In the coming weeks, the University of Utah’s Middle East Center will lead a series of campus discussions and other events to discuss the Israeli-Hamas conflict and the ongoing violence in the Gaza Strip.
Chris Rowe, the center’s new director, said the university’s Middle East Center, revitalized under new leadership, will help faculty experts and thought leaders engage with students and staff from different cultures and experiences, and will continue to work on campus. He said that it provides a base for building understanding within the country.
“At the University of Utah, the College of Humanities and the Middle East Center will be working extremely hard in the coming days and weeks to provide opportunities for education and honest, thoughtful dialogue that includes community members.” said Chris Lowe, director of the center. Associate Professor, Department of History, Middle East Center, Faculty of Humanities.
Professor Roe, along with Humanities Dean Hollis Robbins, identified faculty on campus with deep knowledge and research experience about the Middle East, including Israeli-Palestinian relations, in ways that deepen knowledge and understanding and bridge potential cultural gaps. I’m working on something.
Faculty experts participating in the dialogue sessions include:
Amos Guiora, Professor at S.J. Quinney School of Law. Giora is an expert on Israeli politics and national security. He is a Distinguished Fellow of the Holocaust and Law Research Consortium at Chicago-Kent Law School and a Distinguished Fellow and Counselor at the Center for International Conflict Resolution at the Katz School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh. Professor Giola serves on the board of directors of the Lauren McCluskey Foundation. His research and writings have focused on the issue of Holocaust bystanders. He is the author of Armies of Enablers: Survivor Stories of Complicity and Betrayal in Sex Assaults.
chris lowe, Assistant Professor, Research Professor of Environmental Humanities. From 2015 until 2022, Lowe taught at Iowa State University. From 2020 to 2021, he was a Senior Humanities Fellow in Arab World Studies at New York University Abu Dhabi. Rowe’s research and teaching focuses on the countries of the modern Middle East, the Ottoman Empire, and the Arabian Peninsula. He has lived, studied, and traveled extensively in the region, including Egypt, Israel, Palestine, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. The author of Mr. Rowe is Mecca of Empire: Pilgrimage to Mecca in Ottoman Arabia and the Indian Ocean (Columbia University Press, 2020).
Maera Shriver, professor of English, chair of the Jewish Studies Initiative in the Humanities Department, and affiliated faculty member of the Middle East Studies Program. Shriver teaches and writes about poetry, Jewish American literature, American ethnic studies, religious studies, and interfaith relations. Professor Shriver is the author of, among other things, Singing in a Strange Land: A Jewish American Poetics.
Hakan Yavuz, Professor of Political Science at the Middle East Center. Yavuz has been teaching at the university since 1998. He is the author of the following books: Eldgun: The origins of a dictator (2021), Nostalgia for Empire: The Politics of Neo-Ottomanism(2020), Aiming for Islamic Enlightenment: The Gülen Movement(2013), and Secularism and Islamic democracy in Türkiye (2009), as well as numerous journal articles in both English and Turkish.
Like other universities across the country, our campus has students, faculty and staff from a variety of backgrounds, geographies, cultures, and perspectives. As the violent conflict in Israel and Gaza continues, and death and destruction mount, it is important that American universities play a role in leading discussions, embracing differences, and working towards solutions moving forward. said Professor Robbins.
“Our challenge is to ensure that we can have civil discussions both inside and outside the classroom, as students tend to ask tough questions about what is happening and why we want to end the violence. ” Robbins added.
University leaders issued two statements this week regarding the Middle East crisis:
- The first is a short message from President Taylor Randall, Senior Vice President for Health Sciences Mike Good, and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Mitzi Montoya about support and direction for campus resources.
- The second is a long letter from the Provost, EDI, Student Affairs, and Global Engagement to the campus community in advance of a “teach-in” in the College of Humanities and Sciences later this month, which can be found here.
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