Brian T. Edwards | |
---|---|
Nationality | American |
Alma mater | Yale University |
Occupation(s) | Dean, Professor |
Organization | Tulane University |
Brian T. Edwards is dean of the School of Liberal Arts and professor of English at Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana. Prior to moving to Tulane in 2018, he was on the faculty of Northwestern University, where he was the Crown Professor in Middle East Studies, professor of English and Comparative Literary Studies, and the founding director of the Program in Middle East and North African Studies (MENA). [1] [2]
Edwards's research has two main focuses: the globalization of American studies [3] [4] and his theorization of "cultural circulation", especially vis-à-vis the Middle East and North Africa. [5] [6]
Edwards is also an advocate for language learning at both university and K-12 levels, [7] and has served on the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Commission on Language Learning. [8]
In 1990, Edwards earned his bachelor's degree magna cum laude [9] in English from Yale University. [1] He then received his master's degree, his master of philosophy degree, and his PhD in American studies from Yale. [1]
Edwards's first book, Morocco Bound: Disorienting America's Maghreb, from Casablanca to the Marrakech Express (2005), [10] examines "the dynamics and select encounters between the Maghreb and the US from the early 1940s to the early 1970s", as Allen Hibbard writes in the journal Comparative Literature Studies. [11]
In the edited collection Globalizing American Studies (2010), [12] Edwards and his co-editor, Dilip P. Gaonkar, argue that the discipline of American studies "needs to allow space for alternative interpretations of the concept of 'America' as it is understood in different contexts outside the United States", as Meghan Warner Mettler says in The Journal of Asian Studies. [13]
Edwards's second book, After the American Century: The Ends of U.S. Culture in the Middle East (2015), [14] considers the reception of US popular culture in Cairo, Casablanca, and Tehran to argue that American cultural influence in the Middle East has waned, according to John Waterbury in Foreign Affairs. [15]
Edwards has appeared in a number of public conversations in the media about US–MENA relations and cultural circulation, including on NPR, [16] [17] [18] PBS's WTTW, [19] NBC Chicago, [20] and Voice of America. [21] Edwards's podcast episode on Paul Bowles, "Baptism of Solitude", [22] which was produced with The Organist ( McSweeney's and KCRW), was featured in Hyperallergic 's "11 Great Art and Culture Podcast Episodes of 2017". [23]
Edwards was named a 2005 Carnegie Scholar by the Carnegie Corporation of New York under its Islam Initiative, [24] a 2008 New Directions Fellow by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, [25] and a Class of 2015 Emerging Leader by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. [26] Edwards also received Fulbright Senior Specialists Awards in American studies in 2009 and 2011. [27]
From 2016 to 2017, Edwards served on the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Commission on Language Learning. [8] The Commission was charged by Congress to examine language education in the US and make recommendations for ways to meet future education needs, resulting in the report America’s Languages: Investing in Language Education for the 21st Century (2017). [28] The Commission's findings have been featured in the San Francisco Chronicle , [29] The Hill , [30] the Boston Herald , [31] Inside Higher Ed , [32] [33] and the Association for Psychological Science. [34]
In 2024, Edwards was named in a federal Unfair Labor Practice charge against Tulane University for anti-union activities, including direct retaliation against union organizers. [35] [36]
Edwards is married to Kate Baldwin, [9] who is Professor of English with joint appointments in the Department of Communication and the Gender and Sexuality Studies Program at Tulane University. [37] [38]
Casablanca is the largest city in Morocco and the country's economic and business centre. Located on the Atlantic coast of the Chaouia plain in the central-western part of Morocco, the city has a population of about 3.71 million in the urban area, and over 4.27 million in Greater Casablanca, making it the most populous city in the Maghreb region, and the eighth-largest in the Arab world.
Morocco, officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to the east, and the disputed territory of Western Sahara to the south. Morocco also claims the Spanish exclaves of Ceuta, Melilla and Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera, and several small Spanish-controlled islands off its coast. It has a population of approximately 37 million. Islam is both the official and predominant religion, while Arabic and Berber are the official languages. Additionally, French and the Moroccan dialect of Arabic are widely spoken. The culture of Morocco is a mix of Arab, Berber, African and European cultures. Its capital is Rabat, while its largest city is Casablanca.
Marrakesh or Marrakech is the fourth-largest city in Morocco. It is one of the four imperial cities of Morocco and is the capital of the Marrakesh–Safi region. The city lies west of the foothills of the Atlas Mountains.
Maghrebi mint tea, also known as Moroccan mint tea and Algerian mint tea, is a North African preparation of gunpowder green tea with spearmint leaves and sugar.
The culture of Morocco is a blend of Arab, Berber, Andalusi cultures, with Mediterranean, Hebraic and African influences. It represents and is shaped by a convergence of influences throughout history. This sphere may include, among others, the fields of personal or collective behaviors, language, customs, knowledge, beliefs, arts, legislation, gastronomy, music, poetry, architecture, etc. While Morocco started to be stably predominantly Sunni Muslim starting from 9th–10th century AD, during the Almoravid period, a very significant Andalusi culture was imported, contributing to the shaping of Moroccan culture. Another major influx of Andalusi culture was brought by Andalusis with them following their expulsion from Al-Andalus to North Africa after the Reconquista. In antiquity, starting from the second century A.D and up to the seventh, a rural Donatist Christianity was present, along an urban still-in-the-making Roman Catholicism. All of the cultural super strata tend to rely on a multi-millennial aboriginal Berber substratum still present and dating back to prehistoric times.
Moroccan Jews constitute an ancient community. Before the founding of the State of Israel in 1948, there were about 265,000 Jews in the country, which gave Morocco the largest Jewish community in the Muslim world, but by 2017 only 2,000 or so remained. Jews in Morocco, originally speakers of Berber languages, Judeo-Moroccan Arabic or Judaeo-Spanish, were the first in the country to adopt the French language in the mid-19th century, and unlike among the Muslim population French remains the main language of members of the Jewish community there.
Maghreb Arabe Presse (MAP), also known as Maghreb Agence Presse, is the government-owned official news agency of the Kingdom of Morocco.
Abdallah Laroui is a Moroccan philosopher, historian, and novelist. Besides some works in French, his philosophical project has been written mostly in Arabic. He is among the most read and discussed Arab and Moroccan philosophers.
Mohammed Bennis is a Moroccan poet and one of the most prominent writers of modern Arabic poetry. Since the 1970s, he has enjoyed a particular status within Arab culture. Muhsin J al-Musawi states that "Bennis’ articulations tend to validate his poetry in the first place, to encapsulate the overlapping and contestation of genres in a dialectic, that takes into account power politics whose tropes are special. As a discursive threshold between Arab East and the Moroccan West, tradition and modernity, and also a site of contestation and configuration, Muhammad Bennis' self-justifications may reveal another poetic predilection, too."
Ahmed Soultan is a Moroccan singer artist, considered one of the leaders of the "Nayda".
The education system in Morocco comprises pre-school, primary, secondary and tertiary levels. School education is supervised by the Ministry of National Education, with considerable devolution to the regional level. Higher education falls under the Ministry of Higher Education and Executive Training.
Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar is a Professor in Rhetoric and Public Culture and the Director of Center for Global Culture and Communication at Northwestern University. He is also Executive Director of the Center for Transcultural Studies, an independent scholarly research network concerned with global issues based in Chicago and New York. Gaonkar was closely associated with the influential journal Public Culture from the early 1990s, serving in various editorial capacities: associate editor (1992-2000), executive editor (2000-2009), and editor (2009-2011).
Moroccan Jews are Jews who live in or are from Morocco. Moroccan Jews constitute an ancient community dating to Roman times. Jews began immigrating to the region as early as 70 CE. They were later met by a second wave of migrants from the Iberian Peninsula in the period which immediately preceded and followed the issuing of the 1492 Alhambra Decree, when Jews were expelled from Spain, and soon afterward, from Portugal. This second wave of immigrants changed Moroccan Jewry, which largely embraced the Andalusian Sephardic liturgy, to switch to a mostly Sephardic identity.
Moha Ennaji ; is a Moroccan linguist, author, political critic, and civil society activist. He is a university professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah University at Fes, where he has worked for over 30 years. In addition to his publications in linguistics, he has written on language, education, migration, politics, and gender, and is the author or editor of over 20 books.
The Woman from Tangier is a 1948 American crime thriller film directed by Harold Daniels and starring Adele Jergens, Stephen Dunne and Ian MacDonald. It was one of a number of Hollywood films set in Tangier during the International Zone era. The film's art direction was by Walter Holscher.
Tangier Incident is a 1953 American thriller film directed by Lew Landers and starring George Brent, Mari Aldon and Dorothy Patrick. It was one of several Hollywood films set in Tangier during the International Zone period.
Mohamed Sijelmassi was a Moroccan writer and physician. He is the author of several books on art, Moroccan culture and islamic heritage.
The 2020–21 Moroccan Throne Cup was the 64th staging of the Moroccan Throne Cup, the main knockout football tournament in Morocco. The final was played at the Adrar stadium in Agadir, on 14 May 2022. AS FAR became the champions by beating Moghreb Tétouan with 3–0 in the final.
Henri Terrasse was a French historian, archeologist, and orientalist who specialized in the art and history of the Islamic world and of Morocco in particular.
Ibtissam Bouachrine is a researcher in Islamic gender studies, professor and chair at Smith College in the department of Spanish and Portuguese. According to Harvard Law Today, Bouachrine is a visiting scholar at the Institute for Rebooting Social Media. According to Harvard Law Today, Bouachrine has ongoing interdisciplinary research interests in the topics namely technology, ethics, law, and women’s rights in Muslim-majority societies. Bouachrine is on editorial board of The Journal of the Middle East and Africa.