Girls' Education in Afghanistan: 7 Million Reasons for Optimism and Hope
February 15, 2012 | 6:30-8:00 PM
Anita Anastacio Senior Education Advisor, International Rescue Committee
Zama Coursen-Neff Deputy Director, Children's Rights Division, Human Rights Watch
Wagma Battoor Program Quality, Development, and Learning Coordinator, CARE Afghanistan
Dana Burde Assistant Professor, International Education, NYUNY
Moderated by Amy Goodman Host of Democracy Now!
What is the status of girls' education in Afghanistan today? How do Afghan parents educate their daughters? What are the options available to them? What works and how do we know? Most Afghan parents are eager to send their girls to school. Yet given the distances they must travel and the barriers posed by the conflict and lawlessness across the country, many parents struggle to get their children into school. These obstacles typically affect girls more than boys. This panel explores the current challenges to girls' education such as attacks on schools and students, and scarcity of school buildings and personnel. It also highlights successful interventions such as community-based education and other efforts to address these dilemmas. Despite more than 30 years of war, this panel shows how education for Afghan girls offers promise for the country's future.
Higher Education in a Global Context
Blogistan and Beyond: Religion, the Internet, and Politics in Iran
February 17, 2012 | 6:00-7:30 PM
Annabelle Sreberny Professor of Global Media and Communications, The School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Hamid Dabashi Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature, Columbia University
Narges Bajoghli Department of Anthropology, NYUNY
Arang Keshavarzian Associate Professor of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, NYUNY
What role have social media and the internet played in the ongoing political negotiations among conservative Muslims, moderates, and secularists in contemporary Iran? How have these new digital initiatives launched an awareness of cultural activists on the world stage? Simultaneously, such visibility also has put people's lives in danger, especially in the wake of the 2009 elections. How have these developments led to new forms of digital creativity?
In collaboration with The Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near East Studies supported by the Social Science Research Council and the NYU Center for Religion and Media with generous support from the Henry R. Luce Initiative on Religion and International Affairs.
Digital Religion: Knowledge, Politics, and Practice series
Lupus and Snurps: From Bedside to Bench and Back Again
February 22, 2012 | 6:30-8:00 PM
Joan Steitz Sterling Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale School of Medicine; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Investigator
Whereas most advances in medicine proceed from bench to beside, this lecture will treat a rare instance where clinical knowledge impacted basic understanding of how cells function. The discovery of the role of noncoding RNAs in the removal of interruptions in gene sequences (splicing) is currently having an impact on the design of therapies for multiple genetic diseases.
Abu Dhabi's Urban Planning Vision 2030
February 27, 2012 | 6:30-8:00 PM
Jody Andrews Director, Capital District Development, Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council
The Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council (UPC) is responsible for the future of Abu Dhabi's urban environments and the expert authority behind the visionary Plan Abu Dhabi 2030. The Council's quarter century plan is already transforming Abu Dhabi City and the entire Emirate using sound guiding principles to drive sustainable urban development and renewal. By drawing on urban planning expertise locally, throughout the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and around the world, the UPC strives to become a global authority on the future of urban planning and design. Its ground-breaking Capital District Master Plan is now in the construction design phase to become the new Capital City of the United Arab Emirates, and its internationally recognized Estidama sustainability program is being successfully implemented across the Emirate along with a series of comprehensive area Master Plans that are already revitalizing Abu Dhabi's existing urban environments.
The Monument: 21st-Century Architecture in Abu Dhabi series
Tahrir Square, 2012: The Voices of Women and Religious Minorities
March 1, 2012 | 6:00-8:00 PM
Viola Shafik Freelance Lecturer and Filmmaker
Yasmin Moll Department of Anthropology, NYUNY
Mona Eltahawy Award-Winning Journalist
Dina Ramadan Assistant Professor of Arabic, Bard College
In the year following Egyptian revolution, peaceful demonstrations have given way to increasingly violent and sectarian strife. Digital films and social media have documented and brought to the wider public's attention the experiences of women and minority populations in Egypt's ever-changing social and political climate. This panel brings together filmmakers, journalists, and analysts to discuss the recent past and potential future of the country and how social and digital media continues to impact and frame the course of events.
In collaboration with The Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near East Studies supported by the Social Science Research Council and the NYU Center for Religion and Media with generous support from the Henry R. Luce Initiative on Religion and International Affairs.
Digital Religion: Knowledge, Politics, and Practice
The Growing Arab Youth Population
March 6, 2012 | 6:30-8:00 PM
Amaney Jamal Associate Professor of Politics, Princeton University
Pascal Menoret Assistant Professor, Arab Crossroads, NYUAD
In 2011, the Pew Research Center released a report on demographic trends of the global Muslim population. Although the projected Muslim growth rate is slower than it has been for the last two decades, the findings show that the world Muslim population is expected to increase by about 3.5% in the next 20 years — twice the rate of growth for non-Muslim groups. This program will contextualize the report's results within the ever-changing political and economic climate of the Middle East and discuss what they mean for future relations among Middle Eastern nations and the region's connections with the West.
Empowering Women and Developing the Nation: Social Reform and Education in the Middle East
March 8, 2012 | 6:30-8:00 PM
Leila Ahmed Victor S. Thomas Professor of Divinity, Harvard Divinity School
Sherine Hafez Assistant Professor of Women's Studies, University of California, Riverside
To this day, women's access to education still faces substantial stumbling blocks, as two-thirds of the world's illiterates are women from rural areas. In the Middle Eastern and North African regions, concentrated efforts in the last two decades have improved women's educational opportunities, yet the gap between the genders remains daunting. This discussion will focus on the evolution of women's education, specifically Egypt and the UAE, over the course of the past 40 years. Leila Ahmed will share memories of her educational upbringing in Egypt and work on educational reform in Abu Dhabi in the 1970s (shortly after the founding of the UAE). Ahmed's remarks will be compared to Sherine Hafez's recent work on the affects that women's Islamic organizations have made in promoting an Islamic education among women in rural Middle Egypt. This will shed light on some aspects of education overlooked by international development organizations that deal with issues of illiteracy.
Higher Education in a Global Context
Voting and Governing in a Polarized Era
March 21, 2012 | 6:30-8:00 PM
Keynote Lecture Alan Abramowitz Alben W. Barkley Professor of Political Science, Emory University
Legislative Gridlock: 2012 and Beyond
March 22, 2012
Convened by Adam Ramey Assistant Professor of Political Science, NYUAD
Workshop by Invitation Only
See March 21 for companion public event
This workshop will address the subject of legislative gridlock in the United States from both theoretical and policy perspectives. Political scientists have long studied the effects of political polarization, divided government, and institutional structures on legislative gridlock, but until the last few years, scholars lacked the techniques and data to address these determinants of gridlock in a unified manner. Fortunately, recent methodological developments have finally allowed experts to tackle such questions head-on. For the first time, this workshop will bring these new findings together in one place.
The Electrical System of Life
March 26, 2012 | 6:30-8:00 PM
Roderick MacKinnon Professor of Molecular Neurobiology and Biophysics, Rockefeller University
The Parliament of Abu Dhabi
March 29, 2012 | 6:30-8:00 PM
Stephen Ehrlich Design Principal, Ehrlich Architects
In 1971, two years after the foundation of the United Arab Emirates, the Federal National Council (FNC) was formed to represent the Emirati people and tasked with mission to examine and, if necessary, amend federal legislation. As part of the urban structure plan to optimize Abu Dhabi's development over the next two decades, a new complex will be built by the California-based firm Ehrlich Architects for the FNC. The building, to be located on the Corniche, a major hub for the city's cultural and civic event, pays tribute to Abu Dhabi's past and future by melding familiar Arabic design language with contemporary form and the latest technological advances in environmental sustainability. This program will consider both the artistic and functional design of the complex and how it will serve the day-to-day activities of the FNC.
The Monument: 21st-Century Architecture in Abu Dhabi series
New Faces from Egypt: Hellenistic Panel Paintings and their European Consequence
April 19, 2011 | 6:30-8:00 PM
Jas' Elsner Humfrey Payne Senior Fellow in Classical Archaeology and Art, Corpus Christi College, Oxford University
Thomas Mathews Professor Emeritus, NYU
Among the Greeks and Romans, the most highly esteemed paintings were executed on framed wooden panels. So valued were they that lawyers distinguished the worth of the painting from the worth of the board. Due to the perishability of wood, this great body of ancient painting has remained a lost chapter in the history of art. However, a new project directed by Thomas F. Mathews has assembled a corpus of over sixty panels, complete or fragmentary, mostly from the first to third centuries CE, from sites in Egypt, languishing unstudied in museum basements across the world. These works, preserved by the sands of Egypt, offer a remarkable window into pagan religious production both before the rise of Christianity and contemporaneously with it. This joint discussion by Prof. Mathews and Elsner will explore how the pagan panels pose many of the same problems both philosophically and in terms of cultic usage, demonstrating models which were appropriated by Christian culture as well as patterns of imagery which were specifically rejected.
Research at the NYUAD Institute series
