Monthly Archives: December 2007

Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Program Never Existed

Anthropology/Sociology, Iran

by William O. Beeman,
New America Media, News Analysis, Dec 05, 2007

Iran has never had a proven nuclear weapons program. Ever. This inconvenient fact stands as an indictment of the Bush administration’s stance on Iran.

The recently released 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that Iran “suspended its nuclear weapons program in 2003” caught the Bush administration flat-footed. In his panic, Bush grasped desperately at the idea that the weapons program may have once existed. However, the report does not offer a scintilla of evidence that the weapons program was ever an established fact. Continue reading Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Program Never Existed →

The professions: from Woodstock to a novel life, in so many words

Anthropology/Sociology, Books You Should Read, Languages, Literature


Professor Robert Leonard, right.

by Patricia Kitchen
Newsday, November 29, 2007

Fans of mystery novelist and forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs may have noticed a new character in her most recent novel, Bones to Ashes. That would be forensic linguist Rob Potter, a Woodstock rock star-turned-linguist and onetime graduate school mentor to Reichs’ main character, Temperance Brennan.

The newcomer is based on one of Reichs’ friends, Robert Leonard, 59, a real-life former rock star-turned-forensic linguistics professor. Leonard, in fact, heads the Forensic Linguistics Project at Hofstra University. Professionals in that field analyze written and spoken language – including grammar, word choice, dialect and structure – in contracts, confessions, ransom notes, spoken threats, undercover recordings, transcripts of interrogations and other correspondence linked to crimes.

Think professor Henry Higgins meets Sherlock Holmes. Continue reading The professions: from Woodstock to a novel life, in so many words →

Secrecy and Anthropology

Anthropology/Sociology, Journalism and Media, Terrorism Issue

by Elizabeth Redden, Inside Higher Ed, December 3

With debate over the role of anthropologists in aiding the military machine a theme threading through their annual meeting, scholars voted Friday to demand that the American Anthropological Association reinstate strict language from its 1971 code of ethics prohibiting secret research. Members at the meeting – who, for the second time in about 30 years and the second year in a row constituted a quorum in excess of the required 250 — also voted overwhelmingly to oppose “any covert or overt U.S. military action against Iran.”

The language anthropologists want reinstated on secrecy – which, the resolution’s sponsor affirmed would apply to anthropologists doing work for corporations too – stipulates that “no reports should be provided to sponsors that are not also available to the general public and, where practicable, to the population studied.” Like every item of business discussed Friday other than the resolution on Iran, the resolution on secrecy was not filed for consideration 30 days in advance, as is required under association rules, and so will be submitted to the association’s executive board on an advisory basis only.

But Friday’s vote only strengthens a recommendation contained in a new report from the AAA Commission on the Engagement of Anthropology with the U.S. Security and Intelligence Communities, which suggests that the membership or ethics committee “should consider” reinstating those same sections (1.g, 2.a, 3.a, and 6) of the 1971 code. The report centers on whether the association’s ethical standards bar ties to the military or intelligence agencies. The commission’s short answer: Not necessarily, although more scrutiny is needed. Stressing the diversity of roles anthropologists can play in military and intelligence apparatuses, the panel determined that while certain interactions would violate the ethical code, members also “see circumstances in which engagement can be preferable to detachment or opposition.” On issues of secrecy, for instance, the commission offered one particularly complex dilemma as illustration: “Some situations might be counterintuitive for most of us: consider a situation in which a research project is kept secret from the scholarly community, but not from the local population or community under study – as when an anthropologist employed by a government agency helps a special operation to get medical supplies to a remote town in northern Afghanistan.” Continue reading Secrecy and Anthropology →

The Ninth International Symposium on Comparative Literature

Egypt, Literature

Call for Papers
The Ninth International Symposium on Comparative Literature
November 4-6, 2008
Department of English Language and Literature, Cairo University
“Egypt at the Crossroads: Literary and Linguistic Studies”
Deadline for abstracts: March 15, 2008

Because of its geographical, historical, and cultural placement, Egypt has been—since time immemorial—both literally and metaphorically at the crossroads. Enjoying the strategic location that it does—at a meeting point between Africa and Asia, facilitating contact between the two continents and Europe, and at a juncture between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea—Egypt is a rich amalgam of diverse cultural heritages: Ancient Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Persian, Coptic, Islamic. Influenced by all these and, in modern times, the French and British, the inhabitants are in the happy position of being hybrid—African, Arab, Mediterranean—but indubitably and inimitably Egyptian. It is, perhaps, this unique situation that inspired the Egyptian geographer Gamal Hamdan (1928-1993) to write of Egypt as having a “natural gift” which may explain “the secret of Egypt’s survival and vitality through the ages and in spite of the ages.” Continue reading The Ninth International Symposium on Comparative Literature →

A Man, A Sign, a War

Iraq War

Yesterday afternoon on a crowded Connecticut Avenue roundabout in our nation’s capital, Washington, D. C., a man stood holding a sign. The sign read “Bring our Troops Home” on one side and “End the War” on the other. He was not simply holding the sign, but slowly twirling it back and forth so both messages came across. I would guess his age was late 50s or early 60s and he was well-dressed, a man who would fit comfortably on Wall Street. He was not your stereotypical t-shirt labeled liberal icon, so who was he and why was he standing there? I will never know. My 30 seconds of peripheral vision, waiting for the traffic to clear, allowed only a glance. But today when I close my eyes I see him standing there. Continue reading A Man, A Sign, a War →

The Letters of Badr Shakir al-Sayyab: #10

Iraq, Literature, Poetry


The Iraqi Poet Badr Shakir al-Sayyab

[Note: This is the tenth in a series of translations of selected letters of the noted Iraqi poet Badr Shakir al-Sayyab. For more information on the poet, click here.]

Letter #9

My Dear Brother Yusuf (al-Khal) (1)

I hope you and the rest of our brothers are well. I have a Lebanese friend, the Adunisian poet, Basim Shawqi al-Salmaan (2). He is currently unemployed. You know him well for he lived in your house for a few days last summer. He then moved to Adunis’ house. He also published many poems in your journal, “Shi’r:” “Jaikur and the City,” “The River and Death,” and “Christ after Crucifixion.”

He now intends to return to Lebanon. Will he be able, with your help, to obtain a job that allows him to adequately earn a living for himself, his wife, his sister, and his two children? He can work as an instructor of English or Arabic language. He can also work in journalism or do translations. Continue reading The Letters of Badr Shakir al-Sayyab: #10 →