Graduate studies committee

Rim Saab
Master’s Thesis supervisor:

Carole Abi Ghanem: In Progress

Catherine Moughalian: Completed

Master’s Thesis Reader:

Mona Akra

Fahed El Hassan

Sara Michli

Academic Service:

Advised around 40 undergraduate and graduate students in spring 2016

Services to the Department/University:

Member of the Program Review Committee for the department

Reviewed articles for Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin; Group Processes and Intergroup Relations.

Presentation: Saab, R., & Ayoub, M. (September 2015). The impact of repression threat on collective action: An experimental paradigm. British Psychological Society annual conference (joint Social and Developmental Sections), Manchester University, UK.

Invited talk: Saab, R. (November 2015). Predictors of revolutionary collective action Plus Impact of repression threat on collective action. University of Kent, School of Psychology.

F. PUBLICATIONS
Fatima Al-Jamil

1. 
   El-Jamil, F. & Abi-Hashem. N. (in press).  Family maltreatment and domestic violence among Arab Middle Easterners: A psychosocial, cultural, religious, and legal examination. In Assessment and treatment of domestic violence in a multicultural context [tentative title], ed. R. A. Javier and W. G. Herron.  Lanham, MD:  Jason Aranson of Rowman & Littlefield.
   

Nidal Daou

Article:

1. 
   Obeid, R., Daou, N., DeNigris, D., Shane-Simpson, C., Brooks, P. J., & Gillespie-Lynch, K. (2015). A cross-cultural comparison of knowledge and stigma associated with Autism Spectrum Disorder among college students in Lebanon and the United States. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 45, 3520-3536.
   

Conference Presentations:

1. 
   Gillespie-Lynch, K., Daou, N., Sanchez-Ruiz, M. J., Obeid, R., Brooks, P. J., Kapp, S. K., Someki, F., Silton, N., & Abi-Habib, R. (2016, May). Factors Underlying Cross-Cultural and Gender Differences in Stigma towards ASD: Insights from an Online Training for College Students in Lebanon and the United States. Poster presented at the International Meeting for Autism Research, Baltimore, Maryland.
   
2. 
   Obeid, R., Someki, F., Daou, N., Brooks, P. J., Shane-Simpson, C., Torii, M., Kapp, S. K., & Gillespie-Lynch, K. (2016, March). Changing College Students’ Conceptions of ASD: An Online Training about ASD is Associated with Increased Knowledge and Decreased Stigma in the US, Lebanon and Japan. In K. Gillespie-Lynch (Chair), Developing Evidence-Based Supports for College Students with Autism: Insights From a Multi-Site Collaboration. Symposium conducted at the annual meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association, New York, NY.
   
3. 
   Gillespie-Lynch, K., Brooks, P. J., Kapp, S. K., Someki, F., Obeid, R., Daou, N., DeNigris, D., Toori, M., Shane-Simpson, C., Pickens, J., and Schwartzman, B. (2015, August). Conceptions of autism across cultures: Does the internet support new perspectives? Paper presented at the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology, Chiapas, Mexico.
   
4. 
   Daou, N. (2015, May). Introducing Applied Behavior Analysis in novel cultural contexts. Symposium chaired at the annual convention of the Association for Behavior Analysis, San Antonio, TX.
   
5. 
   Daou, N. (2015, May). Conducting behavioral research with children attending non-behavioral intervention programs for autism in Lebanon. In N. Daou (Chair), Introducing Applied Behavior Analysis in novel cultural contexts. Symposium conducted at the annual convention of the Association for Behavior Analysis, San Antonio, TX.
   
6. 
   Daou, N. (2016, March). Applied Behavior Analysis and autism in Lebanon: Two problems and a solution. Invited lecture at the Association for the Study of Mind at the American University of Beirut.
   

Arne Dietrich

1. 
   Dietrich, A. (2015). How Creativity Happens in the Brain. London: Palgrave Macmillan (published in August).
   

Articles:

1. 
   Dietrich*, A., & Haider, H. (2015). Human creativity, evolutionary algorithms, and predictive representations: The mechanics of thought trials. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 22, 897-915.
   
2. 
   Yang, W., Dietrich, A., Liu, P., Ming, D., Jin, Y., Nusbaum, H.C., Qiu, J., and Zhang*, Q. (2016). Prototypes are key heuristic information in insight problem solving. Creativity Research Journal, 28, 67-77.
   
3. 
   Dietrich, A. (2015). Where does ‘creativity‘ happen in your Brain. The Guardian.http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/dec/28/where-does-creativity-happen-in-your-brain
   
4. 
   Dietrich, A. (2016). Who invented kitesurfing? Charaktery, 74-75.
   

Conference Presentations:

1. 
   Hou, Y., Dietrich, A., Zhang, Q., Zhu, W., Yang, W., Chen, Q., Sun, J., and Qiu, J. (2015). Getting the joke: Insight during humor comprehension. Poster. 25th Annual Meeting, Organization of Human Brain Mapping, Honolulu, HI, USA.
   
2. 
   Dietrich, A. (2015). Flow and high performance. Invited Discussant. Glimpses: Red Bull Performance Conference, Los Angeles, USA.
   

Charles Harb

1. 
   Harb, C (in Press). “Development of a social Cohesion Index for the Arab region.” United Nations Development Programme. New York: UN House.
   
2. 
   Harb, C (in Press, July 2016). Perceived inequalities among Lebanese nationals and Syrian refugees. World Social Sciences Report, (June, 2016). Invited peer reviewed publication of the International Social Sciences Council and UNESCO.
   
3. 
   Abubakar, A. et al (in Press). Measurement Invariance of the Brief Multidimensional Student’s Life Satisfaction Scale among Adolescents and Emerging Adults across 23 Cultural Contexts. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment.
   
4. 
   Abou Abdallah, M., Kashima, Y., & Harb, C. (in press). “Brothers” in Arms: Does Metaphorizing Kinship Increase Approval of Parochial Altruism? Journal of Cognition and Culture.
   
5. 
   Harb, C. (2016). Arab Region: Culture, Values, and Identities. In M. Amer & G. Awad (Eds), Handbook of Arab American Psychology, pp. 3-19. New York: Routledge. ISBN: [978-0-415-84192-4] 
   

Conference Presentations:

1. 
   Harb, C. (July 2016). Collective Action and intergroup dynamics in the Arab world. Invited Symposium convener and speaker, XXXI International Congress of Psychology (ICP), Yokohama, Japan.
   
2. 
   Harb, C. (2015). Developing a Social Cohesion Index for the Arab Region. Keynote presentation at the UNDP’s Expert Group Meeting (EGM), Amman, Jordan (November 2015).
   
3. 
   Harb, C. (2015). Developing a Social Cohesion Index for the Arab region: Models and Indices. Keynote presentation at the UNDP’s Expert Group Meeting (EGM) in Beirut, Lebanon (December, 2015).
   
4. 
   Thomas, N., & Harb, C. (July, 2015). How Israel's Denial of the Palestinian Right of Return Affects Anti-Israeli Attitudes of Palestinian Refugees". Paper presented at the International Society for Political Psychology (ISPP) annual conference, San Diego, CA.
   
5. 
   Harb, C., & Saab, R. (March, 2015). Understanding Support for an Islamic Caliphate & Rule: The Role of Inequality, Mobility and social-psychological variables. Proposal Presented at the Arab Council for the Social Sciences annual meeting, Beirut, Lebanon.
   
6. 
   Saab, R., & Harb, C. (March, 2015). "الشعورباللامساواة والإستعداد لمناهضتها لدى النازحين السوريين والمواطنين اللبنانيين في عكار والبقاع". [Justice perception and readiness for action among Syrian refugees and Lebanese nationals in Akkar and the Bekaa]. Paper presented at the Arab Council for the Social Sciences (ACSS) annual conference, Beirut, Lebanon.
   

Alaa Hijazi
Publications:

1. 
   Burger, A.J., Lumley, M.A., Carty, J.N., Latsch, D.V., Thakur, E.R., Hyde-Nolan, M.E., Hijazi, A.M., & Schubiner, H.  (2016). A preliminary trial of a novel psychological attribution and emotional awareness therapy for chronic musculoskeletal pain. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 81, 1-8
   
2. 
   Shanahan, F., Hijazi, A., & Veale, A. (2016) Mid-term Evaluation of the Concern Lebanon Engaging Men programme in Akkar, north Lebanon. Report submitted to Concern.
   

Submitted the following invited chapter:

1. 
   Hijazi, A. Perpetration Induced Traumatic Stress in Drone Operators. In Perpetration Induced Traumatic Stress, ed. R MacNair.
   

Shahe Kazarian
Books:

1. 
   Kazarian, S.S., and Kazarian, L.Z. (2015). Narrative of My I. London, Canada: KazCom Publishing. (A Historical Novel)
   
2. 
   Kazarian, S.S. (2016). A history of academic psychology at AUB: 1870-2016. Beirut, Lebanon: American University of Beirut Press.
   
3. 
   Kazarian, S.S. (2016). A search of psychology in Lebanon: An oral history approach. Beirut, Lebanon: American University of Beirut Press
   

Book Chapters:

1. 
   Kazarian, S.S., & Michli, S. (2015). The clash of pathways. In The World Book of Hope, pp. 57-59, ed. Leo Bormans. Tielt, Belgium: Lannoo Publishers.
   

Peer-Reviewed Articles:

1. 
   Sahakian, T. and Kazarian, S.S. (in press). Validation of the Arabic Fear of Offensive Social Behaviors (FOSB) Scale in a Sample of Lebanese College Youth. Danish Journal of Psychological Sciences.
   
2. 
   Kazarian, S. S. (2015). Family violence in the Arab world. Arab Journal of Psychiatry, 26, 4-14.
   
3. 
   Sahakian, T. and Kazarian, S.S. (2015). Social anxiety symptoms and their relation to anxiety sensitivity, shame and intolerance of uncertainty in a sample of Lebanese college youth. Arab Journal of Psychiatry, 26, 59-67.
   
4. 
   Saleh, A.O.A. and Kazarian, S.S. (2015). Perceived parenting styles and their relation to basic psychological needs satisfaction, mental health and flourishing in a sample of Lebanese college youth. Arab Journal of Psychiatry, 26, 155-163.
   

Rim Saab
Articles:

1. 
   Saab, R., Spears, R., Tausch, N., and Sasse, J. (in press). Predicting aggressive collective action based on the efficacy of peaceful and aggressive actions. European Journal of Social Psychology. (impact factor 1.712)
   
2. 
   Zaal, M., Saab, R., O’Brien, K., Jeffries, C., Barreto, M., & van Laar, C. (2015). You’re either with us or against us! Moral conviction determines how the politicized distinguish friend from foe. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations. doi: 10.1177/1368430215615682 (impact factor 1.548)
   

Conferences:

1. 
   Presentation: Saab, R., Harb, C., & Rayes, F. (November, 2014). The impact of the Syrian crisis on Lebanon: Differential expectations regarding the repatriation of Syrian refugees predict differential social cohesion efforts among Syrian refugees and Lebanese nationals. The Impact of the Arab Uprisings on Citizenship conference at the University of Balamand, Lebanon.
   
2. 
   Saab, R., & Harb, C. (March, 2015). "الشعورباللامساواة والإستعداد لمناهضتها لدى النازحين السوريين والمواطنين اللبنانيين في عكار والبقاع". [Justice perception and readiness for action among Syrian refugees and Lebanese nationals in Akaar and the Bekaa]. Paper presented at the Arab Council for the Social Sciences (ACSS) annual conference, Beirut, Lebanon.
   
3. 
   Harb, C., & Saab, R. (July, 2014). Syrian Refugees in Lebanon: Social cohesion and inter-community relations in times of crisis. Paper presented at the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology (IACCP) Congress, Reims, France.
   

G. FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS
The department of psychology completed a comprehensive program and departmental review. The report, which includes feedback from external reviewers, highlighted the needs for recruiting more faculty, as well as additional space for faculty, graduate students, and labs. The department will press these issues with the university administration. At least two new faculty members will be joining the department in 2016-2017, adding new movement and direction to the department’s profile. The department is also engaged in a presidential initiative to improve mental health services, an initiative that may help the department in its preparation for a clinical PhD program.
Charles Harb

Chairperson

DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY, ANTHROPOLOGY AND MEDIA STUDIES

1. 
   SUMMARY OF PROGRAMS
   

In 2011 the restructuring of the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences led to the creation of the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Media Studies, which consists of two independent programs: Sociology and Anthropology (SOAN) and Media Studies (MCOM).

The Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Media Studies offers programs at the undergraduate level and the graduate level. The SOAN Program offers an MA in Sociology, an MA in Anthropology, and a BA in Sociology-Anthropology, as well as three minors: Sociology, Anthropology, and Human Rights and Transitional Justice. The MCOM Program offers a thesis-track MA in Media Studies (2011-12), a project-track MA in Media Studies (2012-13), a BA in Media and Communication (2013-14), a Diploma in Media Communication (2009-10), and a minor in Communication. In addition, MA in Sociology students may earn a concentration in communication if they take SOAN 313/MCOM 301. Undergraduate courses are offered throughout the day, while most graduate courses are offered in the afternoon. Both programs offer traditional lectures, seminars, and tutorials. The MCOM Program also offers professional media labs. Neither offers online courses, distance education, or joint degrees with other universities.
Moreover, the MCOM Program offers several study abroad and exchange agreements, including two faculty-led programs (The Salzburg Academy for Media and Global Change, and the Media and Digital Literacy Academy of Beirut), and 10 exchange agreements: American University (Washington, DC), University of Maryland (College Park), Boston University, Lund University, Université de Montreal, UC Berkeley, City University London, Sciences Po, Paris, Sodertorn University, and the Danish School of Media and Journalism.
The following represents some of this year’s achievements in the department:
The Selma Mirshak and Mohsen Slim award for graduate students in sociology is an award given annually to a graduate student in sociology $1000 as a subsidy of his/her thesis fieldwork. This year the award was given to Ali Kassem for his proposal on “The Social Sciences in the training of the Scholars of Islam.”
The Sheikh Fawzi Azar Memorial Prize, an award given to a student from the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Media Studies, for a “commendable paper or study submitted to the department.” The award was given to Lara Hoteit for her final paper assignment for the class SOAN 216, “Hands-On Anthropology.” The paper assignment was based on Heidegger’s idea that technology is a way of revealing and asked students to reflect on the techne of anthropology and what their many experiments in anthropological technique revealed to them about themselves and their knowledge production. In particular, students were asked to discuss five methods they had used during the semester for studying a pre-selected topic, to compare the type of thinking these methods enabled and the ethical issues the provoked. The word count was set at 1500-2000 words. For her final paper assignment, Lara Hoteit submitted, “Within and Without the Peculiar World of Studying,” an ethnographic account and extended analysis of the habits of studying among AUB’s pre-med students, a community to which Hoteit belongs. Noting that being a pre-med student had led her to developing certain assumptions about studying, Hoteit designed a research project to document, describe, and analyze the techniques by which pre-med students produce ideas of what is medical knowledge and what is not. This project led her to recognize both a much wider degree of diversity among pre-med students than she had previously imagined and a process of constriction in what students came to perceive as medically useful knowledge. While clearly written and accessible, the paper also demonstrates Hoteit’s reflexiveness and her willingness to question how she herself develops knowledge. I hope the department can commend Hoteit for her commitment to critical thinking and sociological imagination.
The Fuad Khuri Award in Anthropology is an award given to an outstanding Lebanese student graduating with a Master’s degree in Anthropology. The award was given to Araz Kojayan, who will defend, by the end of summer 2016, her thesis, “Deciphering the Body in Contemporary Dancers.” For this highly original study, Araz examines the ways young dancers in Beirut come to embody the “disorganized and individualist space of postwar Beirut,” noting that Beirut's spatial and social structure “has shifted from a collectively organized space into a disorganized space.” Her interest in movement of bodies through space led her to look into body movements of contemporary dancers, at shows and especially in “alternative workshops.” While Marcel Mauss long ago established anthropology’s interest in “techniques of the body,” and Pierre Bourdieu elaborated how bodily hexis is produced by and reproduces social structure, few have used dance to study deliberate changes and adjustments made in contested spatial organizations. Araz builds on dance scholars, such as Helen Thomas and Cynthia Novack, using poststructuralist and postmodernist approaches, to grapple with the articulation of dancers’ subjectivity in terms of the body. She has conducted participant-observation in contemporary dance workshops, watched live and recorded dance performances, and conducted interviews and collected life histories.
The Amal Saidi Memorial Prize is an award given to a graduating senior excelling in the subject of anthropology or sociology. This year’s recipient, Zahraa Saleh, moved late to SOAN, having originally joined AUB as a Biology major. Following a summer experience volunteering with Syrian refugees, she became convinced that Sociology-Anthropology would provide better training for relating to people as full human beings and for helping them more effectively. Zahraa swiftly caught up with SOAN courses; I often hear her delightful, inquisitive reflections on material she is reading on her own to expand her knowledge of the disciplines. She actively pursued fieldwork and research projects in her undergraduate classes on a variety of topics (greeting rituals, code-switching among university students, Palestinian women’s movements, attitudes towards recycling in Koura, among others), and she has made field note-taking a daily part of her life. She has been a most enthusiastic propagator of our BA and Minor programs, and most significantly, she undertook, practically single-handedly, the founding of the Sociology-Anthropology Students Society, which has done much to boost student interaction with and appreciation of our department. Despite having to overcome an average in the 60s, inherited from her unhappy time in biology, Zahraa has raised her GPA to 87.4 and earned a spot on the Dean’s Honor List. She has always been an exemplar of ethical behavior in and out of the classroom, and she greatly relishes challenging social perceptions about who can exemplify the social sciences and human inquiry.
The Kamel Mrowa Award in Media Studies was awarded to Chafic Najem, an exemplary graduate student, with an above 90 average. He has been very involved with the program, attending our many events and engaging with guest speakers. He has also been a very dedicated and resourceful GA, and always available to help out not just faculty, but his fellow grad students. His thesis, entitled “Can the Prisoner Speak?: An Ideological and Visual Analysis of Prisons in Lebanese Television News,” is a solid theoretical engagement and exceptional contribution to our understanding of television news coverage of prisoners. More specifically, Chafic’s thesis examines the relationship between punishment and Lebanese television news reports. By taking Lebanese Roumieh prison as a case study, his research employs an ideological and visual discourse analysis to explore the manifestations of the ideology of punishment within television news reports, and in relation to the television stations’ socio-political views. His analysis critically engages with the understanding of prisons as a mediated reality.
Lecture Series: The department continued its lecture series this year, a forum in which several faculty and Master’s students and visiting professors represented their current projects. The program in Media Studies has organized several public talks and brownbag talks.

2. 
   PERSONNEL
   

9. 
   Faculty Members
   
   
   

   Al-Hardan, Anaheed Burris, Greg Bou-Ali, Nadia (CVSP)	Assistant Professor Assistant Professor Assistant Professor	Ph.D. Ph.D. Ph.D.
   Dajani, Nabil El-Hibri, Hatim Khalaf, Samir Hanafi, Sari, (Chairperson) Kiwan, Dina Scheid, Kirsten Farah, May Melki, Jad Perdigon, Sylvain Smith, Richard Wick, Livia Oyry, Toni	Professor Assistant Professor Professor Professor Associate Professor Associate Professor Assistant Professor Associate Professor Assistant Professor Professor Associate Professor Instructor	Ph.D. Ph.D. Ph.D. Ph.D. Ph.D. Ph.D. Ph.D. Ph.D. Ph.D. Ph.D. Ph.D. M.A.
   Nath, Anjali (CASAR) Sbaiti, Nadya J. (CAMES) Tohme, Hicham Barakat, Rabie Fathallah, Zeina Comaty, Lyna Issa, Perla Kozman, Claudia Majed, Rima Saleh, Elizabeth Agha, Dina Azar, George Bibi, Karma Boustany, Nora Daou, Marc El-Masri, Muzna Ghanem, Samar Ghazal, Jimmy Huballah, Munira Khouri, Rami Mallat, Sarah Mawas, Nidal Osman, Zeina	Assistant Professor Assistant Professor Visiting Professor Lecturer (PT) Lecturer (PT) Lecturer (PT) Lecturer (PT) Lecturer (PT) Lecturer (PT) Lecturer (PT) Instructor (PT) Asst Instructor (PT) Instructor (PT) Instructor (PT) Instructor (PT) Instructor (PT) Instructor (PT) Asst. Instructor (PT) Instructor (PT) Instructor (PT) Instructor (PT) Instructor (PT) Instructor (PT)	Ph.D. Ph.D. Ph.D. Ph.D. Ph.D. Ph.D. Ph.D. Ph.D. Ph.D. Ph.D. M.A. B.A. M.A. M.A. M.A. M.A. M.A. B.A. M.A. M.A. M.A. M.A. M.A.

10.