Is he a Speech and Dance Director
or
a Director of Middle East Studies....
What does a Director do? Does he/she direct the curriculum for the other Professors in the Department....?
No, no, and no.
Looks like a very accomplished guy
My guess is that he has an appointment in two departments: anthropology as one and a department which consists of Theatre, Speech and Dance, as the other. (As for the commas, lots of recommendations these days to avoid the comma before "and" in a list.) And, since administrations often insist that tenure and title are not department specific but rather university specific, his title is Associate Professor. Don't know whether Brown is that way.
He is also, apparently, the Director of Brown's Middle East Studies program. If you look at his publications, it's not surprising. He's certainly got the credentials and the writing. Again, I'm not certain about Brown, but a good many universities have cross disciplinary programs which draw from faculty in several departments but have no faculty lines. Those are in the supporting departments.
So, my guess is Brown is like that. If so, as Director, more than likely, he shuffles the paper work back and forth, chairs meetings of the program faculty, etc. Not a big deal.
As for his views, they don't agree with you or with Bill. If that makes his views suspect along some sort of patriotism spectrum, you guys need to relax. He disagree with you. Terrific. And let's celebrate diverse opinions. Disagreement. Makes for a conversation as they say. It certainly doesn't fall along the patriotism axis.
About like Bill's notion that "all" universities are nothing but leftist boondoggles. As if "leftist" lay along the patriotism axis. And I think I read something he typed to the effect that all faculty members in ME departments/programs were ME Arab immigrants. Bill, take a deep breath. We all type beyond our knowledge at time. But those take three of four pieces of the cake.
If you wish to read more about him, here's his views on Bernard Lewis, who, apparently was his grad school mentor. I like the review.
From Respected Scholar to Neoconservative Ideologue
Lewis, Bernard The Crisis of Islam. New York: The Modern Library, 2003. 184 pp.
Review from The Providence Journal, Sunday, May 11, 2003, Page D9 (Arts Section)
William O. Beeman
Director of Middle East Studies
Department of Anthropology
Brown University
brown.edu
If you are only going to read one book on Islam, don’t let it be this one!
Bernard Lewis was one of my gurus as a graduate student. As one of the editors of the venerable Cambridge History of Islam, the classic books, The Arabs in History, The Emergence of Modern Turkey and dozens of other essential works, he was an icon as a Middle Eastern historian. He held sway for many years at Princeton as the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor of Near Eastern Studies.
Contemporary times and retirement have changed him. The sober, even-handed professor of my youth has been transformed in his recent work to a neoconservative toady, almost eager to corrupt his own considerable knowledge for ideological purposes. In this, and his earlier book, What went wrong? : Western Iimpact and Middle Eastern Response he now spouts invective and misinformation about the Islamic world that is pleasing to his new best friends—Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle—but which will be deeply misleading to a public desperate for accurate information about Islamic civilization and history.
This slim volume—barely 185 pages in large type—is clearly designed to be a “trot” on for a public wanting a quick and superficial read on the Islamic world. Yet there is barely anything about Islam or Islamic history in the book. The introduction frames the discussion of the whole Islamic world in terms of the illegitimate “fatwa” issued by Osama [Usama in Lewis’ transliteration] bin Laden in 1998 calling for a ‘Jihad against the Jews and the Crusaders.’ This is akin to using Mein Kampf to frame a discussion of Christianity. It prejudices the discussion immediately.
His next framing is based on an offhand, out-of-context quote by Iranian revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini: “Islam is politics or it is nothing.” He then constructs an entire chapter titled “Defining Islam” on the premise that Islam as a religion is governed primarily by political rather than religious, ethical or moral concerns. The fact that Khomeini’s philosophy of Islamic government is rejected by every serious Islamic scholar, including most Shi’a clerics does not trouble Lewis. It troubles me, however, because I know that the erudite and learned Lewis is aware of the specious nature of this argument, and is using it on purpose to mislead his readers.
More disturbing still is Lewis’ discussion of the term jihad. Middle East scholars have pointed out incessantly that this word means struggle rather than the vulgar “holy war,” and has as many positive, peaceful connotations as violent ones. This does not prevent Lewis, a consummate Arabist, from taking a whole chapter to overwhelm the reader with the negative, hostile readings of this term.
Lewis is not beneath bending of the colonial history of the Middle East that he documented so well in his earlier writings. According to Lewis, British and French occupation and economic exploitation of the region for more than 150 years may have had some negative consequences, but the European presence was basically beneficial because it brought modernization to the region. His account of the period between World War I and World War II makes it seem like the British and French were doing the people of the region a favor and then they just went home when their job was done. He writes:
“ . . . the newly acquired territories were not simply annexed, in the traditional style, as colonies or dependencies. They were assigned to Britain and France to administer as mandatory powers, under the authority of the League of Nations, with the explicit task of grooming them for independence. This a was a very brief episode, beginning after World War I, and ending after World War II, and then the mandates were terminated and the mandated territories became independent.” (p. 57)
The truth of this matter is that the British and French carved up the defeated Ottoman Empire for their own economic purposes. In the most egregious case, the British rewarded themselves and the Sharif of Mecca for his help in World War I with the kingdoms of Iraq and Jordan for his sons. The European armies then occupied these former Ottoman territories until they were kicked out in a series of bloody revolutions after World War II. The shameful history of the Palestinian mandate is also part of this legacy.
Lewis also dismisses the role of the C.I.A. in the coup that toppled Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq in 1953 in favor of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. His version of Mossadq’s removal is that the Iranians genuinely wanted the Shah to return, and the C.I.A. involvement was of no consequence. The furious Iranians chanting “Death to America!” during the Revolution of 1978-79 clearly had a different opinion.
Finally, Lewis manages the most despicable calumny of all: the equation of the Arab world with the Nazi movement. He begins his extended discussion of this topic thus: “The Nazi version of German ideologies was influential in nationalist circles, notably among the founders and followers of the Ba’th Party in Syria and Iraq.” With this characterization in hand, what better reason could there be for the United States to invade this “axis of evil?”
Lewis now shows up at every White House occasion involving the Middle East. He appears as an eminence grise to legitimate the most outrageous neoconservative attacks on the Islamic world, like the conference at the American Enterprise Institute on May 6 in which he joined the participants calling for “regime change” in Iran. He is truly the Islamic specialist of the hour for this administration, but the public should not believe one word of what he is saying. If “Islam is politics, or it is nothing,” clearly Lewis proves that history can have the same character.
William O. Beeman teaches anthropology at Brown University, where he is Director of Middle East Studies. He has written extensively on, and conducted research in the Middle East for more than 30 years. |
