Report of the Second AUB/AUC CASAR Collaborative Meeting
Held on the campus of American University of Beirut
October 26, 27, 28
Report prepared by Dr. Alex Lubin, Director, CASAR AUB
Participants:
Dr. Alex Lubin (Director, AUB CASAR),
Dr. Magda Shahin (Director, AUC CASAR)
Dr. Ira Dworkin (Associate Director, AUC CASAR)
Dr. Amy Austin Holmes (AUC CASAR),
Dr. Elena Glasberg (AUB CASAR),
Dr. Lisa Hajjar (AUB CASAR)
Dr. Sirene Harb (AUB CASAR),
Dr. Waleed Hazbun (AUB CASAR),
Dr. Amy Motlagh (AUC CASAR),
Dr. Jasbir Puar (AUB CASAR),
Dr. Mounira Soliman (AUC CASAR
Dr. Adam Waterman (AUB CASAR)
Background
The Centers for American Studies and Research at American University of Beirut and American University in Cairo are part of the Alwaleed Foundation network of academic centers. The two centers are regional leaders in American Studies in the Middle East/North Africa region. Starting in Spring 2012, the two centers began meeting to discuss areas of shared research interests; to plan collaborative projects; and to develop ideas for future scholarly collaborative projects. The first meeting was held in Cairo on May 3-5, 2012. This report describes the activities of the second collaborative meeting, held in Beirut from October 26-28, 2012.
Summary Report
I. October 26, 2012
The meeting began on the evening of October 26 with dinner at Casablanca, a restaurant near the campus of AUB.
II. October 27, 2012, Introductions
III. October 27, 2012, AUB Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean, Dr. Patrick McGreevy discussed the history of CASAR at AUB. (AUB Visiting Professor, Dr. Emily O’Dell, joined this discussion) Dean McGreevy was the founding director of CASAR. The Dean described the extensive planning on AUB’s campus during the year prior to his arrival at CASAR. CASAR’s steering committee involved regional and internationally stakeholders, including media representatives, government officials, and academics. The steering committee recommended that CASAR attempt to be unique in Lebanon, as well as in the field of American Studies.
From the outset, CASAR had resources to help fund humanities research at AUB focused on American Studies. It provided summer grants and travel grants for faculty. It raised funds for the Edward Said Chair of American Studies.
It has been crucial for AUB’s CASAR to remain independent from the U.S. State Department because the center does not want to be seen as a tool of U.S. cultural diplomacy. At the same time, it has been important for CASAR AUB to remain in close contact with the discipline of American Studies in the United States.
CASAR AUB has been a place to push limits of liberal arts education in Lebanon. At the same time, political events in Lebanon and globally have shaped how CASAR operates. The Dean mentioned 9/11, political assassinations in Lebanon, the events of March 8 in Lebanon as examples. Yet, despite the changing nature of political events in Lebanon AUB CASAR has benefitted from Lebanon’s relative freedom; such freedom is unrivalled in the Middle East.
IV. October 27, 2012. In the next session Dr. Jasbir Puar, who is serving as the 2012/2013 Edward Said Chair of American Studies at AUB CASAR, led a discussion based on three of her published articles on pinkwashing and homonationalism. Drs. Patrick McGreevy and Emily O’Dell participated in this discussion. Pinkwashing is the term used to describe how gay and lesbian rights can be used to divert attention from a nation’s acts of exclusion. In the case of Israel, Puar is interested in how Israel’s relative liberal inclusion of gay and lesbian Jews hides the nation’s violent exclusion of non-Jewish citizens and occupied subjects. Homonationalism describes the ways that the liberal inclusion of gay and lesbian citizens can be predicated on nationalism. As an example, Puar cited the ways that gay and lesbian inclusion in the United States has often taken place at moments of new forms of exclusions for immigrants and people of color.
Dr. Puar’s work on pinkwashing and homonationalism calls into question the ways that liberal notions of rights and inclusions can be concurrently predicated on exclusions. Moreover, Puar demonstrated how liberal notions of rights could have a pernicious underside in that they often rest on a violent exclusion.
Dr. Puar’s presentation led the meeting participants to consider ways that gender and sexuality might be incorporated into a critical analysis of American Studies in the Middle East.
V. October 27, 2012. After lunch, the meeting moved to the Special Collections Department of AUB’s Jafet Library. There, special collections librarians presented archival materials that may be of interested to American Studies research scholars. Of particular note is the collection’s holdings of manuscripts related to the American missionary movement in Mount Lebanon, the manuscripts of AUB Presidents, and the University archives, which include vast amounts of original photographs.
VI. October 28, 2012. In the first session of the meeting, participants discussed two articles about transnational American Studies. The conversation attempted to continue a discussion that had been initiated in Cairo the previous spring. Specifically, the seminar focused on the relationship of the U.S. State to the discipline of American Studies (particularly in the MENA region), as well as the possibility and limits of transnational American Studies. The conversation centered on the ways that American national culture circulates globally, often beyond the control of the U.S. State. Hence, American Studies beyond the borders of the United States sometimes leads to a clarity about the contradictions between the national culture and the State that are often difficult to perceive within the borders of the United States.
Although the seminar didn’t lead to a consensus about the possibilities of transnational American Studies, it did contribute to a broader discussion about what sorts of questions should be of paramount importance to the two American Studies centers in the MENA region.
VII. October 28, 2012. The final session of the collaborative meeting focused on the short-term future of our collaboration. In particular, we discussed various ways that we could continue the momentum initiated by the first two meetings. The two centers have developed three areas of overlapping research interests. These areas are: Transnational American Studies; U.S. foreign policy in the MENA region; and Race and Diaspora in the MENA. We agreed that moving forward, the two CASARs would organize a symposium in Cairo (or Alexandria) focused on these three areas. In an effort to expand our outreach, the symposium might include regional faculty and graduate students.