EUME
2009/ 2010

Nadya Sbaiti

‘Know Your History, Know Yourself’: Education and the Construction of History in Mandate Lebanon

is currently Assistant Professor of History at both Smith College and Mt Holyoke College in Massachusetts, USA, where she teaches courses on the social and cultural histories of the modern Middle East. She earned her doctorate from Georgetown University in 2008. Sbaiti’s publications include an article entitled, ‘If the Devil Spoke French’: Strategies of Language and Learning in French Mandate Beirut, on the cultural and political significance of language of instruction in schools, as well as articles that guide researchers through Lebanon’s archival terrain. She has given talks and is pursuing additional research on such topics as spatial manifestations of colonial and national projects; colonial methods of social control; the production of history as discursive and material practice; tourism and heritage; and contemporary popular culture (music, film, game shows, and reality television). In addition, Sbaiti has served as co-editor of the peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary publication, the Arab Studies Journal, since 2005.
 

‘Know Your History, Know Yourself’: Education and the Construction of History in Mandate Lebanon

She is currently writing her book manuscript titled ‘Know Your History, Know Yourself’: Education and the Construction of History in Mandate Lebanon, based on her dissertation, that examines the central role of education to the unfurling and complex intersections of multiple national narratives with ramifications for the production of history in Lebanon under the French mandate.