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.