Guided Search: Cultural Awareness, Middle East

Al-Bustan Seeds of Culture is having FREE civic engagement block parties this fall in Northeast Philly. Join your community for Covid-safe outdoor activities, including art, music, food, and more for the whole family! Vaccines will be available on site.

There will also be opportunities to register to vote, ask questions, and learn about community resources (employment, education, immigration).

Block Party Dates

Saturday, August 21 Location: Rawnhurst

Saturday, August 28 Location: Lawncrest

The Middle East Center at UPenn will be hosting Dr. Rosie Bsheer in conversation with Professor Robert Vitalis. They will be lecturing and conversing on the politics and history of Saudi Arabia.

The Middle East Center, co-sponsored by: Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures and Jewish Studies Program are hosting The Moral Triangle: Germans, Israelis, Palestinians. In The Moral Triangle, Sa’ed Atshan and Katharina Galor draw on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with Israelis, Palestinians, and Germans in Berlin to explore these asymmetric relationships in the context of official German policies, public discourse, and the private sphere.

Can an immigrant’s story be universal in today’s America? To find out, Emmy-award winning performer Kayhan Irani excavates memory and experience to reconstruct a sense of belonging. Using video projections, live performance, and humor, Irani embodies characters from her journey and invites the audience to share their own stories. IJ curator Alex Shaw joins Irani as a guest artist.

A conversation with Afshon Ostovar.

Foreign Policy Research Institute's ​Geopolitics with Granieri will feature Afshon Ostovar, Assistant Professor of National Security Affairs, Naval Postgraduate School, on his new book Vanguard of the Imam: Religion, Politics, and Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps, Iran's most powerful armed force.

“Revered among aficionados of Persian classical and folk music, Sahba Motallebi is a virtuoso performer on the long-necked stringed instruments known as tar and setar. ” – LA Weekly

Come and experience a taste of Lebanon, from delicious Middle Eastern food to traditional dance and music as well as a performance from St. Maron's Dabke Troop.

The Dialogue Institute is hosting a free* lecture and discussion with Dr. Ziad Fahed, “Fostering Youth Resilience to Counteract Extremism: Grassroots Experience from Philadelphia to Lebanon,” .