MENA Graduate Group Helps with International Rescue Donation Drive!

When/Where : October 14th - 27th, 2008, NES Department Rm 461 (copy room)

The MENA (Middle East and North Africa) graduate group is holding a donation drive for the International Rescue Committee (IRC) Tucson to provide hygiene supplies for incoming refugees to the Tucson area. As worldwide conflicts escalate and budgets tighten, resources for refugees are in dire need as they make their transition to US life. Below is a list of items which are needed. Please donate only those items in new condition.
Items Needed:

• Shampoo and Conditioner
• Toothbrushes and Toothpaste
• Soap (body and hand)
• Laundry Detergent
• Deodorant (men and women)

Monetary Donations: If you would like to make a monetary donation to the drive, please make out a check to the International Rescue Committee Tucson and note in the memo line the donation is specifically for the "hygiene donation drive". Please do NOT leave the checks in the donation box, but place them in a labeled envelope, bring them to the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, and ask that the envelope be given to Shauna Little, the CMES Outreach Assistant.

Donation Point: There is a box in the University of Arizona Department of Near Eastern Studies copy room that will serve as the donation point. Please place any items you would like to donate there.

Information about the IRC from www.theIRC.org:"The IRC opened its Tucson Resettlement Office in 1997. Since then, the office has helped more than 1,500 refugees from over 23 countries rebuild their lives in Southern Arizona. IRC Tucson is the only nonsectarian resettlement agency in Southern Arizona dedicated exclusively to refugees. Our goal is to help all refugees become self-sufficient within their first several months in the U.S. To accomplish our goal, we provide a comprehensive continuum of services that empower refugees to build a new life in our community."

Contact: Shauna Little, sjlitt@email.arizona.edu, www.uamena.org

NES Undergraduate Organization Garners $250 Prize for Voter Drive Efforts!

In a voter registration drive contest sponsored by the ASUA, the NES UO won third place and $250 for their efforts to register voters for the upcoming election. The group held signups around campus, wrapping up their efforts October 3, 2008. Kudos especially go to president Shiva Kiani, the driving force behind the NES effort. Right on NES UO! We have the best majors at the University, no doubt in our (NES) mind. The NESUO meets weekly at 4:30 in the Department of Near Eastern Studies, Marshall Bldg Rm 451. All NES majors and minors are welcome. For more information contact Shiva at shivak@email.arizona.edu.

Assistant Professor Aomar Boum Joins NES (go to full bio)

We are pleased to welcome Dr. Aomar Boum to the Department of Near Eastern Studies! Professor Boum has a dual appointment in Near Eastern Studies and Religious Studies. He is a sociocultural anthropologist, whose research explores how Moroccans (Muslim and Jewish) remember, picture, and construct Jewishness and Moroccan Judaism. Boum received a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Arizona in 2006, an M.A. in applied humanities from Al-Akhawayn University, Ifrane (Morocco) in 1997, and a B.A. in English Language and Literature from Cadi Ayyad University, Marrakesh (Morocco) in 1993. His Ph.D. dissertation was titled Muslims Remember Jews in Southern Morocco: Social Memories, Dialogic Narratives, and the Collective Imagination of Jewishness. Before joining the University of Arizona, Boum taught at Portland State University (2006-2008) as an assistant professor of International Studies and Islamic Studies. Full Bio

Dr. Maha Nassar Joins NES (go to full bio)

Welcome Dr. Maha Nassar to the Department! Dr. Nassar's research explores intellectual constructs of ethnicity, citizenship and national identity in the Middle East, analyzing how writers in the 1950s and 1960s utilized mass media, especially newspapers and literary journals, to assert claims of ideological legitimacy and to challenge the dominant narratives of the nation-state. Full Bio

Ph.D. Candidate W. Ben Adams Selected to Give Talk

Graduate Student Ben Adams selected to give talk at the "Cosmology Across Cultures: Impact of the Study of the Universe in Human Thinking". The annual meeting for the European Society for Astronomy in Culture (SEAC) will meet in Granada, Spain, on September 11, 2008. Ben Adams will be speaking about early Arab astral worship and has received full travel and registration grant to present his topic entitled:

Living by al-Anwa': a literary, cultural and theological analysis of folk astronomy in pre-Islamic and early Islamic Arabia

http://www.iac.es/congreso/cac2008/pages/view_abstract.php?aid=39