Al-Rabita Centenary: The New York League of Arab American Writers & Artists
Date and time: Thursday, April 23, 2020, 1 pm Eastern Daylight Time
Register here.
Join LAU NY, the Washington Street Historical Society (WSHS), the Arab American National Museum (AANM), and the Khayrallah Center for a kickoff event marking the centennial of Al-Rabita, the literary society founded in 1920 by Arab American writers, poets, and artists, and celebrating 100 years of Arab cultural contributions to New York. The panelists will tell the story of Al-Rabita, its connection with New York as well as current initiatives to preserve its archive and further document its history and publish its output.
Speakers:
Dr. Akram Khater, Khayrallah Chair in Diaspora Studies and director of the Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies at North Carolina State University. The Center is dedicated to research about Lebanese immigrants in the US and throughout the world, and to preserving and sharing that knowledge with the scholarly community and general public. Prof. Khater will speak about the Center’s project of Archiving Early Arab American Writers.
Dr. Linda K. Jacobs, archaeologist and historian of the Syrian community in New York and the US; member of the Washington Street Historical Society (WSHS) which aims to restore the forgotten history of the earliest Arabic-speaking community in the United States back into the Great American Story. Dr Jacobs will discuss the soil from which New York’s literary movement emerged, concentrating on New York’s Syrian colony in the nineteenth and early 20th centuries.
Dr. Matthew J. Stiffler, cultural historian and member of the faculty at the University of Michigan. He is Research & Content Manager at the Arab American National Museum (AANM) in Detroit which is the first and only museum in the United States devoted to Arab American history and culture. Dr. Stiffler will present on the efforts of the AANM to document the history of the Arab American community through archival and artifact collections and will focus on the materials that help to document the Rabita. He will also comment on the gaps in the archive as well as the importance of working with the community.
Mr. Nadim Shehadi, Executive Director of the Lebanese American University’s New York Headquarters and Academic Center. LAU is a leading liberal arts university in the Middle East with a rich history of arts education. Mr. Shehadi will moderate the panel and introduce the Rabita centennial as a series of events celebrating the continuing Arab American artistic and cultural contribution to the life of the city of New York.
Event will be livestreamed on Webex: The event address for attendees is: https://lau.webex.com/lau/onstage/g.php?MTID=e22870cd62e9e2fc369d9cdb8fa3a4c33
Password: Rabita
Follow the digital conversation at #Rabita2020
