About the New Levant Initiative

Abdallah Al Dardari

Senior Adviser on Reconstruction, The World Bank (Middle East & North Africa)

Abdallah Al Dardari has been Senior Adviser on Reconstruction, Office of the Vice President, Middle East and North Africa Region with The World Bank since February 2017.

Dardari, a national of Syria, obtained a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Richmond – American International University in London in 1985 and a Master of Arts in International Economic Relations from the University of Southern California in 1988. He undertook post-graduate studies toward a Master of Philosophy in International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science between 1988 and 1990. He also holds an Honorary Doctorate from Yalova University in Istanbul.

Dardari has extensive analytical experience from his most recent positions with the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), which he joined in 2011 as Chief Economist and Director of the Economic Development and Globalization Division, and in 2014 assuming the role of the organization’s Deputy Executive Secretary.

Dardari also served as Syria’s Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs from 2005 to 2011.

Layth Al Rubaye

Violinist, Composer and Director of the Arab Music Ensemble at Tufts University

Layth Sidiq is a globally acclaimed and sought-after violinist, composer and educator in the U.S. and abroad, and is the current director of the Arab Music Ensemble at Tufts University. Born in Baghdad and raised in Amman, Layth’s music is described as a “glimpse of the past through a futuristic lens,” and his album Son of Tigris is a clear example of the unity between Iraqi music and jazz, which led to it earning a performance at the Montreal Jazz Festival in 2016.

Layth has toured the world with many acclaimed groups and has performed in prestigious venues with award-winning artists like Simon Shaheen, Jack Dejohnette, Tigran Hamasyan, Shreya Ghoshal, and Gary Burton to name a few.

www.laythsidiq.com

Ghada Amer

Artist, Represented by Cheim & Read

“I believe that all women should like their bodies and use them as tools of seduction,” Ghada Amer stated; and in her well-known erotic embroideries, she at once rejects oppressive laws set in place to govern women’s attitudes toward their bodies and repudiates first-wave feminist theory that the body must be denied to prevent victimization.

Amer was born in Cairo in 1963. In 1974, her parents relocated to France where she began her artistic training 10 years later at Villa Arson, Nice, France. She currently lives and works in New York and has exhibited among others at the Venice Biennale, the Sydney Biennale, the Whitney Biennale, and the Brooklyn Museum.

In 1997, she was the recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant, and in 1999, she received the UNESCO award at the Venice Biennale. She has had solo exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum New York; San Francisco Art Institute; De Appel Foundation, Amsterdam; Indianapolis Museum of Art; and the MACRO Museum, Rome. Her work has been exhibited in group shows at such venues as Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art, Athens; National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C.; as well as the Museum of Modern Art in New York. She participated among others in the Gwangju Biennale, the Whitney Bienniale and the Venice Biennale.

Amale Andraos

Dean, Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation, Columbia University

Amale Andraos is Dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) and co-founder of WORKac, a New-York based architectural and urban practice with international reach.

In addition to Columbia University, Andraos has taught at universities including Princeton University School of Architecture, Harvard Graduate School of Design, University of Pennsylvania Design School, and the American University of Beirut. Her publications include The Arab City: Architecture and Representation, 49 Cities, Above the Pavement – the Farm! and numerous essays. WORKac is focused on reimaging architecture at the intersection of the urban, the rural, and the natural. It has achieved international recognition through institutional projects such as the Edible Schoolyard; a new conference center in Libreville, Gabon; and the Miami Collage Garage. In addition to other awards, WORKac was named the 2015 AIA New York State Firm of the Year.

Saleh Barakat

Beirut Gallerist and Expert in Levantine Art

A leading expert in modern and contemporary art from the Arab world, Saleh Barakat founded Agial Art Gallery in 1991 and Saleh Barakat Gallery in 2016 in Beirut. Throughout his career, he participated in building some major collections of modern and contemporary Arab art (Mathaf – Qatar, Kinda Foundation – KSA, Saradar Foundation Lebanon) and introduced many Arab artists to major international museums like the Tate Modern in London, Centre Pompidou in Paris, and the Guggenheim Museum in New York.

Possessing a strong business background in addition to his experience in the arts, Barakat has been engaged in developing a healthy market environment for creative expression in the Arab world. He curated several pan-Arab exhibitions, including the IXth Francophone Summit in Beirut, the 2003 World Bank Summit in Dubai and “The Road to Peace: Painting in Times of War 1975-1991” at the Beirut Art Center in 2009.

His recent focus is to develop Beirut as a cultural incubator for the Levant region. He served on the steering committee of the Arts Center at the American University of Beirut and as a member of the Advisory Council of the School of Architecture and Design at the Lebanese American University. He has been a board member of the Lebanese National Commission for UNESCO since 2014. He was nominated as a Yale World Fellow in 2006.

Tony Barhoum

Musician

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Poopa Dweck

First Generation American Syrian-Jew, Cookbook Author and Authority on the Cuisine and Customs of Aleppo, Syria

Poopa Dweck is the pre-eminent authority on the food-ways and customs of the Jews of Aleppo, one of the largest and most flourishing communities of Sephardic Jews. Dweck comes from a long line of Syrian cooks, whose migrations have spanned the globe from the northeastern hill town of Aleppo in Ottoman Syria to Italy to the United States and South America.

She is best known as the author of the stunning cookbook Aromas of Aleppo: The Legendary Cuisine of the Syrian Jews, featured in The New York Times Magazine, Year of Ideas in 2007, and as the winner of the National Jewish Book Award in 2007. Dweck is featured in the Sephardic Heritage Museum`s film, titled “The Syrian Jewish Community: Our Journey Through History,” which premiered at Lincoln Center’s Avery Fisher Hall in 2010. She was presented the Women of Honor Award by Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem at Sotheby’s in New York in 2011. In 2004, a stunning hardcover Hebrew-language edition of Aromas of Aleppo was published with great success. This is Dweck’s fourth work on the subject and the most comprehensive source for the cuisine and customs of Syrian Jews from Aleppo to date.

Daniel Egel Ph.D.

Economist, RAND Corporation; Professor, Pardee RAND Graduate School

Daniel Egel is an economist at the RAND Corporation and Professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. His research uses qualitative and quantitative methods to study policymaking in fragile and instability-prone countries, with a focus on development- and stability-focused programming. His work at RAND focuses on policymaking at the nexus of development and stability, and includes a calculation of the economic costs of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, assessments of U.S. counterinsurgency and counterterrorism efforts, an examination of the economic value of U.S. international security commitments, and research and capacity building in support of the ongoing Yemen peace process.

Egel served as an embedded analyst with the NATO Special Operations Component Command-Afghanistan (NSOCC-A), a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, a consultant for the Middle East Youth Initiative at the Brookings Institution, and a consultant with the Yemeni Social Fund for Development. Egel earned his Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley.

Farès El-Dahdah

Professor of Humanities and Director of the Humanities Research Center, Rice University

An educator, scholar, humanist and designer, Farès el-Dahdah received his undergraduate degrees in fine arts and in architecture from the Rhode Island School of Design. He went on to pursue his graduate studies at Harvard University where bridging of architecture and literary theory was the subject of his doctoral dissertation and a first manifestation of a lifelong commitment to working across disciplines.

He has written extensively about architectural theory, modern architecture and urbanism in Brazil and regularly lectures internationally. In addition to his academic activities, Dahdah has participated in cultural events at museums in Beirut, Paris, Berlin, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Brasilia.

His current research focuses on developing online geospatial platforms that illustrate the urban evolution of cities as well as on exploring and critiquing how digital platforms uphold the mission of disseminating knowledge. He serves on the Art of the Islamic Worlds Subcommittee at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and on the boards of Casa de Lucio Costa and Fundação Oscar Niemeyer. As director of the HRC, he is involved in identifying, encouraging and funding the research projects of faculty, visiting scholars, graduate and undergraduate students as well as spearheading new ventures in the humanities and beyond.

Rodolphe El-Khoury

Dean, School of Architecture, University of Miami

Rodolphe el‐Khoury is Dean at the University of Miami School of Architecture. Trained as both a historian and a designer, he divides his time between scholarship, research, and practice. He is the author of numerous books on architecture and urbanism, including See Through Ledoux; Architecture, Theatre, and the Pursuit of Transparency; Monolithic Architecture; and Figures: Essays on Contemporary Architecture.

Khoury leads RAD‐UM, a research lab for embedded technology and robotics aimed at enhancing responsiveness and resilience in buildings and smart cities. The work of his firm, Khoury Levit Fong, has won international awards. Khoury’s work has been featured in national and international media outlets that cut across disciplines ranging from WIRED Magazine to the Wall Street Journal to the Space Channel to BBC World. He has shared his work through teaching, visiting professorships and lectures at dozens of institutions in the U.S. and abroad.

Wassef Haroun

Co-Owner of Mama Restaurant Group

Wassef Haroun was born in Syria and raised in Lebanon before moving to the United States for school. Haroun settled in Seattle with his wife, Racha, in 1989 to start a career in technology and computer science. Haroun retired from the tech world, and in 2012, he and Racha opened Mamnoon Restaurant (Arabic and Farsi for “thankfulness”) as an experiment to bring the food and traditions of the Levant to an American audience.

More than just a restaurant, Mamnoon became a bridge for two cultures where compassion, curiosity, tolerance, and progressive values paved the way for harmonious interactions. Haroun expanded upon Mamnoon, and opened Anar, serving high-quality foods; Mamnoon Street, offering Middle Eastern street foods; and Mbar, a rooftop restaurant and bar serving the best of Seattle in a contemporary menu inspired by Mediterranean flavors. Together these locations form Mama Restaurant Group, a convergence of food, drink, art, and community that offers a rich celebration of culture and flavors in the Pacific Northwest.

Michael Jeha

Managing Director and Deputy Chairman, Christie’s Middle East

In the role as Managing Director and Deputy Chairman of Christie’s Middle East, Michael Jeha has been responsible for implementing and executing the firm’s strategic and commercial vision for the region. Since Christie’s first opened an office in Dubai in 2005 and began holding biannual sales the following year, the numbers of Christie’s Middle Eastern clients have increased with the global buying activity of this group now accounting for 8% of company turnover.

Under his management, Dubai has become a regular and important selling center on the international auction calendar with auctions of modern and contemporary Middle Eastern art and watches achieving sales of over $300 million.

In October 2017, Christie’s organized a new marquee event in London, Middle Eastern Art Week, which brought together exhibitions and auctions of Islamic art, as well as for the first time Middle Eastern modern and contemporary art in London.

Sibel Kulaksiz

Senior Country Economist, The World Bank (Middle East & North Africa)

Sibel Kulaksiz is a Senior Country Economist with the World Bank where she works at the Global Practice for Macroeconomics, Trade and Investment. She is task-managing macroeconomic policy work with a focus on economic growth, fiscal policy and management, and regional economic integration issues.

Kulaksiz is the lead author of many World Bank publications including “Over the Horizon: A New Levant,” a sub-regional economic integration vision that proposes comprehensive economic and social development reforms and multi-country investment projects to benefit from significant untapped economic potentials in the region. She provides policy advice to governments in the areas of economic policy, trade competitiveness, and public spending efficiency.

Kulaksiz is also experienced in post-conflict stabilization operations with a focus on addressing economic and humanitarian impacts of conflicts and refugee flows. Previously, she worked as a Country Economist in the Africa region leading analytical and operational work. Prior to joining the World Bank in 2001, Kulaksiz worked in the Turkish government.

She holds a master’s degree in Economics from Hacettepe University as well as a master’s degree in International Development from Johns Hopkins University.

Philip Mansel Ph.D.

Historian and Author

Philip Mansel was born in London in 1951 and has lived in London, Paris, Beirut, and Istanbul. He is a historian of France and the Middle East, focusing on courts, cities, and cosmopolitanism. His books include lives of Louis XVIII (1981) and the Prince de Ligne (2003); Dressed to Rule, a study of the politics of clothes (2005); a history of Paris as capital of 19th-century Europe, Paris between Empires (2001); and The Eagle in Splendour: Inside the Court of Napoleon (reprint 2015). He has also written a history of Constantinople as capital of the Ottoman Empire, Constantinople, City of the World’s Desire (1995); a history of Smyrna, Alexandria and Beirut, Levant: Splendour and Catastrophe on the Mediterranean (2010); and a history of Aleppo since the Ottoman conquest in 1516, Aleppo, the Rise and Fall of Syria’s Great Merchant City (2016). His books have been translated into French, German, Italian, Spanish, Turkish, Greek, and Arabic. He writes for The Spectator, The Art Newspaper, and the Times Literary Supplement.

Mansel is a founding committee member of the Society for Court Studies and the Levantine Heritage Foundation. Both are linked to similar groups in other countries, and both study international networks, cultures, and identities. The Levantine Heritage Foundation is organizing a conference in Athens on November 2-3 on Levantine identities and diasporas.

In 2012, Mansel received the London Library Life in Literature Award and he is a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters in France and the Order of the Crown in Belgium. He is currently writing a book on the life of Louis XIV.

Barbara Massaad

Lebanese-American Cookbook Author, Photographer and TV Host

Barbara Abdeni Massaad was born in Beirut, Lebanon. She moved to Florida at a young age and gained her real culinary experience while helping her father in the family-owned Lebanese restaurant Kebabs & Things. Determined to gain proper experience within the culinary world, Massaad trained with several renowned chefs at Lebanese, Italian and French restaurants.

Growing up with the influence of her father, Massaad combined both culinary and photography to create her first book Man’oushé: Inside the Street Corner Lebanese Bakery, winner of the Gourmand Cookbook Award 2009 and the Lebanese Academy of Gastronomy 2009. Mouneh: Preserving Foods for the Lebanese Pantry, winner of the Gourmand Cookbook Award 2010 and Prix de la Littérature Gastronomique 2010, continues Barbara’s quest to discover and preserve another aspect of Lebanese culinary heritage. Mezze: A Labor of Love, her third book, published in 2014, winner of the Gourmand Cookbook Award, documents her favorite mezze recipes with short stories and anecdotes.

Soup for Syria: Recipes to Celebrate our Shared Humanity (2015) includes recipes from acclaimed chefs and cookbook authors the world over to help food relief efforts to alleviate the suffering of Syrian refugees.

Massaad is a founding member of Slow Food Beirut and currently president of the local chapter and has been nominated International Council for the Middle East of Slow Food International. She lives in Beirut with her husband and three children.

www.barbaramassaad.com

Karim Nagi

Arab Musician and Folk Dancer

Arab musician and folk dancer Karim Nagi has been connecting worlds and audiences for 25 years. An Egyptian immigrant to the U.S., Nagi maintains a deep tradition and repertoire while developing relevant contemporary deliveries. He has lead the Sharq Arab Music Ensemble performing pan-Arab repertoire since 1999. He has organized and directed 14 Arab dance seminars. His Arabiqa program has performed educative assemblies in over 300 schools.

He has recorded 14 CDs and 6 instructional DVDs, and performed on six continents. His current project “Detour Guide” is a one-man multimedia musical in English and Arabic taking audiences on an alternative tour of the Arab world and diaspora. All throughout, Nagi has kept his love and mastery of the riqq (Arab tambourine) prevalent, helping to raise its visibility as an instrument of virtuosity.

www.karimnagi.com

A.J. Racy Ph.D.

Performer, Composer and Distinguished Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of California at Los Angeles

A.J. Racy, is a performer, composer, and Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Born in Lebanon, he comes from a well-known family of artists, scholars and academicians. Racy is internationally recognized for his extraordinary musicianship and his numerous publications, including his award-winning book, Making Music in the Arab World: The Culture and Artistry of Tarab. He is a master of many traditional instruments, particularly the nay, a reed-flute, and the buzuq, a long-necked fretted lute.

Racy has performed extensively in Lebanon and has appeared in major U.S. theaters, such as Carnegie Hall in New York, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., and the Hollywood Bowl, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and at international venues, including the Beiteddine Festival in Lebanon and the Commonwealth Institute in London, the National Institute of Fine Arts in Mexico, the School of Music of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and the Villa-Lobos Institute in Brazil, and the China Conservatory of Music in Beijing.

He has lectured widely in North America, as well as in Finland, Greece, Mauritius, Reunion, England, Turkey, Mexico, Brazil, China, Canada, and throughout the Arab world.

Racy has composed for and performed with the Kronos Quartet and the Sacramento Symphony Orchestra, as well as for feature and documentary films. He has performed with many renowned artists including Kenny Burrell, Shujaat Khan, Tsun Yuen Lui, Sting, Tito Puente, Djivan Gasparyan, Wadi al-Safi, Cheb Khaled, and Shaykh Hamza Shakour. His music has been released on a number of CDs, including four Lyrichord albums – Ancient Egypt, Taqasim, Mystical Legacies, and When the Rivers Met – and on a Kronos Quartet released titled Caravan. Racy is the recipient of numerous honors and tributes from a variety of cultural institutions, including the Stevenson Award for composer-scholar Ethnomusicologists and a prestigious award in 2012 from the Chinese Taichi Traditional Music Foundation for outstanding traditional musicians and music scholars worldwide.

Sara Raza

Guggenheim UBS Map Curator, Middle East and North Africa

Sara Raza is the Guggenheim UBS MAP Curator for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, where, in 2016, she organized the exhibition “But a Storm Is Blowing from Paradise: Contemporary Art of the Middle East and North Africa.” Formerly, she was the Curator of Maraya Art Centre in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates; Head of Education and Public Programs at YARAT Contemporary Art Space, Baku, Azerbaijan; and Curator of Public Programs at the Tate Modern, London.

Raza is the longstanding West and Central Asia Editor of ArtAsiaPacific magazine and is currently editing a book on her research titled Punk Orientalism. She earned a Bachelor of Arts (hons) in English Literature and History of Art and a Master of Arts in Art History and Theory, both from Goldsmiths College, University of London. She also pursued studies toward her Ph.D. at the Royal College of Art. She is the recipient of the 2016 ArtTable New Leadership Award for Women in Art.

www.sararaza.com

Kareem Roustom

Composer and Professor of the Practice, Tufts University Department of Music

Kareem Roustom is an Emmy-nominated composer whose genre crossing collaborations include music commissioned for the Kronos Quartet, conductor Daniel Barenboim & the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra as well as Shakira, Beyoncé, Tina Turner, and others.

Roustom’s music has been performed at the BBC Proms, the Salzburg Festival, the Lucerne Festival, the Grand Teton Music Festival, and from the Far East to the Near East, Europe and Latin America. The Chicago Tribune wrote that Roustom is “a gifted and accomplished artist … one of the most prominent active Arab-American composers”; BBC Radio 3 described Roustom’s music as “among the most distinctive to have emerged from the Middle East”; and The New York Times described it as “propulsive, colorful and immediately appealing.”

Hashim Sarkis

Dean, School of Architecture and Planning, MIT

Prior to MIT, Hashim Sarkis was the Aga Khan Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urbanism at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Sarkis has held numerous visiting appointments, including the American University of Beirut and the Metropolis Program in Barcelona.

In addition to his academic work, Sarkis is principal architect at Hashim Sarkis Studios, based in Cambridge, and Beirut firm Hashim Sarkis Studios. His architectural and planning projects focus on affordable housing, institutional buildings, and town planning throughout the world. He is the author of several articles and books, and has received many awards and honors for his work. One of his projects, the recently completed Byblos Town Hall, was featured in the U.S. Pavilion at the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale for which he received a First Prize Award.

Sarkis has earned a Bachelor of Arts in Architecture and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design, a Master of Arts in Architecture and a Ph.D. in Architecture from Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

Simon Shaheen

Palestinian-American Performer, Composer, and Professor at Berklee College of Music

Simon Shaheen is one of the most significant Arab musicians, performers, and composers of his generation. His work incorporates and reflects a legacy of Arabic music, while it forges ahead to new frontiers, embracing many different styles in the process. This unique contribution to the world of arts was recognized in 1994 when Shaheen was honored with the prestigious National Heritage Award at the White House.

In the 1990s he released four albums of his own: Saltanah (Water Lily Acoustics), Turath (CMP), Taqasim (Lyrichord), and Simon Shaheen: The Music of Mohamed Abdel Wahab (Axiom), while also contributing cuts to producer Bill Laswell’s fusion collective, Hallucination Engine (Island). He has contributed selections to soundtracks for “The Sheltering Sky” and “Malcolm X,” among others, and has composed the entire soundtrack for the United Nations-sponsored documentary, “For Everyone Everywhere.”

Since 1994, Shaheen has produced the Annual Arab Festival of Arts, called Mahrajan al-Fan. Held in New York, the festival showcases the work of the finest Arab artists, while presenting the scope, depth, and quality of Arab culture. To continue this exposure to Arab music and culture, Shaheen founded the Annual Arabic Music Retreat in 1997. Held each summer at Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, Massachusetts, this weeklong intensive program of Arabic music studies draws participants from the U.S. and abroad.

Shaheen has been teaching at Berklee College of Music, Boston, since 2011 and directs the Global String Ensemble as well as Qantara Berklee, an Arabic music ensemble composed of students enrolled at the campus. He teaches violin, cello, and mandolin, along with the Arabic oud and kanun.

www.simonshaheen.com

Pinar Tremblay

Columnist for Al-Monitor’s Turkey Pulse and Visiting Scholar of Political Science at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona

Pinar Tremblay is a columnist for Turkish news outlet T24. She is a chef and researcher specializing in Mediterranean and Near Eastern ingredients and methods. Currently, she is working on a book titled My Grandma’s Greek Kitchen in Turkey.

Robert F. Worth

Journalist

Robert F. Worth spent 14 years as a correspondent for The New York Times, and is now a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine. His book on the Arab uprisings of 2011 and their aftermath, A Rage for Order, won the 2017 Lionel Gelber Prize and an Arthur Ross Book Award from the Council on Foreign Relations. He was born and raised in Manhattan and now lives in Washington, D.C.