Stanford Global Studies

SGS Programs Partner with Cantor Arts

Center for Major Exhibition

STANFORD UNIVERSITY

sgs.stanford.edusgs.information@stanford.edu

Vol. 3, Issue 3

SGS PROGRAMS & CENTERS:

CENTER FOR AFRICAN STUDIES

CENTER FOR EAST ASIAN STUDIES

CENTER FOR LATIN AMERICAN STUDIES

CENTER FOR RUSSIAN, EAST EUROPEAN AND EURASIAN STUDIES

CENTER FOR SOUTH ASIA

EDUCATION PARTNERSHIP FOR INTERNATIONALIZING CURRICULUM

THE EUROPE CENTER

FORD DORSEY PROGRAM IN INTERNATIONAL POLICY STUDIES

FRANCE-STANFORD CENTER FOR INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIES

GLOBAL STUDIES INTERNSHIP PROGRAM

HAMID AND CHRISTINA MOGHADAM PROGRAM IN IRANIAN STUDIES

MEDITERRANEAN STUDIES FORUM

PROGRAM IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

SOHAIB AND SARA ABBASI PROGRAM IN ISLAMIC STUDIES

TAUBE CENTER FOR JEWISH STUDIES

WSD HANDA CENTER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AND INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE

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by Mark Rapacz

The Sohaib & Sara Abbasi Program for Islamic Studies and the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies recently partnered with the Cantor Arts Center, the Clayman Institute for Gender Research, and the Brown Institute for Media Innovation to help develop programming around She Who Tells a Story for the greater Bay Area community.

Originally curated by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA), the exhibition, which runs from January 28 through May 4, features photographs and a video piece by leading women artists from Iran and the Arab world.

“The subject of the work and variety of photographers included made it a clear choice for dialogue and collaboration,” said Colleen Stockmann, Assistant Curator for Special Projects at Cantor. “This exhibition fulfills Cantor’s educational mission and serves the Stanford population through its relevance to coursework and research conducted on campus.”

The exhibition presents a narrative and understanding of the Middle East that is not typically covered by Western media, while also combatting the notion that women from this region are powerless.

Gohar Dashti (Iran, b. 1980), Untitled #5 from the series Today’s Life and War, 2008. Pigment print. Courtesy of the artist, Azita Bina, and Robert Klein Gallery, Boston. © Gohar Dashti

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SGS Programs Partner with Cantor (continued from page 1)

“Several students I spoke with had never seen images of this sort from the various places represented, and that is in many ways the impact of the show—to provide alternatives to mass media imagery that obscures real lived experiences and complex identities that the artists capture,” added Stockmann.

The works are from 12 photographers whose range in style shows the diverse aspects of life in this tumultuous region. Many pieces juxtapose a certain playfulness with haunting images of war, such as Gohar Dashti’s piece Untitled #5 where two newlyweds sit forlorn in a burned out car on a field of battle, or Shadi Ghadirian’s piece Nil, Nil #11, which depicts a purse overflowing with cosmetics and bullets.

“The artists featured in the exhibition are tremendously skilled at humanizing their subjects and creating ambivalent scenarios that reveal the variety and complexity of women’s lives in these countries,” said Director of the Abbasi Program Robert Crews.

“She Who Tells a Story presents an exciting opportunity to see a complicated world, in often unexpected ways.”

Crews went on to say that the Abbasi Program is delighted to work with the Cantor Arts Center and Moghadam Program to highlight artists whose work poses provocative and thoughtful challenges to the prevailing images of Muslim-majority societies in the Middle East.

Similarly, the Moghadam Program, which annually organizes the Iranian Arts Series and hosts two prizes for Iranian arts, looks to this exhibition as a chance to further promote Iran’s vibrant and historic pursuit of the arts.

“Politics and the economy, no less than art and culture, are parts of our mandate. The Daryabari Endowment in Persian letters has enabled us to augment our efforts in the cultural domain,” said Director for the Moghadam Program Abbas Milani. “Our hope is to work with Cantor to further introduce the campus to the many facets of Iranian arts.”

A number of events are organized in conjunction with the exhibition. The Moghadam Program is hosting a talk by Iranian architect and curator Faryar Javaherian at the Cantor Arts Center at noon on February 26, while the Abbasi Program is hosting a roundtable discussion on April 9 at 5:30 PM at the Cantor Arts Center Auditorium. The Abbasi Program is also providing student field trip grants for grades 7-12 teachers. More details on the grants can be found at the Abbasi Program’s website <islamicstudies.stanford.edu>.

The Cantor Arts Center is also hosting a vibrant series of events, including a gallery talk with Dr. Attiya Ahmad on March 5 at 12:15 PM and an artist panel on March 19 at 5:30 PM with Boushra Almutawakel, Tanya Habjouqa, and Rania Matar, who will discuss their contributions to the exhibition. Free, docent-led tours are also available. Complete event details can be found at Cantor’s website <museum.stanford.edu>. ]

Shadi Ghadirian (Iran, b. 1974), Nil, Nil #11, 1998. Gelatin silver print. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Horace W. Goldsmith Fund for Photography and Abbott Lawrence Fund.Photography © 2014 MFA, Boston

Rana El Nemr (Active in Egypt, b. Germany 1974), Metro #7, 2003. Pigment print. Museumof Fine Arts, Boston. Museum purchase withgeneral funds and the Abbott Lawrence Fund.Photography © 2014 MFA, Boston

Shirin Neshat (Iran, b. 1957), Roja, 2012. Gelatin silver print with India ink. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Charles Bain Hoyt Fund and Francis Welch Fund. Photography © 2014 MFA, Boston

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“Urban” Projects Receive Awards from SGS

Stanford Global Studies (SGS) in cooperation with the Department of Anthropology and the Vice Provost of Research recently awarded funding to two faculty research efforts under the “Urban Beyond Measure: New Urban Forms for the 21st Century” initiative to focus greater attention on the social realities of daily life within cities.

With these awards, the Center for Deliberative Democracy (CDD) will hold a series of workshops for undergraduate and graduate students in Fall 2015, while the Mapping Cairo project will use the funds to develop a multi-layered, interactive map of Cairo.

“We chose these ambitious projects because they capture the spirit of the initiative,” said Fisher Family Director of SGS Norman Naimark. “Both projects delve into the diverse informal urban systems of knowledge, seeking to understand how governance and social responsibility actually work within cities.”

Democracy and Public Opinion in Africa, Asia & Latin America

CDD will use the award to hold several workshops for undergraduate and graduate students to discuss recent Deliberative Polling projects in Africa (Uganda and Ghana), Asia (China and Japan), and possibly Latin America (focusing on Argentina and Brazil).

Developed by CDD Director and Janet M. Peck Professor of International Communication James S. Fishkin, the Deliberative Polling method uses television and public opinion research to help people become more informed and more engaged by political issues. The trademarked methodology is a process of public consultation in which a scientifically representative sample of people are polled before

and after they have discussed key questions related to their region.

“We hope these workshops will enable students to engage in deep discussions with our international collaborators and truly understand the growing problems faced by each country and region,” said Alice Siu, Associate Director of the Center for Deliberative Democracy.

Mapping Greater Cairo

Members of the team that comprise “Mapping Cairo: A Socio-

Political Map of Greater Cairo” plan to illustrate important aspects of the socio-political experience for citizens living in a city that is the largest metropolitan area in Africa and the third largest in the Islamic world.

The project team consists of Associate Professor of Political Science and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute Lisa Blaydes along with three PhD candidates in political science: Caroline Abadeer, Alexandra Blackman, and Scott Williamson. The team hopes that by incorporating demographic and electoral data—as well as data on sites of violence and collective action—into one online map, they will discover previously opaque geographic trends.

Begun with a seed grant from the “Urban Beyond Measure” initiative in 2013, the project team has already translated and merged census data with electoral data, developed databases of police stations and militant attacks, and begun work on an online interactive map. This award will support future efforts to add more data on militant attacks, police violence against protesters, and sectarian attacks against religious minorities. The team will also begin data collection in Baghdad, Tunis, and Casablanca.

“Once completed, we plan to hold a public event to introduce the resource to the Stanford community,” said Caroline Abadeer, graduate student in Political Science and Co-Principal Investigator. “The event will use the new map to visually explore non-obvious geographical correlations as well as discuss some of the political events in Egypt and the broader Middle East.” ]

For more information about the “Urban Beyond Measure: New Urban Forms for the 21st Century initiative,” visit their website at sites.stanford.edu/urbanbeyondmeasure/.

by Jane Stahl

The Mapping Cairo Team (L to R): Alexandra Blackman, Caroline Abadeer, and Scott Williamson

Associate Director of the Center for Deliberative Democracy Alice Siu

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CSA Interns Learn and Grow Through Service in Pune, India

The Center for South Asia (CSA) is once again offering their Summer Service Internship Program to undergraduates entering their junior or senior years. Launched last year to great success, the program offers students opportunities to work with non-profit organizations in Pune, India, in the areas of education, women’s issues, public health and environmental sustainability.

“We are thrilled at the outcomes of the first round of our service internships. Their experiences surpassed our expectations,” said Associate Director for the Center for South Asia Sangeeta Mediratta. “They worked shoulder to shoulder with disadvantaged communities and learned a tremendous amount in the process, not to mention the significant contributions they made over a relatively short period of time.”

The first group of students returned from their internships enthusiastic and energized by their experiences.

“Most gratifying to hear upon the students’ return to Stanford was the excitement in their voices and the motivation to participate further in such global service projects,” Mediratta added.

Sustainable Sanitation in the Home

Saniya Kishnani, Human Biology, ’16, spent 10 weeks as a public health intern with Shelter Associates, an NGO devoted to housing rehabilitation and sanitation projects. Her main project was working with “One Home, One Toilet,” which aims to address the growing sanitation issues prevalent throughout the developing world.

“I was able to work on a variety of different projects. I built a model toilet, helped redesign a health survey to assess the impact of the initiative, and also worked on publishing informational documents and outreach materials,” Kishnani said.

Among Kishnani’s many roles, she spent much of her time with survey teams in the communities themselves, synthesizing data to create educational materials in English so that people around the world could get a sense of the harsh ground realities in these struggling areas.

“I had seen many of these communities but had never been in one,” Kishnani reflected. “I was confronted with tremendous wealth inequalities, striking poverty, and some heart-wrenching conditions of humanity. It was an eye-opening experience.”

The Waste Picker Union

Claire Thompson, Earth Systems, ’16, immersed herself in the self-founded, self-operated union of waste pickers SWaCH.

An offshoot of the cooperative KKPKP (Kagad Kach Patra Kashtakari Panchayat), SWaCH is a growing organization that works to bring structure, safety, and dignity to more than 6,000 women waste pickers throughout Pune. The broad scope of this organization gave Thompson the freedom to delve into a number of aspects she was interested in—advocacy, women’s rights, and sustainable practices.

“I had a lot of freedom in mapping out my internship,” said Thompson. “My supervisor took great care in showing me the ropes but also gave a lot of independence in my work.”

Through these efforts, Thompson had the opportunity to be directly involved with SWaCH’s nirmalaya collection project,

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Kishnani helped lead workshops like this one in the community, which all had themes like sanitation, health, women’s health, waste disposal, and composting, among many others.

The Solid Waste Control and Handling cooperative (SWaCH) strategizes before one of their major projects.

by Mark Rapacz

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which is a huge initiative planned around Ganpati Visarjan, an annual festival celebrating Lord Ganesh.

During the festival, citizens celebrate by making offerings (nirmalaya). Traditionally, tons of flowers, fruits, cloth, and plaster Ganesh idols are tossed into the rivers, which further harm the already polluted waterways. To effectively deal with this problem and help minimize the amount of material disposed of in the rivers, SWaCH members mobilized a massive collection effort around the event.

“It was very hectic. There was a lot of office work gearing up for the festival—compiling data, taking inventory of materials, etc.,” said Thompson. “And during the collection days, my supervisor and I were on the ground from morning until night, visiting different stations, troubleshooting with coordinators, and checking in with volunteers.”

Thompson’s efforts with SWaCH certainly did not go to waste. The organization nearly doubled the 100 tons of offerings they collected the year before.

“This year we collected over 170 tons of nirmalaya—which is 170 tons not clogging up the rivers!”

The Akanksha Foundation

Mary Harrison, Economics, ’16, spent her summer interning at the Akanksha Foundation, an NGO that operates schools in Pune and Mumbai. She began her internship just as Akanksha was piloting a new curriculum program.

Harrison’s efforts primarily revolved around the Matoshri English Medium School, where she observed classes, collaborated with the Akanksha curriculum team, and worked with teachers on how to best implement the program.

“I met some of the most brilliant and inspirational teachers,”

said Harrison. “Children come to school in torn uniforms, without school supplies, and without having done their homework, yet the teachers never gave up.”

As dedicated as the teachers were, Harrison understood the struggle they and their students faced daily trying to teach and learn within a community without sufficient means.

“All of the students come from challenging homes. None of their families speak English and very few have parents who finished high school,” Harrison noted. “Getting help on schoolwork at home is nearly impossible, which is a big piece of education.”

The experience was so moving and profound for Harrison that she has started to seriously consider education as a future career path.

“This summer, I saw the transformative power of education and I want to be a part of the educational system here in my own country.”

Get Involved

Students interested in service internships similar to the ones described above are encouraged to apply through the Center for South Asia. Internships include accommodation and a small stipend for living expenses. All interns must make their own travel and visa arrangements. Deadline to apply is February 16, 2015. Applications and further details are available on CSA’s website. ]

The Center for South Asia facilitates teaching and learning about the South Asian subcontinent, which encompasses the nations of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, and Sri Lanka.

Mary Harrison with students from Matoshri English Medium School, where she interned through the CSA’s Summer Service Internship Program.

Stanford Global Studies Division 650.725.9317 • sgs.information@stanford.edu • 417 Galvez Mall, Stanford, CA 94305-6045

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C o n t a c t S G S :

NORMAN NAIMARK The Sakurako and William Fisher Family Director of the Stanford Global Studies Division

KATE KUHNS Executive Director kkuhns@stanford.edu

JANE STAHL Office Manager jstahl2@stanford.edu

JOANNE CAMANTIGUE Financial Assistant jcamanti@stanford.edu

MARK RAPACZ Communications Coordinator mrrapacz@stanford.edu

KATHERINE WELSH Program Administrator kwelsh@stanford.edu

POLYVOCAL HINDUSTAN: Literatures, Languages, and PublicsMARCH 6–7Board Room, Stanford Humanities CenterRegister at southasia.stanford.edu/Polyvocal_HindustanFree and open to the public

CAMERA AS WITNESS SERIES: Reflections on Art through Documentary Filmmaking“The Desert of Forbidden Art”MARCH 4, 7:00 PM TO 9:00 PMCeras Room 101 (520 Galvez Mall)Free and open to the public

URBAN MYTHS: Contemporary and Urban Art from Nepalan evening w/ KASHISH DAS SHRESTHAFEBRUARY 23, 4:00 PM TO 7:00 PMEncina Hall West, Room 208 (417 Galvez Mall)Free and open to the public

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