Three quick things:
First, the reader response to the first post in our “Lebanese National Agenda” initiative — which deals with #9 on the Top 10 List of priorities — has been quite inspiring. As of this writing, the number of comments is up to 120 already. If you haven’t read it yet, do so now and chime in with your thoughts about how to approach the issue of the legal disenfranchisement of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.
Second, for those of you in Boston for the Middle East Studies Association conference, here are a couple relevant panels that you may want to hit.
- “Alternative Media as Sites of Resistance” — Sunday 11:00 AM
- “Lebanon and the Lebanese” — Sunday 2:00 PM
- “Crossing Over: Negotiating Levantine Borders During the Mandate and After” — Sunday 4:30 PM
- “A Material Nahda?” — Monday 8:30 PM
- “Thinking Outside the State?” (with Marc Lynch & Greg Gause) — Monday 11:00 AM
- “External Intervention, Civil Peace, and Post-Syria Lebanon” (with Rex Brynen & Bassel Salloukh) — Monday 11:00 AM
- “Patronage & Clientelism in the Contemporary Middle East” — Monday 2:30 PM
- “The Secrets of Eloquence: Linguistic Expression in Medieval Arabic Thought and Practice” — Tuesday 10:30 AM
That last one is my own panel, which is relevant only to people who have an inexplicable craving for discussions about medieval Arabic literary theory and encyclopedic literature.
Finally, for those of you who haven’t yet joined the Qifa Nabki Facebook page, here’s one more reason to do so: “QN Sings the National Unity Blues…”
Have a good weekend!
For those of you in the area, the annual meeting of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) is going to be held in Boston next month (Nov. 21-24, Boston Marriott Copley Place; 
