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Hailing form
Adelaide South Australia, Associate Professor Ray Jureidini joined the
Social and Behavioral Science Department in October 1999.
While his origins lie partly in Lebanon, he says he has been totally
assimilated into the Australian culture. Nevertheless, he is keen to get
to know Lebanon and the Lebanese better, particularly through his discipline
of Sociology, i.e. through teaching and research.
Professor Jureidini comes to AUB with a background of academic qualifications,
awards, publications and research. He combined the fields of Psychology
and Sociology in a BA degree from Flinders University of South Australia
in 1977, and he was granted an Honors Bachelor degree (First Class in
Sociology by Flinders University for his study on "The Industrial
Capitalist Economy.")
After ten years of academic work and research, and a number of academic
awards, he successfully completed his PhD in Sociology.
Professor Jureidini's interest in Arab and Lebanese society is evident
from his recent publications: Israeli Closures and Palestinian Labor
in the West Bank and Gaza, and Palestinian and Foreign Labor in
Israel.
Professor Jureidini is teaching SBS 201, (An Introduction to Sociology);
SBS 232 (Sociology of Organizations: The Organization of Work); an CS
203. He is also engaged in a research project on temporary foreign labor
and labor hire firms in Australia.
At AUB he has started research on temporary foreign labor in Lebanon
in collaboration with a team of seven senior and graduate students.
Dr. Jureidini's main concern is to make his courses relevant to
student interests and to provide theoretical, practical and vocationally-oriented
materials that draw on his research and experiences. While he admires
and approves of the compulsory CS courses, he thinks that students ought
to have some choice in what they take, so they will be more committed
to the curricula.
"I am enjoying AUB students very much", he said. "With
few exceptions I find them generally interested, energetic and respectful.
However, as is the case in most universities, I would prefer them to read
more and be more critical in their approach to learning".
On the other hand, his first impressions are that the University
needs to rationalize a lot of its administrative operations to make them
more efficient and less bureaucratic.
Professor Jureidini is very pleased to be at AUB and to live within
walking distance of the university so that he doesn't face the Beirut
traffics in the mornings. Even though his stay here may be relatively
short, he hopes to at least get some critical research initiatives under
way that can be carried on into the future.
Dr. Mona Takieddine
Amyuni Presents Paper in Washington
Dr. Mona Takieddine Amyuni of the CS program attended the annual
meeting of the Middle East Studies Association in Washington DC (November
19-22), where she participated in a panel on "Collective Memory in
Lebanese Cultural Production". Her paper was on "Wounded Beirut
in some Francophone Writings by AndrÈe Chedid, Claire Gebeyli,
Etel Adnan."
Earlier, in December 1998, Dr. Amyuni published a book entitled
La Ville Source d'Inspiration: Le Caire, Khartoum, Beyrouth, Paola
Scala chez Quelques Ecrivains Arabes Contemporains (Beirut Stuttgart:
Franz Steiner, 1998, "BTS63")
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