Caton says his proposal is almost finished. A few more conversations with “major players,” and Caton will send it off to top University policy makers and Summers.
Historically, CMES is the coordinating body for the representation of Middle Eastern studies on campus. Caton and other administrators at CMES recommend scholars to department chairs in order to fill gaps within the various departments.
Right now, Caton says, there are a lot of gaps to fill. He says some fields, most notably sociology and economics, aren’t very compatible with Middle Eastern studies since their approaches are rooted in western models.
Nur Yalman, professor of Middle Eastern Studies in the Department of Anthropology, says that professors in “pseudo-scientific” fields such as political science and economics, prefer not to address Middle Eastern issues—a fact that makes it difficult to generate serious academic interest in the area.
“They like to think that they don’t have to deal with messy things like problems of regional conflict, but regional conflicts have a way of coming back to bite them,” Yalman says. “They prefer to have abstract ideas, but that doesn’t get us too far.”
But Caton has high hopes for reaching across disciplines.
He says his proposal will stress the need for a modern historian, a political scientist, a scholar of contemporary Islam (in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world), an economist, a literary scholar, a public health specialist and an Islamic finance scholar.
The problem, he says, is where to put the new hires. For example, where do you place an expert of North African literature written in French? The French department, comparative literature, and African and African-American Studies all seem possible, he says.
“Finding homes for these people not only makes structural sense within
Harvard, but also makes intellectual sense for them,” he says. “You don’t want them to feel isolated and abandoned. It’s a real issue.”
One possible idea, Caton says, is to create a position similar to that of the University Professor, without the prestige, which would structurally allow a professor to teach in multiple departments, depending on their interests and needs.
“There has to be a lot of creative thinking done to solve this problem, and all I can say is that people are trying to do it,” Caton says.
A BIG GAP TO FILL
According to Caton, the biggest gap in Middle Eastern studies, and the one that has incited the most consternation among undergraduates, is the lack of a political scientist in the government department. It has been over a decade since a tenured faculty member has held a position in the department and a year since the junior faculty slot was left vacant.
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