Dr. Suad Joseph, Facilitator
Announcements:
Campus Speakers and Visitors for 2004
University of California, Davis, has recently developed a critical mass of faculty and graduate students involved in research and teaching on the Middle East and South Asia (ME/SA). The ME/SA Research Cluster includes about 25 faculty and graduate students whose area of research and teaching focuses questions of history, culture, society, economy, anthropology, literature, geography and religion of ME/SA. The ME/SA Research Cluster was founded in Fall, 2002 by Suad Joseph, and funded by the UC Davis' Center for History, Society and Culture.
Middle East and South Asia regions have much in common historically. Scholarship benefits significantly from the comparison of the two regions in terms of state formation, early civilizations, shared religions, aspects of family systems, economies, positions in the world system. Contact between the two regions has been continuous for over 10,000 years, transporting peoples, cultures and commodities. In contemporary terms, Islam and Christianity have been points of both connection and conflict for the regions. The in-migration of thousands of workers from South Asia to the Middle East has linked the economies in remittances. Trade between the regions is vital. Political relations between India and Pakistan spill over not only in Afghanistan, but also into Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Egypt and so forth. The structure of family systems, while different, raises very similar questions about the embedding of the self in familial systems. At multiple levels, the historic and contemporary linkages between the regions makes their study in tandem with each other rich and vital.
The ME/SA Research Cluster meets on a monthly basis in the evenings in the homes of members. The agenda of work for 2002-2003 focuses on:
For information, Contact Dr. Suad Joseph