Chocolate in Heat, Stage Reading of the play by Betty Shamieh

The OSU Theatre Department brought an excellent stage reading of Betty Shamieh's "Chocolate in Heat" to campus last night and the night before. Produced by the "Lab Series, A Department-Nurtured, Student-Driven Production Series." We are very fortunate to have such a program, and especially fortunate that two of the finest actors in Egypt happen to be in Columbus and could play the main roles. Amany Seleem, Ph.D. Candidate in the Department, and her husband, Assem Ngaty, Ph.D, performed multiple roles powerfully. The play was directed by Allison Brogan. If you haven't had a chance to check her plays out, they are quite worth it, and her intellectual output as a whole.

This play demonstrated the way (one of the ways) Middle Eastern, in this case Arab, Americans stay very close to their home countries. In particular, the way knowledge of history and current politics can play a role in their everyday lives. Of course, this comes with a whole range of emotions and connections to individual lives, an aspect which was portrayed incredibly well in the way multiple interlocking stories unfolded. The script lent itself well to a reading as it uses monologues to describe each facet of the story. Bravo!

Middle Eastern American Identities

We were honored to bring together scholars, students and educators on Wednesday to discuss Middle Eastern American identities. Dr. Mehdi Bozorghmehr spoke first about the unique challenges of representation that Middle Easterners face in post-9/11 America, and specifically the ways in which the diversity of this heterogeneous group is overlooked. The intense focus on the raging conflicts in the Middle East in American popular culture reinforces existing negative stereotypes, further concealing the diversity of this panethnic group. It is very difficult for these ethnic minorities to overcome such challenges and advocate for their interests, partly because Middle Eastern groups are not recognized as official minorities. For instance, governmental forms (e.g., the U.S. Census and those pertaining to affirmative action) subsume Middle Easterners under the White racial category and hence contribute to their invisibility and inability to combat discrimination.

Jonathan Friedlander expanded on the topic of diversity versus the monolithic image of Middle Easterners held in the collective imagination of American society. He talked about Middle Eastern identities "from A to Z" (Arab to Zoroastrian). While there is a sizeable population of individuals of Middle Eastern origin in the U.S., the group is more diverse here due to migrant selectivity (e.g., religious minorities from the Middle East are overrepresented in America). So, as we study the Middle East, it is important to remember that many Middle Eastern individuals we meet in the U.S. will not fit the expectation of what the Middle East tends to be (i.e., Arab and Muslim). For example, about half of Middle Eastern Americans are non-Arabs, and a large segment is also non-Muslim (Christian, Jewish, etc.).

We take this opportunity to thank our partner, Kenyon College, and all of the OSU sponsoring departments who helped make this and related events possible. They include the Mershon Center for International Security Studies; the Department of History; the Center for African Studies; the Undergraduate International Studies Program; the Department of African and African American Studies; and the Multicultural Center.

The guest scholars were interviewed on "All Sides" with Ann Fisher while they were here.  Please check it out! Here is a link to the recording from the "All Sides" page: http://streaming.osu.edu/wosu/allsides/091912a.mp3 We will be posting the video of their presentation, as well as other related materials in our Knowledge Bank Community.