Hi Middle East Studies Forum friends and curious,

What do a Moroccan folklorist, Malcolm X’s hajj journey, and the reports of Noura Erekat have in common? Each made their presence known at the MESA (Middle East Studies Association) Annual Meeting this week in Denver. . . not Malcolm X in person, of course! I appreciated learning vicariously through their stories as I represented Ohio State University at the conference. It was a phenomenal opportunity to reconnect with venerable institutions such as the American Institute of Yemeni Studies while also gaining familiarity with networks and organizations that were new to me.

This was the first time I had the honor to attend MESA as director of OSU's Middle East Studies Center (MESC). It was refreshing to engage with the broader Middle East studies community and I gained a lot of valuable knowledge from the conversations. It’s impossible to report everything I learned but I can share currents and themes that I believe will be of interest to our community at OSU. Many of you were also there in-person to present on panels. I’m crushed that I had to leave early and missed all three OSU talks on Saturday afternoon and Sunday. Johanna Sellman (NESA) and Magda El Sherbini (OSU Libraries) gave presentations, as did OSU alumn Yeliz Cavus (Loyola U., Maryland). I’m sure if you ask them, they will offer a different perspective, but here’s what I heard and enjoyed.

I joined the Middle East Studies Centers’ Directors Meeting and gate crashed (with a lovely welcome) the Consortium of Title VI-funded Middle East Centers meeting. I learned that a number of other centers are as disappointed as we are and frankly outraged at some of the reviewers’ scoring (in retrospect, maybe we didn’t fare so badly). International and Foreign Language Education (IFLE) cut back on the number of Middle East centers this round, making it even more competitive than last time. Long-time centers lost their funding. Even worse, for many of them support from their home institutions is uncertain. We are grateful to have a steady base from which to grow at OSU.

I also represent OSU as board member of the American Institute of Yemeni Studies (AIYS). AIYS carries on as the last foreign institute in Sana’a, directed by Selma Dammas, professor at Sana’a University. You may remember Dan Varisco’s wonderful talk here at OSU last month at the Food Sovereignty Workshop hosted by MESC. He also presided over the annual board meeting. Dan, Selma and Zaydoun Ziad (of the American Foundation for the Study of Man) reported on a workshop in Amman Jordan that trained 20 Yemeni museum staff, issued grants for Yemeni scholars, and made book awards. The book pdfs are also now available for Yemeni scholarly publications. This demonstrates there continue to be opportunities to support our own OSU scholars and students focused on Yemen, even if they are unable to travel there.

There are many exciting projects afoot—a Persian Testing Platform to be developed at U. Maryland, with discounted rate for participating centers. There’s Middle East Language Pedagogy Workshop (virtual) for March 2023 organized by UT Austin. And the Global Academy supporting displaced scholars from the Middle East reports a $600 k grant from Carnegie’s “Solidarity Project.” Maggie Nassif of the Fulbright Commission in Egypt reported that Egypt is open again, and the Egypt Fulbright budget is the third largest of all US Department of State Fulbright budgets, flush with prospects. She radiated excitement about the many opportunities for senior and junior scholars and the emerging scholars that are student Fulbrighters. She emphasized a wish to build and balance strategically, seeing to bring scientists to Egypt along with Fulbrighters in the performing and visual arts. 

Also flush with money is CASA, the Center for the Study of Arabic Abroad. CASA received all four grants it sought and is eager to welcome our Arabic students. I enjoyed a lunch with CASA alumni and member organizations—we at OSU are one, and we need to encourage our Arabic students to take advantage of the amazing experiences on display. I didn’t know that the Qasid Institute in Jordan is now CASA II. Many are the students I sent onward as a Fulbright reviewer, so it was a thrill to meet Khalid Abu Amsha, the Qasid Director who wrote letters of recommendation for many of them! Also present was the man who facilitated CASA III, the advanced training in Meknes, Morocco. He was my lunch partner, the Moroccan folklorist of my introduction.

How did Malcolm X make the program? I learned from an informative talk about local perspectives on his 1963 Hajj journey, specifically via the Syrian media coverage. That and several other presentations on the program reinforced my view of MESC’s important role in racial justice conversations here at OSU. Our work with Historically Black Colleges has demonstrated the clear need for intentional conversations, structural changes, and a commitment to fair and just partnerships between institutions. It seems that a strong current of interest in racial justice is sweeping MESA too. I heard the conference paper of a lifetime—Noura Erekat’s compelling description of a municipal board in North Carolina who passed a law prohibiting training their own American police in Israel. Her advocacy was compelling. She showed how both Palestinians in Israel/Palestine and African Americans in the U.S. are policed as terrorists, bodies to be trained upon, and enemies. Her description was chilling but it also elucidated how the cycle of violence is apt to repeat itself through outsourced police training.

The Presidential Panel continued the theme of racial justice. They opened full MESA meeting with a panel to report out a series of conversations about race in the Middle East held in Middle Eastern languages—Persian, Turkish, Hebrew, and Arabic. Panelists described the the vocabularies and themes and contexts of these discussions. It’s clear that the repercussions of decolonizing and racializing discourses are international and current. The ballroom was packed.

Best,

Joy McCorriston

MESC Director