UC Davis experts: The Middle East

The following UC Davis faculty members are available for comment on various topics related to the Middle East. If you need more help in finding a source for a related topic, please contact Claudia Morain, (530) 752-9841, cmmorain@ucdavis.edu, or Julia Ann Easley, (530) 752-8248, jaeasley@ucdavis.edu.

Citizenship, politics and security

• Citizenship for women and children
• Religious conflict and politics
• Middle East security issues

Law

• Women's human rights
• Civil rights, racial profiling
• International criminal law, human rights

Economics

• Democracy and economics
• Political economy of the Middle East

Religion, history and the classics

• History and Islam
• Arabic and Persian poetry and culture
• The classics

CITIZENSHIP, POLITICS AND SECURITY

Citizenship for women and children

UC Davis anthropologist Suad Joseph is an expert in gender, family, politics, and culture and identity in the Middle East. Joseph is following a cohort of children in a Lebanese village, observing over time how they learn their notions of rights, responsibilities, nationality and citizenship; how these ideas come to be thought of as male or female; and how the notions are transferred from the family into political and public arenas. She is the general editor of The Encyclopedia of Women and Islamic Cultures and founded and coordinates the Arab Families Working Group, a consortium of scholars, planners and policy-makers who carry out research on Lebanon, Palestine and Egypt. She is also founder and first president of the Association of Middle East Women's Studies, the main U.S.-based organization for scholars who conduct research about women in the Middle East. Contact: Suad Joseph, Anthropology, (530) 752-1593, sjoseph@ucdavis.edu.

Religious conflict and politics

David Biale, the Emanuel Ringelblum Professor of Jewish History and director of Jewish Studies at UC Davis, can speak about intersections among Palestinian, Israeli and U.S. politics and religion. Biale can also analyze religious tensions among Jews in Israel over Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw from Gaza and the West Bank. He is the author of "Power and Powerlessness in Jewish History" and "Eros and the Jews" and editor of "Insider/Outsider: American Jews and Multiculturalism" and "Cultures of the Jews." Biale is a regular columnist on issues pertaining to Israel and the Middle East for the San Francisco Chronicle. He's writing a new book, "Blood and Belief: The Circulation of a Symbol Between Jews and Christians." Contact: David Biale, History, (530) 752-1640 (office), (510) 524-9607, dbiale@ucdavis.edu.

Middle East security issues

Zeev Maoz, political science professor at UC Davis, is an expert on Middle East security, including politics, economics and strategic military issues. He can talk about domestic instability in both the Palestinian Authority and Israel, as well as about more general Middle East political problems. The former director of Tel Aviv University's Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, Maoz is finishing a new book, "Defending the Holy Land?" to be published in 2005. Contact: Zeev Maoz, Political Science, (530) 752-1989, zmaoz@ucdavis.edu.

LAW

Women's human rights

Professor Madhavi Sunder of the UC Davis School of Law is an expert on women's human rights in Muslim countries and communities. With law and culture as the focus of her scholarship, Sunder says international human rights law often fails to address women's rights under even the most oppressive regimes, such as the Taliban, because such law is reticent to interfere with religion and culture. Sunder published a leading article on women's rights activism in the Muslim world, titled "Piercing the Veil," in the Yale Law Journal in 2003. Her related article on dissent within cultural groups was published in the Stanford Law Review in 2001. Her current work focuses on the impact on women's rights of new religious constitutional democracies in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Contact: Madhavi Sunder, School of Law, (530) 752-2896, msunder@ucdavis.edu.

Civil rights, racial profiling

Kevin Johnson, the Mabie-Apallas Professor of Public Interest Law and professor of Chicana/o studies at UC Davis, says the collateral damage of the domestic war on terrorism has been the civil rights of immigrants and certain groups of U.S. citizens. A specialist in civil rights and immigration law, Johnson says federal government measures have created hardships for immigrants and unfairly targeted Arabs and Muslims in the United States and effectively subjected them to racial profiling. He is co-author of "Race, Civil Rights and Immigration Law After Sept. 11, 2001: The Targeting of Arabs and Muslims," a chapter carried in the book "Civil Rights in Peril: The Targeting of Arabs and Muslims," which won the 2004 Myers Outstanding Book Award. He also wrote "Anti-Terrorist Measures and Human Rights." Contact: Kevin Johnson, School of Law, (530) 752-0243, krjohnson@ucdavis.edu.

International criminal law, human rights

Professor Diane Marie Amann of the UC Davis School of Law, currently a visiting professor at UCLA, is an expert in international criminal law, human rights and constitutional law. Her writings, including "Abu Ghraib," forthcoming in the University of Pennsylvania Law Review, and "Guantanamo," published in 2004 in the Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, have examined legal issues related to the United States' post-Sept. 11 campaign against terror, most notably with regard to detention of alleged terrorists. Contact: Diane Marie Amann, School of Law, (310) 825-7211, amann@law.ucla.edu.

ECONOMICS

Democracy and economics

Hossein Farzin, a UC Davis professor of agricultural and resource economics, specializes in the Middle East. A former economist and consultant for the World Bank, Farzin has advised Kuwait, Iran and the United Arab Emirates on their economies. "In my view, institutionalized democracy for the Middle East is the most valuable social, economic and political capital asset. It offers a sustainable yield to be shared by both the people in those countries and the rest of the world, including particularly the United States." He can talk about the stakes that the world, and particularly the United States, has in supporting and helping the people of the Middle East nations to establish democratic institutions. Contact: Hossein Farzin, Agricultural and Resource Economics, (530) 752-7610, farzin@primal.ucdavis.edu.

Political economy of the Middle East

Elias Tuma, UC Davis professor emeritus of economics, can talk about challenges in the Middle East. A specialist in social sciences and Middle East economics, Tuma has written about food and population; economics and political change; the economics of Middle East peace; and poverty, unemployment and inequity in the Arab world. Tuma has served as consultant for the United Nations and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Currently he is leading a seminar on political economy of the Middle East. Contact: Elias Tuma, Economics, (530) 889-1991 home, tuma@vfr.net.

RELIGION, HISTORY AND THE CLASSICS

History and Islam

Baki Tezcan, UC Davis assistant professor of history and religious studies, teaches about Islam and the pre-modern history of the Middle East. His research focuses on the central Islamic world (now the modern Middle East) in the 16th and 17th centuries. He is also interested in modern Islamic movements in Turkey, where a political party with Islamic roots came to power recently. Contact: Baki Tezcan, History, (530) 752-9981, btezcan@ucdavis.edu.

Arabic and Persion poetry and culture

Jocelyn Sharlet, an assistant professor of comparative literature, studies classical Arabic and Persian poetry and poetics, Islamic culture, and modern approaches to the classical heritage in the Arab world and Iran. She can also discuss modern West Asian/North African literature. Sharlet has co-translated a Persian novella, "Women Without Men" by Shahrnush Parsipur. Contact: Jocelyn Sharlet, Comparative Literature, (530) 752-1971, jcsharlet@ucdavis.edu.

The classics

Lynn Roller, professor of classics and art history, can speak about historic monuments and urban centers in what was once Mesopotamia and is now in Iraq and southeastern Turkey. Roller can also talk about the art and archaeological monuments of the ancient Near East, Egypt, Greece and Rome. An archaeologist with many years of research experience in Turkey, Roller won the Wiseman Prize, given by the Archaeological Institute of America, for the outstanding book of the year in classical archaeology for her book In "Search of God the Mother: The Cult of Anatolian Cybele" (1999). Contact: Lynn Roller, Classics, (530) 752-1062, leroller@ucdavis.edu.

Media contacts:

• Claudia Morain, (530) 752-9841, cmmorain@ucdavis.edu
• Julia Ann Easley, (530) 752-8248, jaeasley@ucdavis.edu

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