Having served as president of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA), Mervat Hatem '71, '75 looks back with a sense of satisfaction. Now in her third year, Hatem's tenure at MESA has been centered on showcasing distinguished scholarly work carried out to improve understanding of the region, its people and policies, as well as supporting academic freedom in the Middle East and North America through its various committees.

   "What I find most fulfilling and important about serving that association is the prospect of facilitating interdisciplinary communication among professionals who seek to correct the many misperceptions and misunderstandings about the region at home and abroad," said Hatem, who recently received AUC's Distinguished Alumni Award for her accomplishments at MESA, where she currently serves as a board member.

   Political science professor at Howard University in Washington,D.C., Hatem attended AUC when U.S. and Egyptian relations reached their lowest point following the 1967 War, leading to the severing of diplomatic relations between the two countries and the placement of AUC under sequestration. Back then,AUC students represented a diverse group of Egyptians,Arabs and Americans who worked together to build connections based on academic and research interests in the country.Although AUC students discussed and supported the demonstrations led by their counterparts at national universities, critiquing the 1967 War and its failed policies, they decided not to organize their own demonstrations in recognition of the critical position that AUC had as one of the few remaining visible American institutions in Egypt.

   "For a young student population to balance their strong political feelings regarding the war with these weighty national and international concerns remains a source of personal pride," Hatem recalled, noting that the student meetings held at AUC helped develop her political thinking. "As a sophomore in political science in 1968, these meetings provided a hands-on political education that included analysis of the war and the messiness of its consequences for this small island of American liberal arts education."
   For many students, the most serious challenge at the end of their undergraduate education in the early 1970s was that the Egyptian government did not recognize the degrees offered by AUC. As a result, Hatem went to the University of Michigan to finish her graduate education. After receiving her doctorate in 1982, she made the decision to switch her research interests from the study of international relations and organizations to gender and politics in Egypt and the Middle East, which was a newly developing field at the time."Middle East women's studies offered the added promise of self reflection on the complex role that gender plays in shaping who I am. I have never regretted that decision," said Hatem, whose most recent work focuses on the way gender provides a central component in the development of the discourses on globalization, the so-called clash of civilizations and the war on terror. She has also increasingly directed her attention to Arab American contributions to the study of gender and politics.

   "What I find most interesting [about this subject] is the way it sensitizes one to the male-dominated character of formal politics and the implications this has for women's political engagement," said Hatem."It is at heart an interdisciplinary enterprise that expands one's intellectual horizons, including the integration of national, comparative and international dimensions."

By Jeffrey Bellis