Ted Swedenburg Appointed Visiting Professor in Levant Studies at Georgetown University

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Ted Swedenburg, an anthropology professor at the University of Arkansas, will spend the fall and spring semesters at Georgetown University as the first Jamal Daniel Visiting Professor of Levant Studies at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service.

Swedenburg will be teaching one course called Levantine Arab-Jewish Culture and will also be working on a book manuscript, contracted to Duke University Press, called Radio Interzone. It focuses on the role of popular music in the construction of hybrid, ethnic and transnational identities in and beyond the Arabo-Islamic world.

The professorship is sponsored by the Jamal Daniel Fund for the Study of the Levant, designed to support students and scholars in their studies of the region – its culture, history, society, religion and current political context – as well as provide a platform for policymakers to discuss current and future issues pertaining to the Levant. The fund is a program of the Levant Foundation, which furthers knowledge of the region and “the complex interrelations of the three monotheistic religions born in the Middle East: Christianity, Islam and Judaism.”

Swedenburg, who joined the University of Arkansas in 1996, teaches courses on the Middle East, race and ethnicity, gender and public culture. He is on the editorial committee of Middle East Report and is actively involved with the King Fahd Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences.