AUBites in Iran

Patrick with a group of English majors in Shiraz who said they never spoke with an actual American-06-07

When Professor Sayed Mohammed Marandi, director of the University of Tehran's North American Studies Program, and Patrick McGreevy, director of AUB's Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Al Saoud Center for American Studies and Research (CASAR), met at an American studies conference in Atlanta, Georgia, in 2006, by the end of the conference McGreevy had been invited to Tehran to deliver a short course in December. That visit was so successful and so mutually beneficial to both sides that delivery of the course was repeated the following June.

On both occasions, Professor McGreevy taught short courses on American ethnicity to Iranian graduate students. "I tried to give them," McGreevy said, "the feeling that the culture in the United States evolves out of interactions among Native Americans, African Americans, immigrants from Europe, and more recently, Latin Americans, Chinese, Japanese, Arabs, and Iranians."

Talking with the students about the various narratives and mythologies that seek to unify this diverse group of peoples, McGreevy assigned readings from James Jasper's Restless Nation. Suggesting that immigrating individuals are all restless, he said people are willing to emigrate, to begin again, to forget the past. But beware, McGreevy warned his class, such an analysis would exclude two important groups, the Native Americans and the African Americans.

McGreevy counseled his Iranian students to begin thinking early and critically about their research projects (theses). "Examine your topic from all possible points of view," he urged. "People are going to expect you to be anti-American-you're from Iran. Therefore, you should go overboard in the other direction. As academics you have to look at all issues from all sides." The students came up with exciting topics: American-Israeli relations, evangelicals, American Christianity, American government, and the role of blacks in society. "They were amazed that a black man might become president."

The students, fascinated by American life, asked probing questions about "how things work, how people think, how families function." McGreevy's wife, Betsy, who was with him in Tehran, also participated regularly. The students were intrigued "to hear that both Betsy and I were from huge extended families, sharing some 36 nieces and nephews." Discussions on these and other topics, including the image of the multicultural society the United States wants to project, went on and on. Originally scheduled to give eight 90-minute sessions, McGreevy continued his classes from 9 am to 3 pm.

"The students can of course read, but they wanted to take advantage of having two live Americans in the classroom. We had wonderful discussions," McGreevy said. Endlessly curious, the Iranian students could also be very critical, he added, and frequently challenged what he had to say. Two of his former students have been accepted by the University of Berlin for PhD programs in American studies.

Many of the students are ready to visit and study in the United States. They would like to visit Beirut. In fact, three of the Iranian students participated in the American Studies Conference held by CASAR at AUB in January 2008.

CASAR was established at AUB in 2003 through the generosity of Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulazziz Alsaoud. The Iranian students gained much from talking with Americans, but the McGreevys said they learned, too, from hearing students' conceptions and misconceptions about the United States.