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Arabian Culture Series to Bring Everyday Perspective on Middle East to University of Tennessee
The sands and smells of the Middle East are drifting to Rocky Top.
Starting at 3 p.m. Friday, Professors Robert and Erin Darby, directors of UT’s Dig Jordan study abroad program, will head “Engaging Arabia,” a weekend-long series of lectures, presentations and cultural events based off the Arabian culture.
The Arab Cultural Fair will take place as a complement to the lectures, exposing both UT students and Knoxvillians to Arabic music, food, crafts and dance demonstrations by Dendarah Middle Eastern Dance Company.
“If you want to understand the region, you have start with understanding that these are human beings. … They eat, they sleep, they rejoice, they mourn. They react to their government in different ways, they react to each other in different ways,” Erin Darby said. “Anybody who isn’t presenting a picture of the Middle East as a complicated picture isn’t presenting the truth.”
In partnership with UT’s Ready for the World initiative, the academic symposium will span a slew of topics, including a keynote lecture from North Carolina State professor Thomas Parker, who will discuss the under-researched relationship between the Roman military and the Arabic community during the Late Empire.
Though this display will take place with UT as the backdrop, it was a 6,000 mile trip to the Jordanian desert at ‘Ayn Gharandal,’ the site of an ancient Roman fort, that inspired students like Kirby Trovillo, senior in anthropology, to bring her experience with Arabian culture back to the United States.
“One the biggest cultural differences was as girls we weren’t supposed to go out without a guy in our group,” Trovillo said. “There is, I guess, some stereotypes about Western women in the Middle East … that we might be a little more promiscuous, possibly. I think when we were walking around town, some of the girls got a pinch on the bum.”
Yet, the plethora of discoveries at the site such as a bronze makeup applique, almost-whole pottery vessels and a Latin inscription on the site’s archway keystone, only enhanced Trovillo’s five-week experience with the warmth and diversity present in Jordanian society.
“I really liked the whole sense of community,” Trovillo said. “I feel like a lot of times we are very dissociated from one another because of all our technology that we have now. But there was a lot of family and communication over there and a lot of that has to do with the religion, but I think we can take note of that.”
But after the discovery-rich season in Jordan and a small reunion for the dig’s attendees, Erin Darby still noticed the difficulties students faced when communicating the impact of their experience with Arab culture with their family and friends. For Erin Darby, whose work in archaeology requires frequent travel to the Middle East, such a reaction is not unusual.
“Often times, what you know is only the most sensational aspects. It’s when something bad happens or something that’s really different occurs,” she said. “But how often to you hear people talk about, say, what people in Jordan eat for dinner, or what their weddings are like? Most of the stuff of daily living we never hear about because it’s not horrible or graphic.
“It’s just people living their lives.”
And so it became Erin Darby’s mission to shorten the distance between the student and the studied.
After a positive reception from the Archeological Institute of America at a student-presented lecture last fall, Erin Darby and her students decided to apply for a grant through university funds to launch the Arabic-centered event.
They were not disappointed.
Contributors for the event soon lined up to support the event including the Department of History, Classics, Anthropology, Religious Studies, Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, the Howard Baker Center for Public Policy, College of Arts & Sciences in addition to the Arab American Club of Knoxville, a sponsor who will head the cultural component of this weekend’s event.
“This is first year we have done this, so we want to gauge what the response is. We want to show the culture rather than the politics because there so much the Arabic culture can offer,” Arab American Club of Knoxville board member Susan Dakak said. “We have been in the Knoxville area a long time, and we are very honored and very blessed that UT has decided to partner with us. Once we show those at UT campus who we are and what we do, we hope the event will just keep getting larger and larger.”
Darby said this kind of personal interface can expand a student’s and community’s perception of Arabic culture.
“The further we are from the thing we’re studying, the more we tend to treat it like one monolithic entity,” Erin Darby said. “I think what people will find is that the more you have relationship with other human beings, the more complicated and ergo, beautiful your perception becomes.”
Heidi Hill
The Daily Beacon