Greenberg residency to mark special anniversary
Yair Horesh (Photo by Moriah Aronson ’15)
Skidmore College will mark the 10th anniversary of its Greenberg Middle East Scholar-in-Residence Program with several free public events in early October.
Launched in 2003 with support provided by Skidmore alumna Jane Greenberg, the residency annually brings to Skidmore scholars from the Department of Middle East Studies at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. While in residence the visiting scholars – who are affiliated with either the history or government department while at Skidmore – teach, present a public lecture, and participate in the life of the College.
In honor of the 10th anniversary of the Skidmore-Ben-Gurion partnership, a special delegation of six Ben-Gurion scholars has been invited to Skidmore this fall for classroom visits, academic presentations, a public panel discussion, and opportunities over shared meals for unstructured dialogue between faculty and students. The events are themed broadly on the historical and contemporary aspects of Israel within the larger Middle East context.
“The Greenberg Scholar-in-Residence Program brings to upstate New York the perspectives of scholars who currently work and live in Israel. They share with our community their personal experiences from that land, along with their academic sensibilities and intellectual interpretations of the events and forces shaping their lives and their county. Their presence at Skidmore each fall enriches students’ global understanding and provides nuanced interpretations of a dynamic region of the world,” said Auden Thomas, director of summer academic programs at Skidmore, who coordinates the Greenberg residency.
The visit of the Ben-Gurion delegation will coincide with the residency of the fall 2013 Greenberg Scholar-in-Residence, Yair Horesh. While on campus Horesh will present a public lecture at 7:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 7. Titled “‘Far Away from the First Sky’: Arabic Literary Writing in Western Exile,” the talk will be in Davis Auditorium, Palamountain Hall.
Starting with his belief that the experience of exile has been an essential generative force for Middle Eastern writers and intellectuals throughout the 20th century, Horesh will focus on the dialectic by which exiled Arab writers and intellectuals throughout the last decades have refigured and reimagined both aesthetic and geographic boundaries.
Horesh is a tenured senior lecturer and the director of the Program of Arabic Language
and Culture in the Department of Middle East Studies at Ben-Gurion University. His
research focuses primarily on modern Arabic literature (particularly the literature
written in Western exile) and Arab intellectual thought as reflected in literary and
critical works. While in residence at Skidmore, Horesh will teach a course titled
“Introduction to the Modern Intellectual History of the Arab Middle East.”
Please click here for details about additional Greenberg anniversary events.
The Greenberg Middle East Scholar-in-Residence Program is under the auspices of Skidmore’s Office of the Dean of Special Programs.
