Featured Middle East Resources

Just looked around and noticed that the Duke-UNC Consortium for Middle East Studies and the Carolina Center for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Civilizations have put together some impressive resources for teachers and the public. Here's a sampling. Explore and enjoy!

The Consortium’s ReOrienting the Veil conference in February, 2013, gathered presenters for discussion of one of the most visible symbols of Islam, the veil or hijab. Video of the presentations will be available soon. The ReOrienting the Veil web site offers educators and the public resources for learning and teaching about the veil

and its many meanings.

 

 

In her blog, Teaching the Modern Middle East, UNC Professor Sarah Shields reports on her teaching of a large (200+) lecture class.  Over the course of months, she shares her collaboration with students in a truly interactive exploration of Middle East history, and reflects on changing teaching practices in a digital age.

 

 

The Daily Life in Cairo Culture Kit was collected in Egypt's capital by UNC Middle East librarian Mohamed Abou El Seoud.  It offers toys, games, books, DVDs, clothes, and school supplies Cairene children use in their daily lives.  Borrowing the kit is free for North Carolina teachers, and the Consortium will pay the shipping both ways.  For more information, contact Outreach Director Regina Higgins at regina underscore higgins at unc dot edu

 

 

The Consortium is proud to have sponsored a screening of Cedars in the Pines, a documentary on the Lebanese in North Carolina produced by Professor Akram Khater of NC State University.  The Khayrallah Program for Lebanese-American Studies offers more information about the production and the continuing project on the Lebanese in North Carolina.  Teachers can find lesson plans to accompany the film here

 

More to come  . . . .

Free Workshop on Iraq



Watercolor and Black Ink by Lukman Ahmad

Score one for integrating the arts and social studies. 


My colleague at UNC, history professor Sarah Shields, had the brilliant idea of a workshop for North Carolina teachers that would introduce what we seldom see in textbooks and on the news--the art, music, and literature of Iraq.


Yes, art, music, and literature.  And, yes, Iraq.  We're so used to thinking about Iraq in terms of war, we've forgotten its rich traditional (and contemporary) culture.  And we can't teach what we've forgotten, or didn't know about in the first place.


So Professor Shields proposed inviting artists, two Iraqi and one Kurdish, to Chapel Hill, to present and discuss their art with North Carolina teachers.  The Duke-UNC Consortium for Middle East Studies, the UNC History Department, and the UNC Honors Program stepped up to provide the necessary funding.  The workshop is scheduled for November 12th.  More information here. 


Just last week we began to publicize the event among our state's teachers.  And the response? 


Overwhelming.  More than half the available spaces are claimed already by teachers eager to learn more about Iraqi culture and art. 


If you're a North Carolina teacher interested in enriching your teaching of the Middle East, contact me now.  I'll save a seat for you!