The following opportunities are provided by the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Arizona:

As always, brief descriptors are immediately below (organized by category). Scroll down further for extended descriptions of anything that interests you. An asterisk (*) designates a University of Arizona Center for Middle Eastern Studies activity; a plus (+) is an item new to the listserv.
SHORT DESCRIPTORS:

—Arizona Events:    

+  1. THIS week: “Fueling Extremism in a Wired World.” Sponsored by the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. Wed. evening, Sept. 21. Scottsdale.

+*2. THIS week: “Comparing the Persian and Sanskrit Worlds, 1000-1800: A Framework for Historical Writing.” Fri. afternoon, Sept. 23. Tucson.

3. THIS Friday evening: Film screening: “A Tale of Love and Darkness” (biopic of Israeli writer Amos Oz). Fri., Sept. 23. Tucson.

+  4. Next week: “Gender in Archeology Today: The Key to Understanding Ancient Israel.” Mon., Sept. 26. Tucson.   

5. “The Splendors of Woven Art” rug exhibit. Now through Oct. 2. Tucson,

    
—Competitions, PD, and Travel Opportunities for Educators:

   *6. Traveled to the Middle East – ever?? Enter your photos for our photography exhibit.
     7. Winter break/summer travel abroad opportunities.   
     8. U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum FUNDED program for college faculty “Gender and Sexuality in the Holocaust.” Jan. 9-13 Washington DC.

9. Register now to attend the regional conference of the Community College Humanities Association (CCHA) in your area. All are in late October or early November.
10.  Deadline in one week: Apply now to present at the National Council for History Education national conference in Atlanta March 30-April 1.

          

—Resources for Educators:

   *11. CMES lesson plans, background sheets, film guides, youtube lectures, etc. – for all grade levels, including adult. And please “like” our CMES Outreach Facebook page.

12.  Aramco World free online (or print) magazine – including “virtual tours” of the Alhambra (Spain), Dome of the Rock (Jerusalem), etc.

+  13. Choices short videos (some 2 minutes long) on various topics (Turkish unrest today, India-Pakistan, global climate change).

+  14. Free online documentary on the “golden age” of Islam.     

15. Information and high school materials about Syria.
16. U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum materials.
17. “Syria Deeply” project.

     16 “Fractured Lands,” NY Times spread on the Middle East after the U.S. invasion of Iraq (2003). With some interesting college lesson plans to go with it.

17. Global History Educator – blog and links.
18. Community college lessons from the Center for Global Awareness (on Korean pop culture and other interesting topics).     
19. 19.Resources on what’s going on in the contemporary Middle East.    

 

—VERY IMPORTANT: Tell College Students That You Know:

20. Benjamin Gilman International Scholarships for students to study/intern abroad.

 

 

EXTENDED DESCRIPTIONS:

 

+  1. Scottsdale Community College, Arizona State University, and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (Washington DC) present: “Fueling Extremism in a Wired World,” a panel presentation. The event is FREE and open to the public.

“Nazis used radio, today’s extremists use social media. Then as now, new technology provides extremists with unchecked ability to spread hate and prey upon disenfranchised audiences to realize their deadly agenda. How can governments, corporations, and individuals counter these messages and keep the world safe?”

Featured Speaker: Dr. Stephen Luckert, Senior Program Curator, Digital Learning and New Media, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Moderator: Janine Zacharia, Carlos Kelly McClatchy Visiting Lecturer, Stanford University
Wednesday, September 21, 7 p.m.
Valley of the Sun Jewish Community Center, 12701 N. Scottsdale Road, Scottsdale, AZ
Although the event is FREE, registration is required. To register, go to: https://www.ushmm.org/online/calendar/eventDetails.php?event=WCPPAZEXTRM0916

 

+*2. THIS week: Historian Dr. Richard Eaton will give a talk on “Comparing the Persian and Sanskrit Worlds, 1000-1800: A Framework for Historical Writing.” Part of the CMES/MENAS colloquium series, the free public talk will be held at 3:00 pm on Fri., Sept. 23, in Marshall 490 (845 N. Park Ave.). For more information, go to: http://cmes.arizona.edu/colloquium/fa16/eaton  

 

3. THIS FRIDAY EVENING: You have to pay for this, but it’s at Tucson’s The Loft Cinema, which shows interesting, unusual films. “A Tale of Love and Darkness” is based on the memoirs of Amos Oz, who grew up in Jerusalem in the years just before the creation of the state of Israel. The film is a story of an interesting family living through cataclysmic changes. The movie is showing on Friday, Sept. 23, at the Loft Cinema, 3233 E. Speedway Blvd., Tucson. ( For more information, go to: http://cmes.arizona.edu/events/tale-love-and-darkness

 

+  4. Next week: Dr. Beth Alpert Nakhai of the Arizona Center for Judaic Studies will give a free public talk on “Gender in Archeology Today: The Key to Understanding Ancient Israel.” The talk will be held at 4:00 pm on Monday, September 26, at the Hillel Center on the U of A campus. For a lot more information on the talk and the location, go to: http://cmes.arizona.edu/events/gender-archaeology-today-key-understanding-ancient-israel-0

 

5. If you love weaving, check out “The Splendors of Woven Art: Oriental Rugs and Textiles from the Reza Amindavar Collection.” The exhibit is running now through October 2 at the Tucson Museum of Art. For more information, go to: http://cmes.arizona.edu/events/splendors-woven-art-oriental-rugs-and-textiles-reza-amindavar-collection

 

   *6. Have you traveled to the Middle East – not just recently, but EVER? Do you like to take photos when you travel. If so, enter your photos for our annual photography exhibit. The deadline isn’t for a while yet, October 2016, but you might want to be thinking about the competition when you travel this summer. Or you might have some photos already. The theme, “borders and boundaries,” is meant to be interpreted broadly, not just geographical borders but borders around handicrafts or doors, boundaries between urban and rural or between light and dark, anything you can think of. Selected photos will be enlarged and displayed for 1 year in our photography exhibit (for 2 weeks in the Student Union Gallery, the rest of the time in the Center’s exhibit space).For more information, on what to do and how to enter, go to: http://cmes.arizona.edu/photo-exhibit/submissions

 

7. Want to do something fun – but also intelligent – during your winter or summer break? Well, there will be a lot of opportunities coming up (on this listserv) over the next months: National Endowment for the Humanities programs and other fully funded programs – and for-pay programs through GEEO, an educators’ non-profit. I’ve done two GEEO trips – to Morocco and to the Peruvian Andes – and enjoyed them greatly. For more information, go to: https://geeo.org/

 

8. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum (Washington DC) has a seminar specifically for college/university faculty. (I asked, and they said they welcome applications from community college faculty.) Most travel/living expenses are covered. The program is: “Gender and Sexuality in the Holocaust,” and it will run from Jan. 9-13 in Washington DC. For more information, go to: https://www.ushmm.org/research/competitive-academic-programs/faculty-seminars/jack-and-anita-hess-seminar-for-faculty Deadline to apply: Nov. 1.

 

9. The Community College Humanities Association (CCHA) is a great organization specifically for community college educators. The organization has an biennial national conference on odd-numbered years, but on even-numbered ones, like 2016, there are regional conferences, all held in late October or early November. Consider attending the one in your region. (And if you go to the Southwest Regional, stop by and say hello to me!) http://www.cchumanities.org/conferences/division-conferences/

 

10.    10. Apply now to presentat the National Council for History Education national conference in Atlanta, March 30-April 1. The NCHE conference is a good one – and if you attend the Arizona Council for History Education on Saturday, you are already a member of NCHE! To find out more, go to: https://www.nche.net/conference/submitaproposal Deadline to submit a proposal: Sept. 26.

 

   *11. CMES has all kinds of lesson plans and materials (powerpoints, reproducible handouts, etc.), many of them useful to community college educators.
– We have over 120 lesson plans at all grade levels, including college. http://cmes.arizona.edu/outreach/lessons Click on the links to search by grade level, subject, or content area; then go down the list (alphabetical) to find the lessons.

– There are plenty of handouts and background sheets and powerpoints at: http://cmes.arizona.edu/node/771 . For example, there are some powerpoints on the Jewish High Holy Days (about to start), teachable ideas about the Ottoman Empire, and lots, lots more.
– Check out the other resources such as film guides (for films available at our Center or through Netflix), links to websites to counter Islamophobia, and AP World History resources:http://cmes.arizona.edu/outreach/resources
– We have a YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/sbscmes/videos 

 

12.  Aramco World is a beautiful, colorful, interesting magazine of Middle Eastern and Muslim cultures. And you can get the magazine for free online or in print! A recent online edition includes “virtual tours” of the Alhambra (Spain), Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque (Jerusalem), and Suleymaniye Mosque (Istanbul, Turkey): http://archive.aramcoworld.com/issue/201501/ For other online issues, go to:http://archive.aramcoworld.com/index/BackIssues2010.aspx  And to order printed editions, see: http://www.aramcoworld.com/en-US/About/Print-Subscriptions     

 

+  13. Choices has some great lessons that you can buy or shorter “Teaching with the News” lessons that are free and online.http://choices.edu/ They also have some short videos (some 2 minutes long) on various topics. They are grouped around various themes: Turkish unrest today, India-Pakistan, global climate change. Check them out at: https://video.choices.edu/?mc_cid=1af2ddfcc5&mc_eid=BbjMmEwgka

 

+  14. Speaking of videos, when you want to teach about the “golden age” of Islam and the contributions of Islamic civilization to the world, there is a good, free, online videos that I’ve found: an hour-long BBC documentary which oddly intrigues students, part of a series on “What the Ancients Did for Us.” I say “oddly” because it doesn’t have fancy animation or other features. What the young people like is the stories of scientific developments and how the enthusiastic, mostly older scholars demonstrate them. They learn about the development of such things as soap, perfume, the camera, etc., and at the end, when they recreate a medieval torpedo and blow up a boat, well, everyone loves it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMDjF64mGLw

 

15. Do you want to be better informed on Syria yourself or want materials to present to students? Check out the web-based materials below:

 

          15a. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum has a wealth of materials on various aspects of the crisis and suggested courses of action. For more information, go to: https://www.ushmm.org/confront-genocide/cases/syria/introduction/syria

 

          15b. “Syria Deeply” is another user-friendly website with a variety of articles and resources: https://www.newsdeeply.com/syria/

 

16. NY Times Magazine did an entire issue on the Middle East after 2003: “Fractured Lands”: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/11/magazine/isis-middle-east-arab-spring-fractured-lands.html?emc=edit_ta_20160811&nlid=56017861&ref=cta&_r=0 It’s great, readable, fascinating. There are also college-level lesson plans to go with it from the Pulitzer Center: http://pulitzercenter.org/builder/lesson/18998?utm_source=Email&utm_medium=EduNewsletter&utm_campaign=FracturedLandsLesson. Another lesson is “An ISIS Fighter’s Background”: http://pulitzercenter.org/builder/lesson/19172

 

17. The Global History Educator blog is interesting and informative. AND it has some great links:http://cperrier.edublogs.org/2016/09/06/are-you-teaching-for-tomorrow-making-the-turn-to-global-education/

 

18. The non-profit Center for Global Awareness has several lessons/educational materials on such topics as Korean pop culture and the Gulf Arab States. Go to: http://global-awareness.org/resources/glessonplans.html and click on the links on the right-hand side of the page.     

 

19. Want to keep up with current events in the Middle East and don’t know where to go for nuanced, reliable information? Here are a few suggestions:

–       “Al Monitor: The Pulse of the Middle East” is easily searchable – with tabs for different countries and a digest reviewing this week’s news. You can also get an email brief if you sign up. For more info, go to: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/home.html

–       Juan Cole’s “Informed Comments” page is wonderful, well-organized, and useful. There are everything from political cartoons to insightful articles. Go to: http://www.juancole.com/

 

20. Tell college students that you know: Benjamin A. Gilman International Scholarships are designed to help community college and university students who normally would not be able to afford to study abroad or do an internship abroad. This may be of interest to some of your students! Tell them to check out: http://www.iie.org/Programs/Gilman-Scholarship-Program#.V8S1S6JFx1A

 

Lisa Adeli, Director of Educational Outreach

University of Arizona Center for Middle Eastern Studies

(520) 621-7904