May

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…

May 25, 2016

“The Many Labors of Progress”: Digitally Mapping the Arab-Argentine Community

This blog post is co-authored by Dr. Lily Balloffet, current Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Khayrallah Center, and Darby Hehl, Spanish Language & Education Major (class of 2019) at NC State. Darby became involved with the Khayrallah Center after taking a Latin American History course with Dr. Balloffet in Fall 2015. Dr. Balloffet spent the…

May 11, 2016

Meet Elizabeth Saylor, 2016-2017 Khayrallah Center Post-Doctoral Fellow

The Khayrallah Center Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Middle East Diaspora Studies (with preference given to Lebanese Diasporas). This award is open to scholars in the humanities and social sciences whose scholarly work addresses any aspect of Middle East Diasporas. The Center congratulates Elizabeth on her contribution to the field.  What drew you to apply for the Khayrallah Center…

May 27, 2015

Sneak Peek: Mapping Syrian-American businesses

In 1908 Salloum Mokarzel (the brother of Naoum Mokarzel, the publisher of Al-Huda, one of the earliest Arabic newspapers in the US)  and H.F. Otash published an Arabic/English directory of the businesses owned by “Syrians” (as all early immigrants from the Eastern Mediterranean were called) in the US. The Syrian-American Business Directories cataloged the businesses of the…

May 7, 2015

Akram Khater @ Radio SAWA

Last week, Dr. Akram Khater, Professor of Middle East Studies at NC State University and the Center’s Director, spoke with Raina Abou Hassan of Radio SAWA based in Virginia. Launched in 2002, Radio SAWA is an Arabic-language radio network that broadcasts news 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with more than 370 newscasts per week.…

May 6, 2015

Lebanese in Australia and the politics of whiteness

This article is written by Anne Monsour. She has a PhD in history from the University of Queensland. View her full bio after the article. This article is the second in a three part series. Read the first installment: Uninvited and unwelcome: a brief introduction to early Lebanese migration to Australia. Perhaps because I had accepted the stereotype…

May 30, 2014

May/June Newsletter is Here!

A note from our fearless leader, Dr. Akram Khater… Dear friends, I hope that your summer is off to a good start and that you are all enjoying some relaxation and rest! After the highly successful opening of the exhibit we continue to receive emails and letters about its positive impact on school children and…

May 27, 2014

El-Khouri’s in Wilkes-Barre

This is a guest post by Assistant Director, Margie Merod. Many Lebanese in North Carolina have connections to other American towns. The El-Khouri family with deep roots in Andrews, North Carolina has ties to Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. The family’s heirlooms include this funeral photograph taken at St. Anthony’s Maronite Catholic Parish in Wilkes-Barre. It is a…

May 20, 2014

The Lebanese of Utah (1909-1921)

This Project’s focus is robust Lebanese-American community living in North Carolina, that’s no surprise! But, we always enjoy learning about the Lebanese communities that settled in other areas of the country. Our recent post featuring the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) alerted me to one such community: the Lebanese of Utah. These photos are courtesy of the…