Christine B Lindner
I am a historian of gender and the entangled history of Middle Eastern, American and European encounters. My primary research focuses on the history of the Protestant Church in the Levant, specifically Lebanon. I am continuing my research on American Protestant missionaries in Ottoman Syria during the early to mid-nineteenth century and the development of a Protestant community in Lebanon. My research focuses on the ways that women, both American and Syrian, performed, negotiated and subverted their gendered identities and the impact of the family on the development of the Protestant community (my publications can be found on this page). My next project will be a series of case studies of the various Protestant churches in Syria, eastern Anatolia and Cyprus, in order to analyze Protestantism as a regional movement on the edges of various empires (Ottoman, British, American, Prussian).
I have also written about other aspects of the encounters between the United States and the Middle East, including a number of pieces on the American Mission Press in Beirut and the confluence of Eid al-Barbara and Halloween. I am co-editing, with Julia Hauser and Esther Möller, the forthcoming volume Entangled Education: Foreign and Local Schools in Ottoman Syria and Mandate Lebanon (19th-20th Centuries) to be published under the Beiruter Texte und Studien (BTS) of the Orient Institute Beirut.
I am a consultant and researcher for a number of projects. This includes the Anglo-American Cemetery Association and on a project outlining the history of female education in Lebanon (a history of the Lebanese American University). I am particularly interested in working with institutions in the Middle East to develop plans for the storage, organization and management of their archives. I am also available to assist individuals conducting family history—particularly Arab-Americans whose ancestors were members of the Protestant Churches and Americans and Brits whose relatives lived and worked in the Middle East.
From 2012 to 2014, I was the director of the Preserving Protestant Heritage in the Middle East (PPHME) project at the Near East School of Theology. My responsibilities included re-organizing the NEST’s Special Collections, assisting visiting researchers in their use of the material, organizing public seminars, managing the project’s website, applying for international grants and soliciting local support for the project, and to promote awareness of and interest in the history of Protestantism and its institutions both in Lebanon and globally. I produced a number of studies based upon this items found in the Special Collections, including an analysis of a teaching certificate for a woman named Labiba Kurani.
My experiences also include a three year tenure as an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Balamand in north Lebanon. I taught and coordinated the foundational course CVSQ 201 (Early Formation of Civilizations) within the Civilizations Sequence Program. Here, I coordinated (with the amazing Souad Slim) an Oral history project, for which students interview their relatives and neighbors, as a medium through which the students could learn about and connect to their own culture and past. One of my student wrote about the Zambo Festival, which is a celebration to mark the Lenten season that is unique to Mina.
I am happy to answer questions pertaining to my research and to pursue opportunities for collaboration.
I have also written about other aspects of the encounters between the United States and the Middle East, including a number of pieces on the American Mission Press in Beirut and the confluence of Eid al-Barbara and Halloween. I am co-editing, with Julia Hauser and Esther Möller, the forthcoming volume Entangled Education: Foreign and Local Schools in Ottoman Syria and Mandate Lebanon (19th-20th Centuries) to be published under the Beiruter Texte und Studien (BTS) of the Orient Institute Beirut.
I am a consultant and researcher for a number of projects. This includes the Anglo-American Cemetery Association and on a project outlining the history of female education in Lebanon (a history of the Lebanese American University). I am particularly interested in working with institutions in the Middle East to develop plans for the storage, organization and management of their archives. I am also available to assist individuals conducting family history—particularly Arab-Americans whose ancestors were members of the Protestant Churches and Americans and Brits whose relatives lived and worked in the Middle East.
From 2012 to 2014, I was the director of the Preserving Protestant Heritage in the Middle East (PPHME) project at the Near East School of Theology. My responsibilities included re-organizing the NEST’s Special Collections, assisting visiting researchers in their use of the material, organizing public seminars, managing the project’s website, applying for international grants and soliciting local support for the project, and to promote awareness of and interest in the history of Protestantism and its institutions both in Lebanon and globally. I produced a number of studies based upon this items found in the Special Collections, including an analysis of a teaching certificate for a woman named Labiba Kurani.
My experiences also include a three year tenure as an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at the University of Balamand in north Lebanon. I taught and coordinated the foundational course CVSQ 201 (Early Formation of Civilizations) within the Civilizations Sequence Program. Here, I coordinated (with the amazing Souad Slim) an Oral history project, for which students interview their relatives and neighbors, as a medium through which the students could learn about and connect to their own culture and past. One of my student wrote about the Zambo Festival, which is a celebration to mark the Lenten season that is unique to Mina.
I am happy to answer questions pertaining to my research and to pursue opportunities for collaboration.
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Books by Christine B Lindner
Doctoral Thesis by Christine B Lindner
Chapters & Articles by Christine B Lindner
In the second part of the chapter I turn to analyzing the graves at the Anglo-American Cemetery as alternative sources for the history of SPC/AUB. In contrast to book, buildings and monuments on campus that often focus on the more-famous founders (i.e. men) and their well-known legacies, the graves at the Anglo-American Cemetery illuminate the diverse figures who formed the SPC/AUB community. Men, women, children, American, British, Arab, all played an important role in forming the community and it is through analyzing their markers of death that we can catch a glimpse of this role. The benefits as well as the constraints of employing these alternative sources of history is illuminated through a study of the Crawford family, whose multigenerational work with the SPC/AUB is examined.
Christine B. Lindner, “From Foreign Soil to the ʾArd of Beirut: A History of the American University of Beirut and the Anglo-American Cemetery,” in: Nadia Maria El Cheikh, Lina Choueiri and Bilal Orfali, (eds.), One Hundred and Fifty (Beirut: American University of Beirut Press, 2016), 189-200.
I model this in the second part of the chapter, where I analyze the early “educational encounters” between American Protestant missionaries and residents of Ottoman Beirut during the early to mid-19th century. I take as my case study, two students: Asʿad Y. Khayyāṭ and Raḥīl ʿAṭā, two Greek Orthodox students who studied under the American Protestant missionaries. For Khayyāṭ, the American missionaries served as only one within a long line of educators within his vocational training. However, by the time ʿAṭā was a pupil, the nature of education in the region and the services provided by the missionaries had changed, with a process of institutionalization and formalization, both in regards to the organization of schools and the erection of school buildings, being felt. This was most noticeably expressed in the founding of a distinct “Girls’ School” and the erection of a schoolroom.
By situating the education provided by the missionaries within the larger context of the educational services in Ottoman Syria, I thus shift the focus of this historical narrative to prioritize the Syrian context over the American: thus challenging previous interpretations on the encounter and the development of “modern education” in the Middle East as a foreign import. By highlighting its development as part of the changes taking place within the region, I argue that the modern education provided by the American Protestant missionaries and pursued by Syrian students, was thus only one in a series of paths that lead to a modern education in the region.
Christine B. Lindner, “Educational Encounters between American Protestant Missionaries and the Residents of Late Ottoman Syria: One Path towards a Modern Education,” in: Julia Hauser, Christine B. Lindner and Esther Möller, eds., Entangled Education: Foreign and Local Schools in Ottoman Syria and Mandate Lebanon (19th-20th centuries), Beiruter Texte und Studien (BTS) | 137, (Würzburg: Ergon-Verlag, 2016), 235-254.
Julia Hauser, Christine B. Lindner and Esther Möller, eds., Entangled Education: Foreign and Local Schools in Ottoman Syria and Mandate Lebanon (19th-20th centuries), Beiruter Texte und Studien (BTS) | 137, (Würzburg: Ergon-Verlag, 2016), ISBN 978-3-95650-101-2
This chapter consists of two parts. The first section reviews the biography of Rahil. Despite the significance of this woman, as a central member of the Protestant Church and as the wife/mother of the Bustani family, her history is often overlooked (or wrongly identified) in recent works on the history of Protestantism in Syria. My aim is to re-introduce Rahil to present day scholars and outline the various activities she performed during the early years of this community.
The second section of my paper examines the discursive role ‘Rahil’ played in defining Protestant/womanhood during the mid to late nineteenth century. In contrast to the recent lack of interest on the historical person, the representational figure of ‘Rahil’ served as a central figure in, or reference for, various travel guides and accounts written by Americans to Ottoman Syria as well as educational and religious treatises by contemporary Syrians, including pieces by Butrus and Selim al-Bustani during the mid to late nineteenth century. I will examine how these different portrayals of ‘Rahil’ reflect, not her own historical path and definition of self, but the gendered and racialised discourses on Protestant womanhood advocated by male authors during this period.
as practiced by Christians in North Lebanon. The unique nature of these commemorations
illuminates the specific cultural, historical and political influences on this community,
which is emphasized through a comparison to the commemorations for Saint Barbara
at different geographic locations and historical periods. It is argued that these differences
emerge through culturally specific readings of Saint Barbara’s hagiography, through which
certain themes are emphasized within the celebratory practices. As these are living traditions,
changes to the population and culture of North Lebanon have influenced recent celebrations
of Saint Barbara Feast."
My paper questions these assumptions. Through investigating the definitions of home and family created by the American Protestant missionaries and Syrian Protestants from 1823 to 1860, I argue that what has described the ‘modern’ home and family were not present within this ‘colonial’ relationship. Despite being historicised as ‘modern’ (Makdisi 233, 244), the homes of the American missionaries and Syrian Protestants (and the homes they shared), were active spaces created by the demands of this nascent community within the dynamic environment of Ottoman Beirut. As such, Protestant homes were sites for both male and female activities and were externally similar to other ‘Arab’ homes. Their homes’ internal spaces were arranged due to the needs of the community and to house the ‘mosaic’ families. These families were ‘mosaic’ combinations of identifiable family units that were frequently interchanged.
In other words, stripping the ‘modern’ label from this relationship allows one to fully contextualise and historicise this ‘colonial’ relationship within both the Ottoman and American contexts.
Bourdieu, Pierre. (1979). Algeria 1960 (trans. Richard Nice). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Makdisi, Jean Said. (1996). “The Mythology of Modernizing: Women and Democracy in Lebanon”, in: M. Yamani (ed.) Feminism and Islam: Legal and Literary Perspectives. Reading, Garnet Publishing Ltd.
L'article retrace la transformation du genre au sein des missions américaines au 19ème siècle au travers d'une analyse de la vie et des mémorialisations posthumes de Sarah Lanman Smith, une missionnaire de l'American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, qui travailla en Syrie ottomane durant les années 1830. L'article montre, au travers d'une analyse de l'identité et du genre de Sarah et de l'analyse de commémorations de sa vie et de son travail que « Sarah » devint avec le temps de plus en plus comprise au travers d'un prisme binaire du genre. Cette réduction s'opéra par l'édition sélective de son histoire qui se centra dorénavant sur l'éducation des femmes et des filles, confirmant ainsi le concept émergent du « travail de femme pour les femmes ». Ce faisant, l'article restore la vie de Sarah Smith, déconstruit la manière dont on en vint à se souvenir d'elle, et présente une perspective nouvelle sur la culture dynamique et changeante des missions protestantes du 19ème siècle. "
Digital Publications by Christine B Lindner
In this online exhibition you will find a digital copy of Labiba Kurani’s teaching certificate, a chart listing the 55 persons who received teaching certificates with their qualified subjects, information about the Kurani family’s history with education, links to works sited in the article, and more.
The material found in this online exhibition is to serve as a supplement to the “Quick Study” article published in the NEST Theological Review 34:2.
Here you will find information about the rich archives, interesting rare books and unique manuscripts that compose NEST's Special Collections. This is also the site for the NEST Theological Review's '"Quick Study" series, where you can review the items analyzed the articles and additional material.
In the second part of the chapter I turn to analyzing the graves at the Anglo-American Cemetery as alternative sources for the history of SPC/AUB. In contrast to book, buildings and monuments on campus that often focus on the more-famous founders (i.e. men) and their well-known legacies, the graves at the Anglo-American Cemetery illuminate the diverse figures who formed the SPC/AUB community. Men, women, children, American, British, Arab, all played an important role in forming the community and it is through analyzing their markers of death that we can catch a glimpse of this role. The benefits as well as the constraints of employing these alternative sources of history is illuminated through a study of the Crawford family, whose multigenerational work with the SPC/AUB is examined.
Christine B. Lindner, “From Foreign Soil to the ʾArd of Beirut: A History of the American University of Beirut and the Anglo-American Cemetery,” in: Nadia Maria El Cheikh, Lina Choueiri and Bilal Orfali, (eds.), One Hundred and Fifty (Beirut: American University of Beirut Press, 2016), 189-200.
I model this in the second part of the chapter, where I analyze the early “educational encounters” between American Protestant missionaries and residents of Ottoman Beirut during the early to mid-19th century. I take as my case study, two students: Asʿad Y. Khayyāṭ and Raḥīl ʿAṭā, two Greek Orthodox students who studied under the American Protestant missionaries. For Khayyāṭ, the American missionaries served as only one within a long line of educators within his vocational training. However, by the time ʿAṭā was a pupil, the nature of education in the region and the services provided by the missionaries had changed, with a process of institutionalization and formalization, both in regards to the organization of schools and the erection of school buildings, being felt. This was most noticeably expressed in the founding of a distinct “Girls’ School” and the erection of a schoolroom.
By situating the education provided by the missionaries within the larger context of the educational services in Ottoman Syria, I thus shift the focus of this historical narrative to prioritize the Syrian context over the American: thus challenging previous interpretations on the encounter and the development of “modern education” in the Middle East as a foreign import. By highlighting its development as part of the changes taking place within the region, I argue that the modern education provided by the American Protestant missionaries and pursued by Syrian students, was thus only one in a series of paths that lead to a modern education in the region.
Christine B. Lindner, “Educational Encounters between American Protestant Missionaries and the Residents of Late Ottoman Syria: One Path towards a Modern Education,” in: Julia Hauser, Christine B. Lindner and Esther Möller, eds., Entangled Education: Foreign and Local Schools in Ottoman Syria and Mandate Lebanon (19th-20th centuries), Beiruter Texte und Studien (BTS) | 137, (Würzburg: Ergon-Verlag, 2016), 235-254.
Julia Hauser, Christine B. Lindner and Esther Möller, eds., Entangled Education: Foreign and Local Schools in Ottoman Syria and Mandate Lebanon (19th-20th centuries), Beiruter Texte und Studien (BTS) | 137, (Würzburg: Ergon-Verlag, 2016), ISBN 978-3-95650-101-2
This chapter consists of two parts. The first section reviews the biography of Rahil. Despite the significance of this woman, as a central member of the Protestant Church and as the wife/mother of the Bustani family, her history is often overlooked (or wrongly identified) in recent works on the history of Protestantism in Syria. My aim is to re-introduce Rahil to present day scholars and outline the various activities she performed during the early years of this community.
The second section of my paper examines the discursive role ‘Rahil’ played in defining Protestant/womanhood during the mid to late nineteenth century. In contrast to the recent lack of interest on the historical person, the representational figure of ‘Rahil’ served as a central figure in, or reference for, various travel guides and accounts written by Americans to Ottoman Syria as well as educational and religious treatises by contemporary Syrians, including pieces by Butrus and Selim al-Bustani during the mid to late nineteenth century. I will examine how these different portrayals of ‘Rahil’ reflect, not her own historical path and definition of self, but the gendered and racialised discourses on Protestant womanhood advocated by male authors during this period.
as practiced by Christians in North Lebanon. The unique nature of these commemorations
illuminates the specific cultural, historical and political influences on this community,
which is emphasized through a comparison to the commemorations for Saint Barbara
at different geographic locations and historical periods. It is argued that these differences
emerge through culturally specific readings of Saint Barbara’s hagiography, through which
certain themes are emphasized within the celebratory practices. As these are living traditions,
changes to the population and culture of North Lebanon have influenced recent celebrations
of Saint Barbara Feast."
My paper questions these assumptions. Through investigating the definitions of home and family created by the American Protestant missionaries and Syrian Protestants from 1823 to 1860, I argue that what has described the ‘modern’ home and family were not present within this ‘colonial’ relationship. Despite being historicised as ‘modern’ (Makdisi 233, 244), the homes of the American missionaries and Syrian Protestants (and the homes they shared), were active spaces created by the demands of this nascent community within the dynamic environment of Ottoman Beirut. As such, Protestant homes were sites for both male and female activities and were externally similar to other ‘Arab’ homes. Their homes’ internal spaces were arranged due to the needs of the community and to house the ‘mosaic’ families. These families were ‘mosaic’ combinations of identifiable family units that were frequently interchanged.
In other words, stripping the ‘modern’ label from this relationship allows one to fully contextualise and historicise this ‘colonial’ relationship within both the Ottoman and American contexts.
Bourdieu, Pierre. (1979). Algeria 1960 (trans. Richard Nice). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Makdisi, Jean Said. (1996). “The Mythology of Modernizing: Women and Democracy in Lebanon”, in: M. Yamani (ed.) Feminism and Islam: Legal and Literary Perspectives. Reading, Garnet Publishing Ltd.
L'article retrace la transformation du genre au sein des missions américaines au 19ème siècle au travers d'une analyse de la vie et des mémorialisations posthumes de Sarah Lanman Smith, une missionnaire de l'American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, qui travailla en Syrie ottomane durant les années 1830. L'article montre, au travers d'une analyse de l'identité et du genre de Sarah et de l'analyse de commémorations de sa vie et de son travail que « Sarah » devint avec le temps de plus en plus comprise au travers d'un prisme binaire du genre. Cette réduction s'opéra par l'édition sélective de son histoire qui se centra dorénavant sur l'éducation des femmes et des filles, confirmant ainsi le concept émergent du « travail de femme pour les femmes ». Ce faisant, l'article restore la vie de Sarah Smith, déconstruit la manière dont on en vint à se souvenir d'elle, et présente une perspective nouvelle sur la culture dynamique et changeante des missions protestantes du 19ème siècle. "
In this online exhibition you will find a digital copy of Labiba Kurani’s teaching certificate, a chart listing the 55 persons who received teaching certificates with their qualified subjects, information about the Kurani family’s history with education, links to works sited in the article, and more.
The material found in this online exhibition is to serve as a supplement to the “Quick Study” article published in the NEST Theological Review 34:2.
Here you will find information about the rich archives, interesting rare books and unique manuscripts that compose NEST's Special Collections. This is also the site for the NEST Theological Review's '"Quick Study" series, where you can review the items analyzed the articles and additional material.
The website includes a directory of graves, information about the cemetery's restoration and the governance of the Anglo-American Cemetery Association.
It also includes a number of posts highlighting notable individuals who are buried at the cemetery and events of commemoration. This includes:
"Eli Smith: Missionary, Scholar and Translator of the Bible (1801-1857)" http://anglo-americancemeterybeirut.blogspot.com/2015/05/eli-smith-missionary-scholar-and.html
"Melita Carabet: Student, Teacher, Sister (1832-1902)" http://anglo-americancemeterybeirut.blogspot.com/2015/07/melita-carabet-student-teacher-sister.html
Other pots trace the restoration process and events commemorating the cemetery:
"Restoration of Anglo-American Cemetery Walls" http://anglo-americancemeterybeirut.blogspot.com/2015/07/restoration-of-anglo-american-cemetery.html
"Historic Tour with the British Ambassador and AUB President"http://anglo-americancemeterybeirut.blogspot.com/2014/04/historic-tour-with-british-ambassador.html
citation: Christine B. Lindner. "American Mission Press: An American Barn in Beirut". NEST Library Blog. (9 July 2013). http://nestlebanondigitallibrary.blogspot.com/2013/06/american-mission-press-american-barn-in.html
The Special Collections of the Near East School of Theology (hereafter N.E.S.T.) offers a glimpse of the dynamic and multifaceted history of Protestantism in the Middle East. The archival items, manuscripts and rare books that compose this collection represent the diversity of national, denominational and linguistic influences on Protestants in the Middle East region, particularly the geographic areas of Lebanon, Syria, Palestine and eastern Anatolia. The majority of the items are written in English and Arabic, although items in Armenian, Ottoman Turkish, Armenian-Turkish, Latin, Hebrew, Persian, German and Greek can also be found. The collection reflects the specific history of N.E.S.T., as an institution that was founded in 1931, housing the institute’s own historical documents, including the works of important teachers and students. It centers on the history of the five churches that N.E.S.T. serves: the National Evangelical (Presbyterian) Synod of Syria and Lebanon, the National Evangelical Union (of Lebanon), the Diocese of Jerusalem of the Episcopal Church, the Union of Armenian Evangelical Churches in the Near East, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Jordan. Of these, the first three have the strongest presence in the collection.
The N.E.S.T. Library is the inheritor of the Mission Library of the Syria Mission of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (hereafter ABCFM) in 1819, which was transferred to the Board of Foreign Missions for the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (hereafter PCUSA) in 1870. Accordingly, many of the archival items, manuscripts and rare books purchased and produced by the Syria Mission now find their home in the N.E.S.T. Special Collections, including the manuscript of the so-called “Van Dyck Bible”. As the American Mission Press (hereafter A.M.P.) deposited copies of its works at the Mission Library, the N.E.S.T. Special Collections contains an impressive collection of works printed at this important press in addition to numerous A.M.P. artifacts and records. Moreover, the Special Collection received a number of rare books from the Damascus Station of the Irish Presbyterian Mission when this station closed in the 1950s. Indeed, N.E.S.T.’s Special Collections has many roots and is an important complement to the archives in the Middle East region, such as the American University of Beirut, as well as those abroad, such as the Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia, Harvard University’s Houghton Library and Yale University’s Divinity School Library.
The archival items, manuscripts and rare books were organized by the librarians of the Mission Library and the N.E.S.T. Library, most notably James H. Nicol, James Willoughby, Faith Winger and David Kerry. Items were cataloged according to the Pettee Cataloging System that was developed at the Union Theological Seminary and adapted to the specific needs of N.E.S.T. A PDF outlining this cataloging system is available upon request. A climate controlled Special Collections Room was built into the new N.E.S.T. Library when the institute moved to its present location on Ras Beirut in 1974. In 1981, during the Lebanese Civil War, many of the objects were photographed for preservation on microfilm (these items were marked by a small white sticker). In 2009, N.E.S.T. made an agreement with Hill Museum and Manuscript Library (HMML)/Saint John’s University (Minnesota, U.S.A.) to digitize the manuscripts and many of its photographs. These digital facsimiles are available to researchers at assigned workstations, with limited access to the original items. In 2013, the Preserving Protestant Heritage in the Middle East (PPHME) project was official launched to re-organize the N.E.S.T. Special Collections and facilitate research. The inaugural director for this project, Christine B. Lindner, was aided by student assistants Talar Marshlian, Liza Titizan and Boghos Barbouri, N.E.S.T. Librarians Martine Charbel Eid, Hilda Nassar and Yevnige Yacoubian, as well as visiting researchers. The first phase of the PPHME project was completed in December 2014, with future plans to continue the organization and digitization of the N.E.S.T. Special Collection.
Arrangement of Special Collections
The N.E.S.T. Special Collections are divided into three categories: Archives, Manuscripts and Rare Books. Archives refer to pamphlets, correspondences, records and material objects. Maps and photographs are considered part of the archival collection, but are indexed separately. Manuscripts are hand copied, bound volumes. With the exception of recent donations, an inventory of the manuscripts held by N.E.S.T. can be found in James W. Pollack, “Catalogue of Manuscripts of the Library of the Near East School of Theology”, The Near East School of Theology: Theological Review, IV:1-2 (1981): 1-121, which is available as a PDF from the N.E.S.T. Library website. Rare books are printed books (including tracts) and periodicals, the majority of which were printed during the 19th and early 20th centuries at the American Mission Press. 23 Rare Books written or translated by Cornelius Van Dyck were placed in a custom made cabinet commemorating his 50 years of service. Protestant periodicals are included in both the archives (when loose issues) and as Rare Books (when bound). This includes al-Nashra, the Protestant Arabic periodical, which is located in the main stacks and easily available to researchers.
Each of the above mentioned items are indexed on separate pages within this excel sheet. To navigate the different indexes, click on the appropriate tab, using the right or left button to see more options. A separate “abbreviations” page lists the major groups and affiliations and their designated abbreviation that are used throughout.
Use of N.E.S.T. Special Collections
All items are available to researchers, either in original or digital facsimiles, during designated hours. Researchers must complete a visiting researcher form and pay a small charge of 5,000 LL per day. To view an item, please indicate the shelf mark or inventory number that is listed on the left column of the index, with a shortened title. Only five items at a time can be viewed. Book rests, snake weights and gloves are available. Digital photography is permitted at the discretion of the N.E.S.T. Librarians. Reproductions can also be ordered—please speak to the Head Librarian for more information. Permission to reference items from the Special Collections must be obtained from the N.E.S.T. librarians by researchers, indicating that the item is held by “N.E.S.T. Special Collections”. If you are interested in visiting N.E.S.T. and studying items held by the N.E.S.T. Special Collections, please email the N.E.S.T. Head Librarian at [email protected].
Reference as: Christine B. Lindner. "A Reference Guide to the AC-36: Arabic Bible Manuscript Collection and Affiliated Texts." NEST Theological Review 36:1 (2015), pp. 44-96.
This ‘game of deception’ that Dana played pertained to his (possibly dubious) acquisition of hard currency to pay the expenses of the Syrian Mission during the WWI. This included a relief effort whereby Syrian residents of the Mahjar placed money orders to the Foreign Board in New York that were channeled through Dana and the American Press for distribution to relatives in Syria-Palestine. In pursuing this game, Dana and the other workers of the Mission Press created a system of relief that paralleled, but was distinct from that operated by his colleagues with the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief (ACASR). In so doing, Dana’s ‘game’ reveals the heterogeneous nature of ‘America’ and ‘American mission/relief work’ during the war years.
The aim of this paper is to illuminate the manifold and sometimes conflicting definitions of ‘American’ that encompasses the transnational history of US-Middle East encounters. The story of Charles Dana and his work in facilitating remittances through the Mission Press provides a microhistorical view onto the divergent articulations of the American identity asserted by missionaries in Ottoman Beirut. Using primary sources found at the Near East School of Theology (NEST) archives and the memoir of Dana’s niece, Margaret McGilvary (who also worked at the Press), this paper will compare the ‘American’ identity performed by Dana and the American Press, to the ‘modern missionary work’ of ACASR, as well as of fellow missionary George A. Ford in Sidon. As these individuals/institutions presented divergent definitions of ‘American relief’ to American and Syria audiences in the United States/Mahjar (North and South America) and the Middle East region, this paper will highlight the global playground for these identity negotiations. It will also consider the impact of religion and gender, specifically masculinity, as contending factors in this negotiation processes, arguing that the divergent channels of ‘American relief/mission work’ were performances of differing interpretations of the national/religious/gendered self.
Bustani’s speech served as an early manifestation of the gendered politics that defined the Nahda and women’s role in it. While the central features of this movement, the revival of Arabic language and education, were, on the surface, open for all to pursue and participate, the actualization of these performances were often gendered in a way that marginalized women. The running of journals and presses, study and teaching at higher educational institutions, leadership in civic and religious organizations were restricted to men, while at the same time women’s role as educators, especially of young children, was promoted. This resulted in a gendered binary that paralleled the public/private split that defined ‘Modern’ society in Europe and the United States. This however was not a sharp division, for some women were able to navigate its porous nature and participated in the Nahda’s public culture: through writing articles, teaching and organizing schools, becoming doctors, etc.
The aim of this paper is to examine the gendering of the Nahda and the ways that women participated in/responded to this gendering process. I will outline the discourse of womanhood articulated by male figures of the Nahda, such as Bustani, who promoted this gendered binary. Paralleling the work of Fruma Zachs on the gendering of the Nahda press, my paper will then consider the ‘auxiliary’ work of women in nurturing the home and educational institutions for children. In concentrating on mothering and educating the young, many women affirmed the binary gendering of the public/private split articulated by their husbands and colleagues. However, gaps emerged through which mothering and educating breached the confines of the home and allowed for some women to reach positions of prestige/notoriety. This applied to both Syrian and foreign women, particularly missionaries. Examples for this paper will draw upon individuals from the Christian community, especially the Protestant Church, and will thus consider the impact that that Christianity played in the articulation of this gendering. As such, my paper will present a critical analysis on the Nahda and the way that it shaped Modern society in the region.
Investigating the reports of the Anglo-American Cemetery Association, consular and missionary reports, as well as the cemetery space itself, illuminates three important threads for discussion. Firstly, the American and the British identities in the region intertwined due to a history of shared language, culture and, particularly important in this case, religion. Secondly, the cemetery shed light onto the often overlooked community of long-term American residents in the region. Some families can be traced through numerous generations in the records, intertwining with American and British colleagues through marriage. What does it mean for these people, who spent most of their lives in the region, to be labeled as ‘American’? Conversely, the third strand of my paper will explore the individuals and families with non-Anglo-American backgrounds who were nevertheless buried here. While some may have been buried due to necessity (such as war or death during travel), others actively pursued the ‘American’ identity label. This was particularly true of Arab Protestants. Why did these individuals choose to be buried amongst ‘foreigners’, while many of their colleagues were laid to rest in Arab focused cemeteries?
This paper will thus show that borders for Arab and American identities were shifting and permeable both in life and death.
The paper was translated into German and printed under the title "Eine Geschichte der Frauen und der revolutionären Presse in der arabischen Welt" in Friends Forum 2 (2013) http://www.friedenskooperative.de/ff/ff13/2-00.htm
My paper explores the nature of these encounters, as it will delineate the changing sites of contact between American women and Arab women. Moreover, I focuses upon how Arab women were perceived within these ‘meetings’. Expanding upon the discourse on Orientalism, I argue that American women’s perceptions of Arab women marked Arab women as an ‘other’, for they were regarded as ignorant, unclean, sexually immoral and bad mothers. These tropes however underwent transformation as the nineteenth century unfolded. In other words, although points of contact increased between American and Arab women, American women’s (mis)perceptions of Arab women reflected their own negotiations of racial, gendered and religious identities. As such, following the path of American women’s encounters and perceptions of Arab women, from the Biblical image of Rebecca to the ‘Three Dancing Girls of Egypt’, grants insight unto the shifting terms of the American female identity, and Arab women’s location within it.
My paper contextualises present day “American” representation of Arab and Muslim women within the larger American historical framework. Specifically, I compare these present day representations to those held by Americans during the early to mid 19th century, when the United States first ventured into imperial actions and sent missionaries to the Middle East. It shows that although at times Arab racial identity was perceived as ‘the other’ (as in the present circumstance), during the 19th century the American perception of Muslim identity and Arab womanhood was only just being formatted and followed specific characteristics-such as timeless biblical associations, designation as a ‘half-civilised’ culture, and the lingering hope for both eschatological and cultural reform.
As such, my paper highlights not only some of the historical background to present day white, middle-class American’s perceptions (stereotypes) of Arab and Muslim women, but it will also illuminate the history and complexities of American relations with Muslims from the Arab world.
My paper investigates this unease, by asserting that social groups located within port cities are essentially fluid and permeable. These characteristics allowed agents the capability to harness divergent and new ideologies, while functioning within established (but ever transforming) systems. The transformations within the field of female education operating within the Ottoman Syrian context during the mid-nineteenth century, the emerging port-city of Beirut in particular, will serve as this paper’s example. This review shows how changes in this field and the definition of educational capital granted certain women reflexivity to negotiate the divergent avenues available to them. However, such a review is only possible once the works of social theory, like Bourdieu’s theory of practice, are thoroughly examined and reconfigured to allow for field permeability and relative instability.
Bourdieu, Pierre.1993. The Field of Cultural Production. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble. New York and London: Routledge.
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