April 14th
3 -5 pm EST
Butler Library, Room 203
20 years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, we commemorate the suffering and honor the perseverance of the Iraqi community with a panel of distinguished scholars and an exhibition of "The Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here" collection.
The Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here collection was compiled and created by Beau Beausoleil and the Al-Mutanabbi Street Coalition. The collection is currently held at the RBML, Columbia University Libraries.
For information on the free April 14th Iraqi Maqam concert, hosted by Symphony Space, see here.
Panelists
Nadje Al-Ali is Robert Family Professor of International Studies and Professor of Anthropology and Middle East Studies. Her main research interests revolve around feminist activism and gendered mobilization, with a focus on Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey and the Kurdish political movement.
Dunya Mikhail is an Iraqi American poet and writer. She is a laureate of the UNESCO Sharja Prize for Arab Culture and has received fellowships from the United States Artists, the Guggenheim, and Kresge.
Omar Dewachi is an associate professor of medical anthropology and global health at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. His work examines the social, medical, and environmental fallouts of decades of war and violence in Iraq and the broader Middle East.
Zahra Ali is a sociologist and Assistant Professor at Rutgers University-Newark, her research explores dynamics of women and gender, social and political movements, in relation to Islam(s), the Middle East, and contexts of war and conflict with a focus on contemporary Iraq.
Muhsin al-Musawi joined Columbia University as Professor of Arabic and Comparative Studies in 2022. His teaching experience, in the Middle East, Tunisia, and Yemen, and his publications in Arabic and English present him as one of the authorities in the field of Arabic literature.
Beau Beausoleil is a poet and activist based in San Francisco, California. He is the founder of, Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here, which began in March of 2007 as a book arts response to the March 5, 2007 car-bombing of al-Mutanabbi Street (the street of the booksellers) in Baghdad, Iraq.
Organizers
Kathryn Spellman Poots is a member of the Faculty at Columbia University and the Aga Khan University's Institute for the Study of Muslim Civilizations (AKU-ISMC) in London. She is the Academic Program Director for the MA in Islamic Studies and the dual degree program in Islamic Studies and Muslim Cultures with AKU-ISMC. Kathryn convenes Columbia's MA core course: Foundation to Islamic Studies and Muslim Societies.
Kaoukab Chebaro currently serves as the Head of Global Studies at the Columbia University Libraries. She previously served as Associate University Librarian for Archives and Special Collections at the Libraries of the American University of Beirut, and as the Islamic and Middle East Studies Librarian at the Columbia University Libraries. Kaoukab holds an MLIS degree as well as a PhD in philosophy.
Zainab Bahrani is the Edith Porada Professor and Chair of the Department of Art History and Archaeology. Her research and teaching cover a range of topics around ancient Mesopotamia and the Eastern Mediterranean world in antiquity including: image ontologies and philosophies of representation, mimesis, iconoclasm, monuments, antiquarianism and ancient practices of preservation and restoration, concepts of time and landscape.