualand institutional members and donors inour Spring newsletter.)

Membership Level:� Student Member $15

� Individual Member $25

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PAIDSuburban MDPermit No. 3980