The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> profile of Dr Eden Naby

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...the other "enemy" on Magpie's hit list.

Eden Naby is a specialist on the modern Middle East with a concentration on the area from Iraq to Central Asia. Her PhD from Columbia University is in cultural history of modern Central Asia, an interest she developed while serving in the Peace Corps (1964-66) in Afghanistan where she taught English in Mazar-e Sharif and in Kabul. It was during her Peace Corps years that she learned some Uzbek, which led her to graduate studies in New York.

Dr. Naby began publishing in the academic sphere in 1973 under the guidance of Prof. Edward Allworth and she continued under Prof. Alexandre Bennigsen who encouraged her to research her own people, the Assyrians. As a result, she published her first article on Assyrians (1975 http://monderusse.revues.org/document210.html) as they have survived in the former Soviet Union. Like the article in 1975, in her next article on the Assyrians (1977) of Iran, she used primary Assyrian neo-Aramaic periodical sources. Since then, she has published extensively on Assyrians, as well as on the Afghans, Turkmens, Uighurs and Kurds. She has conducted NEH seminars on religious and ethnic minorities in the Middle East at Harvard University ("Integrating Man, Nations, and Nature: Comparing Ideas from Eastern Texts.") and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She has taught at Pahlavi University (Shiraz, Iran), Harvard University, Columbia University and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst as well as spent an unpleasant year at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her book AFGHANISTAN: MULLAH, MARX AND MUJAHID (2002), co-authored with her late good friend and colleague Ralph H. Magnus (1936-2000), is a seminal source on modern Afghanistan and particularly useful for its analysis of that country’s ethnic and religious minorities.

Dr. Naby is currently engaged in examining issues of economic and social survival of individuals under Dhimmi status, inheritance laws that impoverish non-Muslims, institutionalization of worship communities that harm ethnic unity to the disadvantage of cultural survival and the historical pattern of abduction of Assyrian women.

At Harvard University she has initiated two exhibits on Assyrians, and since 1979 she has helped to establish four endowments. The exhibits were:

1997– "Assyrian Christian Architecture of Iran" (Center for the Study of World Religions)

1999 – "The Assyrian Experience: Sources for the Study of the 19th and 20th Centuries" (Widener Library) (with Michael Hopper)

The first Assyrian endowment established at Harvard was the David B. Perley Memorial Assyrian Fund, named in honor of a leading Assyrian intellectual and activist. Thus far the David B. Perley Memorial Fund has subsidized the publication of books and the part of the income that has gone toward the Harvard Collection of Assyrian materials has produced one of the world’s best collections on modern Assyrians which includes not only printed books and periodicals, but also videos, DVDs and sound tapes.

The second fund, established in 1997 is called the Mishael and Lillie Naby Assyrian Lecture Fund so named in honor of the parents of Eden and Dante Naby. This fund has been used to sponsor speakers at Harvard University since 1999. The inaugural lecture was delivered by Dr. J. F. Coakley, the second by Prof. Mikhael Abdalla (Poland), the third by Prof. Ronald Thomaszadeh (Iran), the fourth by Prof. Jaakko Hameen Anttila (Finland), the fifth by Ms. Lena Yakobova (Armenia).

Two endowments have also been established in the name of "Ninos Aho Assyrian Poetry Fund" and the "Kamishli Assyrian Book Fund", both seeded by Mr. Elias Hanna. In addition, Dr. Naby encouraged the establishment of the Assyrian Foundation of America Book Fund at UC Berkeley and the "Naum Faik Assyrian Memorial Fund" at Columbia University. The latter was funded largely by Mr. And Mrs. Afram Koumi.

Dr. Naby is a frequent guest on radio and television as a commentator on news. Her letters often are published from Beirut to Nashville. (http://dailystar.com.lb/letters.asp?edition_id=1
http://www.nashvillescene.com/cgi-bin/printer.cgi?story=Back_Issues:2003:November_27 - December_4_2003:News:Love_And_Hate_Mail)

Since 2000, Dr. Naby has become active in the work of the international organization called Melammu: The Intellectual Heritage of the Assyrian and Babylonian Culture, encorporated in Italy (http://www.melammu.org/). She was instrumental in involving the Assyrian American National Federation in supporting the publication of the proceedings of the organization. An unfortunate result of her involvement with Melammu has been a frivolous and malicious lawsuit brought against her by a Chicago resident. Consequently she has had to reduce her activities in order to devote time (and money) to deal with these legal matters. In 2002 Dr. Naby was the recipient of the Woman of the Year Award from the Assyrian American National Federation.

Dr. Naby is also working to make the Assyrian case better known in policy circles and hopes to edit two books on Assyrians based partly on the Middle East Studies Association panels she has organized over the years.

In the past Dr. Naby’s voluntary service to academic organizations has included work with Afghan and Iranian studies organizations. But since 1998 she has devoted her time exclusively to her own ethnic group, which has become marginalized in scholarly circles. She served as honorary editor of the Assyrian Star until the disclosure of a lawsuit in 2003 and currently serves as an advisor to the Assyrian Academic Society.

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