FAS department chairs are invited to submit proposals in support of departmental activities. Funding can be allocated for a wide range of events and initiatives, including: brownbag sessions, conferences, exhibitions, lectures, seminars, performances, student activities, symposia, workshops, instructional materials, etc.
Eligibility: FAS department chairs
Budget: Up to $5,000
Application Materials: Apply online. Please upload in a single PDF file: 1. Proposal including abstract (no more than 200 words), description of the proposed activity and expected outcomes (no more than 1000 words), budget and budget narrative (indicating the anticipated use of the requested funds and all funds sought or secured from other sources), and timeline; and 2. Chair’s endorsement.
Application deadline: October 30; March 15
Contact: [email protected]
- Brown Bag Series Psychology
Arne Dietrich, Department of Psychology
At this monthly seminar, researchers from international institutions will be invited to give presentations about their research and engage in questions and answers with the audience. In addition to giving the seminar, the researchers will meet individually with psychology faculty members to discuss potential collaboration opportunities. Psychology graduate and undergraduate students will be invited to attend the seminar. The seminar will expose them to various research topics within the broad range of psychological topics and also give them the opportunity to network with international researchers.
- CAMES Activities 2024-25
Sari Hanafi, Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies (CAMES)
Six events will be (co-)organized by the Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies (CAMES):
1- Book launch and tribute to Nabil Dajani “Before I Forget”
2- Book launch: The new Creative Memory book Detainees and Disappeared (ذاكرة ابداعية الجديد معتقلون و مغيبون)
3- Book launch and Debate: L'argumentation dans le courrier des lecteurs libanais-Le cas de la presse francophone
4- Lecture: France and Gaza, by François Burgat
5- Lecture: “When nothing sings to you, sing to yourself” … At Evin, life goes on
6- Lecture: “Social Movements in the Global Age” by Geoffrey Pleyers and seminar for our graduate course
- Collaboration with Orient-Institut Beirut (OIB) on the Occasion of the 300th Anniversary of Immanuel Kant
Marie Sanazaro, Critical Humanities for the Liberal Arts Program
On the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the birth of the Königsberg philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), the Orient-Institut Beirut (Beirut) together with the Center for Critical Humanities for the Liberal Arts (CHLA) of the American University of Beirut, are organizing a series of lectures/panel discussions on key Kantian concepts, their legacies and circulations.
The purpose of this series of events is two-fold: (1) we investigate the legacy and contemporary relevance of Kantian key-concepts such as critique, enlightenment, justice, reason and freedom today in Europe, the MENA region and beyond; (2) we explore the question of circulation, translation and reconceptualization of Kantian and cognate philosophical concepts within the MENA region.
Kant is widely considered to be the key figure of modern continental thought, giving rise to the notion of subjectivity and departing from a medieval worldview of non-scientific metaphysics based on theology. Kant’s famous “Copernican turn” in philosophy and his formal claim on universal validity of cognition still inform the philosophical discourse of the 21st century. Kant coined the concept of critique and made it the key term of his critical philosophy, conceiving critique as a positive activity of inquiry and reasoning. At the occasion of the philosopher’s 300th birthday, we are interested in the more recent reception of Kant’s limited, i.e. Eurocentric, notion of universality and how the historical and epistemic limitations of his age are ingrained in his notions of anthropology, history and teleological progress. At the same time, we discuss the radical potentials of some of his key concepts, which resist the full historicization of Kant’s philosophy within the context of Enlightenment thought and early German Idealism.
Overall, this series of lectures and panels also attempts to bring the Kantian legacy of continental philosophy in conversation with modern Arabic intellectual history. Of particular interest is the Nahda, the period and project of cultural effervescence from the beginning of the nineteenth to the middle of the twentieth century. Depending on one’s interpretation, it represents the beginning of a still "unfinished" Arab drive for enlightenment and emancipation, or it marks the colonial end of an independent cultural development. Either way, the Nahda represents a kind of Archimedean point for Arab modernity on which truth claims about the Arab past and future have been balanced ever since.
- FAS Research Lunch 2024-25
Joanna Doummar, Department of Earth Sciences
Bana Bashour, Department of Philosophy
This weekly forum gives us the opportunity to become familiar with one another’s research work and provide faculty members with an informal platform for future collaboration among faculty members. Lunch will be served first, followed by the speaker’s casual presentation and the discussion. The speakers are selected at the beginning of each academic year for both Fall and Spring. We make sure that the selection is inclusive of faculty members from all professorial ranks and gender. Humanities, social sciences, quantitative thought, and sciences are represented equally. This activity has been taking place since Fall 2016. This activity allows the FAS community to meet at least once a week to discuss research being done at the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and beyond. Many collaborations/ discussions around interdisciplinary topics have started around this initiative since 2016.
- Mathematics Olympiad 2025
Florian Bertrand, Department of Mathematics
Giuseppe Della Sala, Department of Mathematics
The Mathematics Olympiads are designed to rekindle a culture of excellence in Mathematics, and help reviving and spreading interest in it at an early age, especially for what concerns the more creative side of the subject (which cannot always fit into the constraints of high school curricula). The successful establishment of such a program is beneficial for students and teachers alike, fostering a more refined appreciation of the aesthetic aspect of the discipline and a stricter commitment to precision and truthfulness among students.
- Proposal to Update and Replenish Resources in the Education Department Resource Room
Karma El Hassan, Department of Education
The Education Department’s Resource Room (RR) is an important component of our diploma (special education) and graduate (EPSG, EPTM) programs. Students make use of the resources in the RR to become familiar with various instructional and assessment tools that they read about in their courses, and at the same time to practice using them under the supervision of their course instructors. The materials in the RR are outdated and several of them are missing important content like manuals, sample forms, etc. This is negatively and adversely affecting the practicum part of both the diploma and graduate programs mentioned above. For this reason, we need to replenish and update the resources by the attached list of assessment tools. We have tried to order them through other resources but were unsuccessful and so we are tapping FAS’s grants opportunities to replenish this deficit in the RR and to enrich our students’ instructional experiences.
- Revamping Media Studies Internship Program
May Farah; Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Media Studies
The Media Studies Program is requesting funding to support the hiring of a Research Assistant for Fall 2024 (one semester). The RA will work full time to assist the program director in the overhauling of the program’s internship program. When we launched the BA in Media and Communication a decade ago, we included the internship as we knew it would be a valuable resource for students who are seeking opportunities to work in the media. Since that time, our program has continued to grow, and the internship has remained a major attraction. Many of our students have even gone on to secure full-time employment where they carried out their internship. Some students have found the internship so rewarding, they completed one or two more during their undergraduate degree. Most of the student feedback has focused on the skills/experience acquired during the two-month period, as well as exposure to the workings of an industry that only comes with on-site presence.
- Seminar of the Department of Mathematics
Siamak Taati, Department of Mathematics
Description of activity Local and international researchers working in various fields of mathematics (pure and applied) and related fields are invited to present their research work. The international speakers will interact (and potentially collaborate) with the local researchers for the duration of their stay.
- SOAM Works in Progress
Blake Atwood; Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Media Studies
Every semester the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Media Studies has hosted SOAM Works in Progress—a weekly lunchtime series aimed at showcasing research conducted by faculty and graduate students in the department. Since the series was initiated two years ago, SOAM Works in Progress has become a regular part of the department’s culture, with high attendance at each session. This proposal is to request funding for the Fall 2024 iteration of SOAM Works in Progress.
Since 2022, SOAM Works in Progress has been an informal space for faculty, graduate students, and friends of the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Media Studies to share the research they are currently pursuing. It has two aims: (1) to showcase the incredible scholarship being produced in the department and (2) to workshop ideas and projects that are still in progress and on-going. SOAM Works in Progress, which began and sustained itself for 1.5 years without funding, serves an important role in our department. First, it encourages collegiality and collaboration. Because the department is composed of three distinct disciplines, SOAM Works in Progress is an opportunity for us to engage one another across programs and disciplines. Second, the series also encourages research productivity by giving space to faculty members and students to workshop new and unfinished projects. Third, the series encourages graduate students to be active members of the department. Many graduate students have presented their theses, and all graduate students in the department are required to attend each week. This space, thus, introduces our MA students to what it means to do research and how to engage in academic discussions.
In Spring 2024—with generous funding from the FAS Dean—we began providing catering at the SOAM Works in Progress. Everyone in the department agrees that this has been a positive development that encourages collegiality and attendance. We are applying to continue receiving this support for the Fall 2024 edition of SOAM Works in Progress.
Summer Research Camp in Mathematics
The REU program is a long-standing initiative that engages undergraduate students in research activities. Students work with their peers around a mentor - a professor - on a modest problem, that usually does not require a heavy background but is nevertheless interesting to the community, with results worth being published. By participating in such a program, students work in a team, gain problem solving skills, start networking, and naturally improve their chances to be accepted in a graduate school. A similar program is funded by the NSF, and students engaged in it must be ”citizens or permanent residents of the US or its possessions”.
- Violence and Visuality: An International Conference
Blake Atwood; Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Media Studies
The Media Studies Program is requesting funding in order to organize and host an international conference in 2025 on the theme of Violence and Visuality—a topic that is timely and urgent. This conference will be the Media Studies Program’s third since 2016. The 2025 edition will provide a space for critical reflection on how violence is documented, witnessed, censored, and memorialized in images, and also importantly how violence is waged and resisted through visual logics and regimes. This conference and its topical theme will increase the Media Studies Program’s visibility and solidify it as the most important critical media studies program in the region.