Kanna joins UI as Middle Eastern expert, first IP post-doctoral fellow
By Kelli Andresen
Ahmed Kanna
Ahmed Kanna, who recently earned his doctorate in social anthropology from Harvard, joined the UI this fall as the first International Programs post-doctoral fellow for 2006-07. He specializes in urban life in Arabian Gulf countries, particularly in situations where societies become urban.
Kanna also earned a master’s degree in Middle East studies from Harvard in 2000 and a bachelor of science in psychology from James Madison University in 1997. He lived a significant part of his childhood in the Middle East. Born in Iraq, Kanna spent the first five years of his life there before moving with his family to Kuwait, where he lived for four years before immigrating to the United States.
During the year that Kanna is at the UI, he will teach two classes, one each semester. This fall he is teaching the Middle East Today: A Social Inquiry, a lecture class.
“You could say it’s a cultural history of the modern Middle East,” Kanna said. “We study a lot of anthropological and sociological writings as well as a basic narrative history of the Middle East, focusing on the canonical countries of the Middle East – Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Israel, Iran, Iraq, and some on the Arabian Gulf.”
Kanna said he is enjoying his work with a primarily undergraduate population in an introductory class.
“One of the things I’m trying to get the students to think about is that the Middle East is a very arbitrary construction and it involves a lot of regions and countries that are outside of what people normally refer to when they say the Middle East,” Kanna said.
In Spring 2007, Kanna will teach Modern Arab Narratives of Identity, a course that involves reading modern Arabic literature in translation with a focus on how it relates to the modern history of the Arab world.
Vicki Hesli, professor of political science and coordinator of the Middle East and Muslim World Studies scholarly group, said Kanna’s presence on campus is critically important to the continued development of the MEMWS program at the UI.
“The addition of a post-doctoral fellow in this area is extremely forward-looking in respect to the IP community,” Hesli said. “By being here, he is contributing to the intellectual vitality of the group”
William Reisinger, associate provost and dean of International Programs said the official recognition of MEMWS as an IP-affiliated group, along with Kanna’s fellowship, will help the UI secure a spot as a American institution with strong scholarship in that region of the world.
“His presence on campus and his two courses further bolster our strength in this area,” Reisinger said.
During his time at the UI, Kanna will be working on several scholarly projects, including turning his dissertation, “Not Their Fathers’ Days: Idioms of Space and Time in the Urban Arabian Gulf,” into a full-length book. He is serving as editor for a forthcoming collection of essays, “Dubai: Emerging Critical Themes in Urban Cultural History, Planning and Design,” to be published through the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, in Cambridge, Mass. He will also work on two journal articles he hopes to have published and will give several lectures.
Kanna said studying the Middle East and Muslim world is extremely important, not only for him and his fellow scholars, but for people who don’t have knowledge about the region, so they can become more knowledgeable and sensitive.
“I think there is a gross insensitivity in general in the U.S., especially to the reality of what’s going on in the Middle East,” he said. “When you say ‘Middle East’ it’s such a vastly complex and enormous region, so just to get people to understand that the Middle East is not just the Israeli/Palestine conflict, it’s not just Osama bin Laden, it’s not just Saddam Hussein. It’s a region that in many, many ways has very strong affinities to the West and in many ways, frankly, is different. It’s important to work to both understand those affinities and to not be afraid of and intimidated by the differences.”
He added that he thinks it is also unfair of academics and specialists on the Middle East to expect Americans to be instantaneously knowledgeable about the region.
“We often behave insensitively ourselves when we expect people to do so,” Kanna said. “So my aim is to try to get non-specialists engaged in what is, frankly, a very confusing, disorienting, vast region.”
Kanna, who has spent a number of years in Boston and Washington, D.C., said that he is enjoying his time in Iowa City.
“I am always almost shocked with how people come up to you and say ‘hello’ and ‘how are you doing’ and you’ve never met them before. They’re having a conversation with you and that’s really different. It’s great. It’s wonderful,” Kanna said.