The
American Universities have pioneered the field of Area Studies as a new
approach to the traditional Oriental Studies. After World War Two, the U.S.A.
found herself in great need for scholars and expertise in the Muslim World affairs.
To meet this challenge in the US. Government issued an Act. the National
Defense Education Act "to help in the formation of area study centers of
this sort. NDEA money has now vanished - 1975- from the American campus, and a
pall of gloom has follows."
Ten years or so after this Act. these
studies flourished which encouraged the Sir William Hayter Committee to visit
ten American Universities and two Canadian universities with a grant form Rockefeller
Organization to become familiar with these studies and learn from their
experience.
In 1967 the Middle Eastern Studies
Association has published a study undertaken by Moroe Berber to evaluate these
studies. His study was published in MESA Bulletin, Vol.1, No.2 (Nov.15,1967).
It was rather interesting to mention but a few figures from this study: The
number of students studying M. E. Languages have risen from 286 students to
1084 from 1958 to 1964.In his study Berger made an important statement about
the purpose of these studies : understanding of the region as it now exists
including its internal variations as well as the features common to all of it ,
in respect to its social organization ,economic condition , political
character, intellectual and spiritual life, and recent immanent social change."
In 1973 a Committee on Oriental Studies
at the Islamic Youth Congress in Tripoli, Libya has published "A Critical
Analysis of Islamic Studies at North American Universities" giving very
important information about these studies.
Yet a more important survey of these
Studies appeared in the book edited by Leonard Binder titled "The Study of
The Middle East ;Research and Scholarship in Humanities and Social Science
"(1976), in which Binder himself wrote the first study "Area Studies
versus the Disciplines" in which he evaluated the status of these studies
stating that these studies were faced with certain difficulties such as
finances . Other scholars criticized these studies in terms of the caliber of
the scholars involved.
In 1981 Dr. Abdul Rahman Afif published a
short, but important, study in Alfaisal Magazine giving very important figures
about the study of the Arabic Language in the American universities.
Since then,
many studies and conferences have taken the vital issue of Area Studies the
latest of which is the conference sponsored by The Institute of Arabic and
Islamic Sciences in Washington between 24-25 January 1993.
Therefore, it is necessary in 1995 to
re-evaluate these studies through a field studying the light of recent development
in the Middle particularly and in the Islamic World in generally. For practical
purposes I suggest that the researcher spends most of the time in one of the
big universities in the Northeastern region whereby short visits can be
undertaken to other universities. This will give access to more than ten
universities and research centers. The research will also include the latest
studies that came out and are not available in Saudi Arabia.
And since I am a member of the unique
Department of Orientalism in the Islamic World, it will enhance the mutual
understanding how the area studies (orientalism) is perceived in this part of
the world.
تعليقات
إرسال تعليق