FACULTY :
Carol Babiracki
Ph.D. University of Illinois, 1991
Associate Professor of Fine Arts
Professor Babiracki specializes in teaching and research in Musicology and Ethnomusicology, in particular South Asian music and dance, ethnic and immigrant music and dance in the United States, and the music of the Middle East. One of Prof. Babiracki’s primary research interests involves the interplay of gender, religion and dance in the tribal music of India.
Hossein Bashiriyeh
Ph.D., University of Liverpool, 1982
Visiting Professor of Political Science (2006-2008)
Professor Bashiriyeh has taught in the Department of Political Science at Tehran University since 1982 and is a leading expert on issues of civil society, democratization and political development in Iran and the greater Middle East. He is the author or translator of over two dozen books including (in English) The State and Revolution in Iran (1984) and (in Persian) Transition to Democracy (2005), An Introduction to the Political Sociology of Iran: The Era of the Islamic Republic (2002), Obstacles to Political Development in Iran (2000). During his stay at Syracuse University Professor Bashiriyeh teaches such courses as "Islamic Political Thought," "Middle Eastern Political Systems," "Sociology of Islamic Fundamentalism," and "Transition to Democracy."
James P. Bennett
Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Associate Professor of Political Science.
Professor Bennett has done extensive work on the politics of Cyprus, Greece and Turkey. His current research project on “Social Democracy in Turkey,” explores the prospects for and consequences of institutionalizing a social democratic viewpoint in Turkish politics.
Mehrzad Boroujerdi
Ph.D., The American University, 1990
Associate Professor of Political Science
Director of the Middle Eastern Studies Program
Co-Director, Religion, Media and International Affairs Program
Professor Boroujerdi's research interests revolve around the intellectual and political history of the contemporary Middle East. He teaches the courses Politics of the Middle East, Politics of Iran, International Relations of the Middle East and Social Theory & the Middle East. He is the author of Iranian Intellectuals and the West: The Tormented Triumph of Nativism (1996).
Zachary Braiterman
Ph.D., Stanford University, 1995
Associate Professor in the Department of Religion
Professor Braiterman teaches modern Jewish thought and culture through the courses Introduction to Judaism (REL 135) and Israeli Literature and Culture (REL 335) which covers topics including classical Zionist theory, the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the tension between religion and state in Israel. He is the author of (God) After Auschwitz: Tradition and Change in Post-Holocaust Jewish Thought (Princeton University Press, 1998) and The Shape of Revelation: Aesthetics and Modern Jewish Thought (Stanford University Press, March, 2007).
Miriam F. Elman
Ph.D., Columbia University, 1996
Associate Professor of Political Science
Elman’s work focuses on international relations theory and security studies in general, and the relationship between democracy and war in particular. With regard to Middle East Studies, her research and teaching interests include: democratization in the Middle East; the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; and the intersection of religion and politics in the region. She is the editor of Paths to Peace: Is Democracy the Answer? (MIT Press, 1997), and the co-editor of Bridges and Boundaries: Historians, Political Scientists, and the Study of International Relations (MIT Press, 2001) and Progress in International Relations Theory: Appraising the Field (MIT Press, 2003). Elman’s research has been supported by Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, where she was a Security Fellow from 1995-1996 and from 1998-2000, and by the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict at Arizona State University, where she taught from 1995-2008. Her recent publications include a series of essays on religious political parties, which identify the conditions and circumstances under which democracy is likely to have a moderating impact on such political groups. She is also currently working on a book project on the interdisciplinary study of Jerusalem. The volume will highlight the ways—both similar and different—in which various disciplines approach the city and its complexities, including cultural, legal, social, political, religious, textual and physical dimensions. Joining the Maxwell School in Fall 2008, Elman plans to develop a cross-disciplinary faculty-student Project on Democracy in the Middle East and will teach Politics of the Middle East (Fall 2008) and a course on religion in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Spring 2009.
Amy Aisen Elouafi
Ph.D. , University of California at Berkeley, 2007
Assistant Professor of History
As a historian of the Middle East, Professor Elouafi combines the history of the Ottoman Empire to the fields of women and gender studies, and colonial and postcolonial theory. Her current research explores the importance of family in social, cultural and political domains in the Ottoman province of Tunis, from the late eighteenth to the early nineteenth century. She teaches courses on the Ottoman Empire, the modern Middle East, and Gender and Colonialism.
Carol Fadda-Conrey
Ph.D., Purdue University, 2006
Assistant Professor, English Department
Fadda-Conrey’s work on US ethnic literatures focuses on Arab-American literary studies, delineating the complexity of Arab-American communal and individual identities. Highlighting the varying ethnic, linguistic, religious, national, political, and cultural components of the Arab and Arab-American makeup, Fadda-Conrey’s research emphasizes the increasing need for Arab and Arab-American self-representation, especially after 9/11. Her research and teaching interests include the study of gender, race, ethnicity, religion, war, trauma, and transnational citizenship in Arab and Arab-American literary texts. Fadda-Conrey’s publications on Middle Eastern and Arab American literature include essays in Studies in the Humanities, MELUS, The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Multiethnic American Literature, and Al-Ra’ida, as well as book chapters in Arabs in America: Interdisciplinary Essays on the Arab Diaspora (2006) and Arab Women's Lives Retold: Exploring Identity Through Writing (2007).
Ken Frieden
Ph.D., Yale University
B. G. Rudolph Chair in Judaic Studies
Professor in the Departments of English, Religion, and Languages, Literatures, & Linguistics at Syracuse University.
Professor Frieden's books include Classic Yiddish Fiction: Abramovitsh, Sholem Aleichem, and Peretz (1995), Freud's Dream of Interpretation (1990), and Genius and Monologue (1985). He edited Sholem Aleichem’s Nineteen to the Dozen: Monologues and Bits and Bobs of Other Things and S. Y. Abramovitsh’s Tales of Mendele the Book Peddler (with Dan Miron). His most recent book is Classic Yiddish Stories (2004), an anthology that includes new translations of Abramovitsh, Sholem Aleichem, and Peretz.
Deniz Gökalp
Ph.D. University of Texas at Austin, 2007
Postdoctoral Fellow
Dr. Gökalp’s research interests include political and comparative historical sociology more specifically, issues of political violence and militarism, neoliberalism, democracy, mobilization and contentious politics, identity politics and political identity, globalization, regionalization and transnational forces/processes. She has taught classes on political violence, globalization, and democracy, social justice and urban politics. She is currently working on a book manuscript analyzing the relationship between neo-liberal restructuring of the state, democracy and political violence with a focus on the new face of the Kurdish question in Turkey since the NATO supported 1980 military coup. Gökalp’s research has received support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Rania Habib
Ph.D., University of Florida, 2008
Assistant Professor of Linguistics
Habib’s work focuses on language variation and change with special focus on dialectal variation in the Arab World. Her research is interdisciplinary as it combines a number of subfields of linguistics, applying formal linguistic theory to sociolinguistic variation. Her present research deals with the speech of rural migrant speakers to urban centers in the Arab World and the change that their speech undergoes because of social forces, such as prestige, gender, residential area, social status, and age. She is interested also in Second Language Acquisition, Pragmatics, and Syntax. Habib was funded by the Fulbright Scholarship from 2003-2005. She also received a number of awards during the course of her studies, such as The Madelyn Lockhart Dissertation Fellowship in 2007. Joining the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics as well as the Middle Eastern Studies Program, Habib will be building the Arabic Program and developing courses in the Arabic language, culture, and linguistics. The latter will include courses related to gender and society, structure of Arabic, and language variation and dialectology in the Arab World.
Susan R. Henderson
Ph.D., Columbia University
Associate Professor of Architectural History
Professor Henderson teaches courses in the fields of modern architecture, Islamic architecture and urban history and has a special interest in housing and settlement design, urban social history and reform movements. As an expert in the fields of Islamic Art and architecture, she contributed the entry on the mosque to the Macmillan Encyclopedia of Religion edited by Mircea Eliade. Her work has appeared in the Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, Journal of Architectural Education (JAE), Planning Perspectives, the Journal of Decorative and Propaganda Arts, Design Issues, Architronic, Housing Studies, the Journal of Garden History, and in the book Architecture and Feminism.
Violette Humsi
Violette Humsi was born in Lebanon and has a B.A. in Political Science and Public Administration from The American University of Beirut (1982). Mrs. Humsi teaches Arabic at Syracuse University and is also fluent in French and English. She tutors in Arabic and French and teaches a language class at Jefferson Community College; she has also taught different French classes at SU. Violette was a frequent (local) TV guest, speaking about Middle Eastern Affairs and Lebanon. She is also an active member of the American University of Beirut Alumni Association for Upstate New York. She currently heads the Circulation Desk at the Fayetteville Free Library.
Arsalan Kahnemuyipour
Ph.D., University of Toronto, 2004
Assistant Professor of Linguistics
Professor Kahnemuyipour's main research interests lie in the morphology (word structure) and syntax (sentence structure) of human language. Most of his research is on Persian, his first language, but he has also done work on other languages. Professor Kahnemuyipour is also interested in the interface between syntax and phonology (the sound system). In his dissertation, "The Syntax of Sentential Stress," he provides a syntactic account for the position of sentential stress, the word in the sentence that receives the highest prominence. He draws on data from Persian, English, German, Eastern Armenian, and Romance languages including French, Italian and Spanish.
Tazim Kassam
Ph.D., McGill University, 1993
Associate Professor
Professor Kassam is a historian of religion specializing in the Islamic tradition. Her research and teaching interests include gender, ritual, devotional literature, syncretism and the cultural heritage of Muslims, particularly in South Asia. In her book Songs of Wisdom and Circles of Dance (1995), she explores the origins and creative synthesis of Hindu-Muslim ideas expressed in the song tradition of the Ismaili Muslims of the Indian Subcontinent. Prof. Kassam has twice co-chaired the Study of Islam section of the American Academy of Religion, has been a Lilly Teaching Scholar, and is on the editorial board of JAAR. She also pursues interests in Indian classical vocal music, learning technologies in the classroom, and community service.
Amos Kiewe
Ph.D., Ohio University
Professor, Communication & Rhetorical Studies
Born in Israel, Professor Kiewe's areas of expertise are political communication, presidential rhetoric, anti-Semitism, and Jewish rhetoric. He is the author of FDR’s First Fireside Chat: Public Confidence and the Banking Crisis (2007); co-authored FDR's Body Politics: The Rhetoric of Disability (2003), A Shining City on a Hill: Ronald Reagan's Economic Rhetoric, 1951-1989 (1991), co-edited Actor, Ideologue, Politician: The Public Speeches of Ronald Reagan (1992), and edited The Modern Presidency and Crisis Rhetoric (1994). Dr. Kiewe currently works on the rhetorical aspects of anti-Semitism.
Jaklin Kornfilt
Ph.D., Harvard University, 1985
Professor, Department of Languages, Literatures and Linguistics (LLL)
Director of the Interdisciplinary Linguistic Studies Program.
http://lang.syr.edu/Linguistics/CVs/Kornfilt.htm
Professor Kornfilt's research focus is the syntax and morphology of Turkish and Turkic. She is the author of Turkish, a reference grammar of Modern Standard Turkish (1997), the co-editor of Syntactic Theory and First Language Acquisition, vol. 2 (1994), and of a number of articles on the structure of Turkish including: "Asymmetries between pre-verbal and post-verbal scrambling in Turkish" in The Free Word Order Phenomenon (2005), "Free relatives as light-headed relatives in Turkish" in Organizing Grammar (2005), "Agreement and its placement in Turkic non-subject relative clauses" in Handbook of Comparative Syntax (2005), "Scrambling, Subscrambling, and Case in Turkish" in Word Order and Scrambling (2003), "Subject case in Turkish nominalized clauses" in Syntactic Structures and Morphological Information (2003), and, together with K. V. Heusinger, "The case of the direct object in Turkish: Semantics, syntax and morphology" in Turkic Languages, 9: 1 (2005). She teaches courses in general linguistics, syntax, and historical linguistics. Prof. Kornfilt is also the coordinator of the Language Courses in Turkish, housed in LLL.
Sandy Lane
Ph.D., University of California, San Francisco and Berkeley, 1988
Professor and Chair, Department of Health and Wellness
Professor Lane majored in North African Studies as an undergraduate, an independent major in the Middle Eastern Studies Department at UC Berkeley. The major involved three years of modern standard Arabic and three of French, as well as courses in Islamic institutions and the history and culture of North Africa. Her undergraduate thesis was entitled "Islam and Maternal and Child Health." Dr. Lane's doctoral research was conducted in a tiny hamlet in the Egyptian Delta on the eye disease trachoma. From 1988 to 1992, she was the Ford Foundation Program Officer for Reproductive Health, Child Survival and Population for the Middle East, with over 40 projects in Egypt, Sudan, Jordan, Lebanon, Yemen, and the West Bank and Gaza. Her research in Egypt has focused predominantly on gender and health and she has been a consultant to maternal mortality reduction projects in Upper Egyptian birth hospitals.
Eva Phillips
Ms. Phillips teaches Arabic language courses at the university. In addition to Arabic and English, she is also fluent in German and Hebrew and has been a certified and qualified teacher for the Ministry of Education in Israel since 1988.
Kara Richardson
Ph.D., University of Toronto, 2008
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Professor Richardson is an historian of Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy. One of the distinctive aspects of her work is its focus on the influence of Medieval Islamic Philosophy on the Latin West. Her current research in this area examines Avicenna’s views on causality. She teaches courses on Medieval Aristotelianism and Early Modern Rationalism.
Robert A. Rubinstein
Ph.D., SUNY Binghamton, 1977
MSPH, School of Public Health, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1983
Professor of anthropology and of international relations
Professor Rubinstein's Middle East research focuses on conflict management (especially multilateral peacekeeping), governance and on health and illness. His principal focus in the region is on Egypt, where he lived for 5 years. His seven books include, Peacekeeping Under Fire: Culture and Intervention, The Social Dynamics of Peace and Conflict: Culture in International Security, Peace and War: Cross-Cultural Perspectives, Science as Cognitive Process, Fieldwork and Doing Fieldwork. His articles have appeared in the American Anthropologist, the American Ethnologist, Current Anthropology, Human Organization, Negotiation Journal, Middle East Studies Bulletin, and Social Science and Medicine, among others. Professor Rubinstein teaches the “Middle East in Anthropological Perspective,” “Health in the Middle East,” and focuses on the Middle East in “Culture and World Affairs,” “Language, Culture and Society,” “Culture and Conflict,” “Culture and Disputing,” and “Multilateral Peacekeeping.” He is a member of the Middle East Studies Program Steering Committee.
Kathryn Spellman
PhD, Birkbeck College, University of London
Faculty Associate at the Maxwell School and College of Arts and Sciences
Dr. Spellman’s research interests focus on Iran and Iranian Diasporic studies; transnational migration movements; religion and gender in contemporary societies; and Libyan studies. She teaches such courses as Religion, Identity and Power; Multicultural London; and Migration and Diasporas at Syracuse University - London campus. Dr. Spellman is the author of Religion and Nation: Iranian Local and Transnational Networks in Britain (Berghahn Publishers, 2005).
James W. Watts
Ph.D., Yale University, 1990
Professor of Religion
Professor Watts teaches Hebrew Bible and ancient Near Eastern textual traditions in courses ranging from biblical studies to the religions and literatures of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Ugarit, and Israel, including Second Temple Judaism. He is the author of Ritual and Rhetoric in Leviticus: From Sacrifice to Scripture (2007), Reading Law: The Rhetorical Shaping of the Pentateuch (1999) and Psalm and Story: Inset Hymns in Hebrew Narrative (1992).
Dina Vincow
MA, University of Washington, 1965
Part-time instructor and coordinator of the Hebrew Program at
Syracuse University.
Instructor Vincow has taught the first two years of Hebrew language at SU since 1974. Before coming to Syracuse, Professor Vincow taught first through fourth year of Russian language for ten years at the University of Washington (Seattle).
STAFF :
Julia Ganson
Dr. Julia Ganson is a sociologist who recently joined the Executive Education team in the Maxwell School, in the newly created position of Program Coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa. She is responsible for facilitating the academic components, such as curriculum development, of training and professional development programs that bring Middle Easterners to SU and then support them in internships in Washington, D.C. This includes Leaders in Democracy Fellows and, beginning next year, Civic Education Leadership Fellows. Dr. Ganson’s role is one of building and maintaining collaborative relationships within SU and beyond, to facilitate programming that advances the study of the Middle East and North Africa.