The Duke-UNC Consortium for Middle East Studies supports events that increase awareness of the history and cultures of the Middle East and Muslim civilizations, and values diverse perspectives that promote dialogue and understanding. Events listed here originate from a variety of campus units and community organizations. The listing of an event does not constitute endorsement of or agreement with the views presented therein.
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September 2021
K-12 Teacher Training: Muslim American History Modules for the Social Studies Curriculum (virtual)
Muslims have been present in the United States since before the country’s founding. In this webinar for educators, Yasmine Flodin-Ali, PhD candidate in the Department of Religious Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill, will present on three complete lesson plan modules for high school social studies teachers on Muslim American history. The different units focus on enslaved Muslims in the United States, early immigration from South Asia and the Middle East, and the Iranian Revolution. Relevant to high school curricula,…
Find out more »Introduction to Kazakhstan (virtual)
Explore Kazakh culture and history with Dr. Eren Tasar, Associate Professor of History. Learn more about the region and opportunities to study abroad in Almaty, Kazakhstan through the Russian Flagship Program. Register in advance. Sponsored by the UNC Russian Flagship Program. UNC-Chapel Hill
Find out more »October 2021
Panel Discussion: Global Careers for LGBTQ Folk (virtual)
Members of the LGBTQ+ community play key roles in international business, diplomacy, advocacy, and scholarship, but they can also face unique challenges in global careers because of their sexuality, sexual orientation, gender identity, and/or gender expression (on top of all the other challenges of global careers). This panel brings together members of the LGBTQ+ community who are navigating careers that cross borders and tackle international issues to talk about some of the continuing challenges, unique opportunities, and best strategies…
Find out more »Book Talk: Dr. Claudia Yaghoobi in conversation with Dr. Pamela Lothspeich (virtual)
Book: Temporary Marriage in Iran (Cambridge UP 2020), Dr. Claudia Yaghoobi “Proposing a methodology that brings feminist theories of embodiment to bear on the Iranian literary and cinematic tradition, this study examines temporary marriage in Iran, not just as an institution but also as a set of practices, identities and meanings that have transformed over the course of the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries. Based on analysis of novels and short stories from the Pahlavi era, and cinematic works produced…
Find out more »Lecture: “The Well and the Water Machine: The History of Desalination and Fossil-Fueled Water in the Long Shadow of Arabia’s Climate-Altered Future” with Prof. Michael Low (Iowa State University) (virtual)
It is an undisputed truism that the story of the 20th-century Arabian Peninsula is synonymous with the story of oil. Particularly after the 1973 oil crisis, exploding oil prices launched the region into significant socio-economic transformations. And while oil infrastructure has rightfully been understood as the lifeblood of this growth, another infrastructure remained virtually invisible, desalination facilities. Despite this seeming invisibility, desalination has become a defining material feature of life in the Arabian Peninsula. Since the 1970s and even…
Find out more »Kitab Talk: “Transcending Communal Divisions to Build the 1947 Partition Archive” with Guneeta Singh Bhalla (virtual)
The 1947 Partition Archive is a project dedicated to documenting the people's history of the 1947 India-Pakistan Partition, a globally disruptive event that created one of the largest mass refugee crises of the last century. Through an innovative crowdsourcing approach developed in 2010, The 1947 Partition Archive has democratized historical documentation, bringing forth voices from communities previously underrepresented and histories previously unknown. Today, over 9,500 witness oral histories recorded from 14 countries in over 36 languages and dialects have…
Find out more »Panel Discussion: “Ending the Longest War: America’s Wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan in Comparative Perspective” (virtual)
In 2021 the United States declared an end to its military operations in Afghanistan and announced the withdrawal of US troops. While many in the media have heralded this as the end of America’s “longest war,” many others would argue that America’s military engagement in Vietnam was just as long and just as fraught – both for those who fought and for the country in conflict. Additionally, as the Taliban quickly conquered the whole of Afghanistan in August 2021,…
Find out more »November 2021
Kitab Talk: “Grooves and Waves: Phonograph Records as Historical Sources in the Digital Age” with Christopher Silver (McGill University)
In the decades following the advent of the phonograph at the end of the nineteenth century, thousands of shellac records circulated across the Middle East and North Africa. Etched between their grooves were a stunning array of popular, classical, and folkloric songs, sketches and monologues, and the otherwise sublime sounds of an extended era of profound change. At mid-twentieth century, in the midst of decolonization, mass migration, as well as the appearance of vinyl, most of the region’s earliest…
Find out more »Seminar: Zuhra Altymyshova (Manas Kyrgyz-Turkish University & CSEEES) and Eren Tasar (UNC Chapel Hill)
The Carolina Seminar on Russia and its Empires will host an event featuring Zuhra Altymyshova (Manas Kyrgyz-Turkish University & CSEEES) and Eren Tasar (UNC Chapel Hill). The Carolina Seminar: Russia and Its Empires, East and West is co-sponsored by the Carolina Seminar Program, the UNC Department of History, and the Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies. For more information, contact Dr. Eren Tasar, etasar@email.unc.edu. UNC-Chapel Hill
Find out more »December 2021
Book Talk: Dr. Waleed Ziad in conversation with Rustin Zarkar (virtual)
The remarkable discoveries of over 300 new varieties of local copper currency from the Sakra region in northwestern Pakistan, covering a 700-year period, have opened up new vistas in the study of Gandhara in late antiquity. This monograph introduces the native Sakra copper coinage, which can be dated from ca. 500 to 1100, corresponding to the Nezak, Turk Shahi, Hindu Shahi, and Ghaznavid periods. Dr. Waleed Ziad is Assistant Professor and Ali Jerrahi Fellow in Persian Studies in…
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