Fall Lectures
September 26, 2011 | 6:30-8:00 PM
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Rock the Cashbah: The New Social Order of the Middle East
Robin Wright Journalist and Foreign Affairs Analyst; Author of Rock the Cashbah: How Street Vendors, Sheikhs, Rappers, and Women are Shattering the Old Order (Simon & Shuster, 2011)
Award-winning journalist Robin Wright tells the inside stories behind the rage and rebellions across the Islamic world, which represent the greatest push for empowerment anywhere in the early 21st century. A decade after the 9/11 attacks, Wright explores the new "counter-jihad" against both dictators and extremists. The new trends are most visible in political uprisings in pivotal countries like Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Libya, Yemen, and Bahrain. But she also explains the new culture of change — reflected among Muslim rappers, comedians, playwrights, and poets — that will be just as important in defining the next decade.
September 29, 2011 | 5:30-8:00 PM
The Chronicle of Her Innocence: A Conversation with Bahar Behbahani
Bahar Behbahani New York-based Iranian Artist
Sam Bardaouil Curatorial Director, Art Reoriented
Born in Iran, Bahar Behbahani is a multidisciplinary artist who lives and works in New York and Tehran. Her work, The Chronicle of Her Innoncence, is on view at 19 Washington Square North. In conjunction with the opening of the exhibition, Ms. Behbahani will discuss with Sam Bardaouil the tensions evoked in her paintings and video projects between word and image; public and private behavior; and truth and subterfuge. This program will feature a screening of Saffron Tea.
/video/19wsn/11-12/092911.flvOctober 5, 2011 | 6:30-8:00 PM
Media, Islam and the New Arab Journalist
Lawrence Pintak Dean, Edward R. Murrow College of Communications, Washington State University
Mohammed El-Nawawy Department of Communications, Queens University of Charlotte
Mohamad Bazzi Assistant Professor of Journalism, NYUNY
The Arab media representing much of the Muslim world are in the midst of a revolution that will inform questions of the transforming role of religion, war and peace, political and societal reform, and relations between the West and the Arab World. How do Arab journalists see themselves and their mission in this critical time in the evolution of a diverse Arab media landscape? What role does the Arab media play — particularly in a seemingly borderless digital age — in representing a Muslim world regarded with suspicion by the West to that part of the world, and in representing the complex and competing understanding of Islam in Muslim nations.
In collaboration with The Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near East Studies and The Center for Religion and Media
Digital Religion: Knowledge, Politics, and Practice series
/video/19wsn/11-12/100511.flvOctober 17, 2011 | 6:30-8:00 PM
A Conversation with Mohammed Achaari, 2011 Arab Booker Prize Winner
Mohammed Achaari Moroccan writer and politician
Sinan Antoon Assistant Professor, Gallatin School of Individualized Study, NYUNY
In this author's conversation, Moroccan writer Mohammed Achaari will discuss his novel The Arch and the Butterfly, which confronts themes of Islamic extremism and terrorism from a different angle. A letter from Al-Qaeda informing a father of his son's death as a martyr in Afghanistan sets the story into motion as the life of the father and his relationship with his wife unravel as a result of this shocking news. Achaari's book will be placed in relationship to his previous written works and his career as a journalist and politician.
Mohammed Achaari jointly received the 2011 International Prize for Arabic Fiction (IPAF) with Saudi Arabian writer Raja Alem. The IPAF was launched in April, 2007 in Abu Dhabi and is supported by the Booker Prize Foundation and the Emirates Foundation. The prize is the most prestigious literary award in the Arab World.
/video/19wsn/11-12/101711.flvOctober 18, 2011 | 12:30-2:30 PM
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"Tuning Your Ears:" Listening for and Learning from Students' Ways of Making Meaning
Patricia M. King Professor, Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education, School of Education, University of Michigan
Workshop by Invitation Only
Liberal arts education is typically associated with the development of "habits of mind" — such as thinking critically about everyday problems, applying methods of inquiry associated with a discipline, analyzing intercultural issues from multiple perspectives, and making discerning judgments about ethical issues. These ways of approaching and making choices are associated with a set of capacities that appear to be related to whether and how students achieve the goals associated with liberal arts education, and can be observed through listening to students reflect on their learning and other collegiate experiences. This workshop will approach the topic of assessment from the perspective of learning as meaning making, and share strategies educators can use to identify the underlying assumptions that guide students' learning.
CANCELLED: October 27, 2011 | 6:30-8:00 PM
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The Future of Heritage: Creating the Sheikh Zayed National Museum
Justin Morris Head of Strategic Planning and Collections Services, The British Museum
Gerard Evenden Senior Partner, Foster + Partners
Sheikh Zayed, the founding father of the United Arab Emirates, once said, "A nation without a past is a country without a present or a future." This Sheikh Zayed National Museum will take that statement as its mission: to create a museum dedicated to the life and work of Sheikh Zayed and to the unique spirit, history, and culture of UAE. The galleries will document the transformation of the Emirates since its establishment in 1974 and how regional traditions continue to be preserved today. This discussion will consider how the physical shell of the museum, designed by Foster + Partners, will resonate with the story told within, envisioned in part with the British Museum.
The Sheikh Zayed National Museum is one of four museums being built in the cultural district of Saadiyat Island, which also will be the location of NYUAD's permanent campus.
October 28, 2011
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Workshop on Cultural Heritage
Workshop by Invitation Only
John Greyson Director of Fig Trees and Associate Professor of Film, York University
Thomas Waugh Professor of Film Studies, Concordia University
Moderated By Jonathan Kahana Associate Professor of Cinema Study, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU
Organized by Seung-hoon Jeong Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies, NYUAD
Two day-long invitational workshops taking place in New York and Abu Dhabi with an express focus on issues relating to the display, exchange, preservation, and management of cultural heritage. The workshops will inform the development of the undergraduate concentration in Museum and Cultural Heritage Studies as well as a Masters program.
November 4, 2011 | 6:30-8:00 PM
Television, Religion, and Gender in the Afghan Culture Wars
Havana Marking Director of Afghan Star (2009), Silencing the Song (2010)
David B. Edwards W. Van Alan Clark '41 Third Century Professor in the Social Sciences, Williams College
Wazhmah Osman Social Science Research Council, NYUNY
The documentary Silencing the Song: An Afghan Fallen Star (Havana Marking, 2010) follows Setara Hussainzada after her ill-fated appearance on the popular Tolo TV show Afghan Star, when she scandalized the country by dancing — modestly — and allowing her scarf to drop to her neck, leading to death threats from conservative Muslims. Even in the urban capital of Kabul there is constant harassment, including by the local authorities fully backed by the USA as a counterweight to the misogynist Taliban. Her story, carefully explored in this acclaimed film, embodies longstanding tensions regarding the place of Islam and the presence of women in Afghanistan's emerging and rapidly expanding public sphere, from television to digital media. This program will screen the film, followed by a panel discussion.
Digital Religion: Knowledge, Politics, and Practice
Co-sponsored by The Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near East Studies and The Center for Religion and Media
/video/19wsn/11-12/110411.flvNovember 8, 2011 | 6:30-8:00 PM
How Reading Works
Stanislas Dehaene Director of the INSERM-CEA Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit; Professor at the Collège de France, chair of Experimental Cognitive Psychology
How does our brain learn to read? What allows us to decipher written characters, a cultural feat that could not be anticipated during our evolution? By comparing literate and illiterate brains, brain imaging experiments have begun to shed light on these issues. Learning to read transforms and enhances our brain circuits for vision, motor control, and language. However, our primate brain architecture also imposes strong constraints on reading and writing systems, explaining for instance why many young readers confuse left and right. This lecture will discuss what conclusions can be drawn from this research about learning and education.
Principle Investigator: Alec Marantz Professor of Linguistics and Psychology, NYUNY
Co-sponsored by The Neuroscience of Language Laboratory
Research at the NYUAD Institute
/video/19wsn/11-12/110811.flvNovember 14, 2011 | 6:30-8:00 PM
Arab Film: Past, Present, Future
Peter Scarlet Executive Director of the Abu Dhabi Film Festival
Rajendra Roy Chief Curator of Film, Museum of Modern Art
Since the 1960s the Arab world has fostered experimental, innovative, and creative filmmaking that continues to inform filmmakers today. Until the recent commencement of the Mapping Subjectivities project, organized by ArteEast and the Museum of Modern Art, there have been few attempts to develop a full archive of Arab cinema to trace the development of filmmaking in the Middle East and to bring these films to Western audiences. This discussion will consider the historic place of cinema in the Middle East and the current and future role film festivals, like the Abu Dhabi film festival, will have in creating a vibrant film culture and industry in the region.
/video/19wsn/11-12/111411.flvNovember 30, 2011 | 6:30-8:00 PM
Poised Between the Past and the Future: The Sheikh Zayed Mosque in Abu Dhabi
Robert Hillenbrand Honorary Professorial Fellow, University of Edinburgh
The lecture will explore how this ambitious mosque, at once a memorial of Abu Dhabi's most distinguished son and a symbol of national identity, draws on the many diverse traditions of earlier Islamic architecture and relates to other modern state mosques. Its use of fine materials and its innovations in vegetal and geometrical ornament will be discussed in detail. The lecture will also emphasize the multiple ways in which it meets modern requirements in an era of rapid change, and how it looks to the future.
The Monument: 21st-Century Architecture in Abu Dhabi series
/video/19wsn/11-12/113011.flvDecember 1, 2011 | 6:30-8:00 PM
The Dream for True Urbanism in the Middle East: How Eco-City Themes from Vancouver Shape Recent Planning and Development in Abu Dhabi
Larry Beasley Former Director of Planning for the City of Vancouver; Special Advisor to the Abu Dhabi, Urban Planning Council
The leaders of Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, have decided to make their cities the most liveable places in the world. Canadian urbanist, Larry Beasley, Special Advisor to the Emirate, will discuss how the "eco-city" themes that have re-shaped his home city of Vancouver were distilled and transformed for the fundamentally different society and environment of Abu Dhabi. He will survey the key new principles and plans as well as the civic initiatives for culture and quality of life by highlighting Abu Dhabi's efforts as a look back into their own rich Muslim urban history and a look forward to best practices throughout the world today. Abu Dhabi and Dubai will be compared as "contrasting metaphors for the modern process of urbanization" and look at the lessons for North America.
The Monument: 21st-Century Architecture in Abu Dhabi series
/video/19wsn/11-12/120111.flvDecember 6, 2011 | 12:00-2:00 PM
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Seeking the Story Behind the Story: An Important Component of Cultural Competence
Xiaodong Lin, Associate Professor of Technology & Education, Teachers College, Columbia University
Workshop by Invitation Only
Xiaodong Lin will discuss two studies that illustrate that contact with other culture, without knowing why and how people do what they do, is often counterproductive. The first study finds that shallow knowledge of people in other cultures leads to frequent misunderstanding that blocks our energy for learning. In the second, research suggests that successful learning and teaching requires an ability to seek story behind the story, rather than jumping at the conclusions and actions. The workshop will end with a demonstration of a technology tool under development that will help reduce misunderstandings between teachers and students coming from different cultures or even within the same culture.
December 8, 2011 | 11:00 AM
NYUNY — NYUAD Telematic Music Student Concert
Celina Charlier Ensemble Director, Visiting Assistant Professor of Music, NYUAD
Amir ElSaffar Guest Artist
Sarah Weaver Ensemble Director, Music Composition Program, Steinhardt School, NYUNY
Opening Remarks: Robert Rowe Chair, Department of Music and Performing Arts Professions, Steinhardt School, NYUNY
H.E. Abdulkaleq Bin-Dhaaer Al-Yafei Minister Plenipotentiary, Deputy Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of the United Arab Emirates to the United Nations
Concert by Invitation Only
After a successful inaugural collaboration for ResoNations, an ongoing concert series at the United Nations Headquarters in New York since 2010, students from NYU Abu Dhabi and NYU New York will once again come together for a telematic concert. Telematic music is a live performance via the internet by musicians in different geographic locations. This year's concert featuring the NYUNY Global Telematic Music Ensemble and the NYUAD New Music Ensemble will be the culmination of a semester-long project with a performance of a composition for peace, a set of improvisations, and a new arrangement of a Rzewski piece.
In collaboration with the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development, NYUNY
/video/19wsn/11-12/120811.flvFebruary 8, 2012 | 6:30-8:00 PM | Exhibition Opening 5:30 PM
Contemporary Photography in the Middle East
Exhibition: February 8 – April 11, 2012
Yasser Alwan Cairo-based Photographer
Shamoon Zamir Associate Professor of Literature and Visual Arts, NYUAD
In conversation with Shamoon Zamir, Alwan discusses his first retrospective exhibition of photographs featuring images from Egypt as well as his 25 years of travel throughout the Middle East and North Africa. The photographs focus on the common and the quotidian; ordinary people going about their daily lives in a world that has been steadily decaying around them until they discover their collective strength lies in their individual weakness.
/video/19wsn/11-12/020812.flvFebruary 15, 2012 | 6:30-8:00 PM
Girls' Education in Afghanistan: 7 Million Reasons for Optimism and Hope
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
/video/19wsn/11-12/021512.flvFebruary 17, 2012 | 6:00-7:30 PM
Blogistan and Beyond: Religion, the Internet, and Politics in Iran
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
/video/19wsn/11-12/021712.flvFebruary 22, 2012 | 6:30-8:00 PM
Lupus and Snurps: From Bedside to Bench and Back Again
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.
/video/19wsn/11-12/022212.flvFebruary 27, 2012 | 6:30-8:00 PM
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Abu Dhabi's Urban Planning Vision 2030
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.
March 1, 2012 | 6:00-8:00 PM
Tahrir Square, 2012: The Voices of Women and Religious Minorities
Viola Shafik Freelance Lecturer and Filmmaker
Yasmin Moll Department of Anthropology, NYUNY
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
/video/19wsn/11-12/030112.flvMarch 6, 2012 | 6:30-8:00 PM
The Growing Arab Youth Population
Amaney Jamal Associate Professor of Politics, Princeton University
Pascal Menoret Assistant Professor, The 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.
/video/19wsn/11-12/030612.flvMarch 8, 2012 | 6:30-8:00 PM
Empowering Women and Developing the Nation: Social Reform and Education in the Middle East
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. Taking her memories of her own education in Egypt and England (and her work at the UAE) as her starting point, Leila Ahmed reflects on the theme of cross-cultural education and multiculturalism. 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
/video/19wsn/11-12/030812.flvMarch 21, 2012 | 6:30-8:00 PM
Voting and Governing in a Polarized Era
Keynote Lecture Alan Abramowitz Alben W. Barkley Professor of Political Science, Emory University
/video/19wsn/11-12/032112.flvMarch 22, 2012
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Legislative Gridlock: 2012 and Beyond
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.
March 26, 2012 | 6:30-8:00 PM
The Electrical System of Life
Roderick MacKinnon Professor of Molecular Neurobiology and Biophysics, Rockefeller University
Living organisms are electrical. Our brains instruct our muscles to move by transmitting information, which is encoded in the form of electrical impulses that travel along nerve fibers. Our ability to experience our world through vision, smell, taste, hearing, and touch depends upon the transmission of electrical signals. Even our ability to think is based upon the complex electrical interactions of neurons in our central nervous system. How does 'animal electricity' work? The history of 'animal electricity' is interesting not only because it leads us to an understanding of the subject, but also because it exemplifies the strange and unexpected manner in which scientific ideas evolve.
/video/19wsn/11-12/032612.flvMarch 29, 2012 | 6:30-8:00 PM
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The Parliament of Abu Dhabi
Steven 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 events, 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.
April 11, 2012 | 6:30-8:00 PM
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The Land of Unlikeness — 'Speculations' on Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights
Reindert Falkenburg Faculty Director, NYUAD Institute; Vice Provost for Intellectual and Cultural Outreach
This presentation offers a reconstruction of the historical viewership of Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights. It discusses both the mode of viewing for which the painting was created and the circle of its original viewers — a group of high nobles at the Burgundian court, ca. 1500. Speculation is at the heart of this reconstruction, not only because it is based on a combination of pictorial and circumstantial evidence, but also, and more importantly, because 'speculation' understood as a particular late-medieval mode of interpretation defines the response of the painting's original viewers.
April 19, 2011 | 6:30-8:00 PM
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New Faces from Egypt: Hellenistic Panel Paintings and their European Consequence
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.
