News

Sep 27, 2017

2017-2018 Khayrallah Research Assistants

Each academic year, the center welcomes new student research assistants to its team who help advance our goals to research, preserve, and share the history of Lebanese Diaspora. Meet this year’s students! Marilyn McHugh Drath is a second year doctoral student in the Public History program here at NC State. She received a B.A. in History… 

Sep 20, 2017

Phoenician or Arab, Lebanese or Syrian ~ Who were the early Immigrants to America?

This article is authored by Dr. Akram Khater, Director of the Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies and Khayrallah Distinguished Professor of Lebanese Diaspora Studies, and Professor of History at NC State. His earlier article focused on Lebanese-Americans in WWI. Between the 1870s and the 1930s some 120,000 immigrants left the Eastern Mediterranean and traveled to the… 

Sep 6, 2017

Debut of Syrians in New York: Mapping Movement, 1900-1930

The Khayrallah Center’s newest project, Syrians in New York: Mapping Movement, 1900-1930, uses digital mapping techniques to investigate New York City’s early Syrian/Lebanese immigrant community. This project is a phase of the center’s larger project, Mapping the Mahjar. Syrians in New York examines immigrants’ movement from Manhattan’s Washington Street neighborhood to Brooklyn, employing spatial analysis… 

Jun 8, 2017

Lebanese-Americans in World War I

This article is authored by Dr. Akram Khater, Director of the Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies and Khayrallah Distinguished Professor of Lebanese Diaspora Studies, and Professor of History at NC State. His latest article focuses on complicating the Lebanese peddler myth. Like other immigrant communities to the US, the Lebanese have fought in many of America’s… 

May 24, 2017

Review of Charif Majdalani’s Moving the Palace

This book review is written by Joseph Geha, professor emeritus at Iowa State University and author of two books; Through and Through: Toledo Stories and Lebanese Blonde. Geha is the 2016 Khayrallah Prize winner for his novel, Lebanese Blonde. He has authored several books reviews including Rawi Hage’s, Cockroach and Rabih Alameddine’s, An Unnecessary Woman. Charif Majdalani’s… 

May 10, 2017

Complicating the Lebanese Peddler Myth

This article is co-authored by Dr. Akram Khater, Director of the Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies and Khayrallah Distinguished Professor of Lebanese Diaspora Studies, and Professor of History at NC State, and Zoe Avery who is studying Art History, French, and Chemistry at NC State. She also works on extracting and analyzing relevant census data that has… 

Apr 26, 2017

Southwestern Syrians: Los Arabes of New Mexico: Compadres from a Distant Land

This article is written by Dr. Jay Price, Director, Public History Program at Wichita State University. His publications include Gateways to the Southwest: The Story of Arizona State Parks, Wichita, 1860-1930, Wichita’s Legacy of Flight, and El Dorado!: Legacy of an Oil Boom. Price’s work was featured twice on the Center’s blog in an article… 

Apr 13, 2017

Diasporic Cartographies: Poetry by Nathalie Handal, Part III

This post is written by Dr. Elizabeth Saylor, Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies. Nathalie Handal composed the poem “Declaration of Independence” expressly for Mashriq & Mahjar: Journal of Middle East and North African Migration Studies. The poem was originally published as part of a longer piece on Nathalie Handal, co-authored… 

Mar 29, 2017

Diasporic Cartographies: Poetry by Nathalie Handal, Part II

This post is written by Dr. Elizabeth Saylor, Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies. Nathalie Handal composed the poem “Letter from the Levant” expressly for Mashriq & Mahjar: Journal of Middle East and North African Migration Studies. The poem was originally published as part of a longer piece co-authored by Dr.… 

Mar 15, 2017

Diasporic Cartographies: An Interview with Nathalie Handal

This post is written by Dr. Elizabeth Saylor, Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies. This piece has been adapted from a longer interview with poet Nathalie Handal, co-authored with Dr. Lily Balloffet. To read the full interview, please see Vol. 4 No. 1 of Mashriq & Mahjar: Journal of Middle East…