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 Remembering Cynthia Nelson
The editors of the AMEWS Online Newsletter are dedicating the next issue to Cynthia Nelson. We are asking AMEWS members to send us personal remembrances of Cynthia for publication in the Online Newsletter.
Please send them to the editors at:
mfay@american.edu and csjorn@umw.edu
The following is a letter to AMEWS members from our president, Nancy Gallagher, concerning the death of Cynthia Nelson, and plans for a memorial at the upcoming MESA meeting in Boston.
Dear all,
As many of you know, Cynthia Nelson, who taught for many years at the American University in Cairo, died in Sacramento on February 14, 2006, of
leukemia. Cynthia inspired thousands of students with her commitment to
women's rights and feminist study. Her book, Doria Shafik, Egyptian
Feminist: A Woman Apart (1996), was a delight to read. In many ways,
Cynthia's life mirrored that of Doria Shafik, the Egyptian woman who
captured her intellectual heart. Doria Shafik was a feminist visionary who
paid a heavy price for her principled stands on behalf of women's rights.
Cynthia too struggled against long odds and eventually became founding
dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences and founding head of
the Institute for Women and Gender Studies -- a lifelong dream. She never
faltered in her commitment to the advancement of women faculty and students
and to the defense of academic freedom in her beloved Egypt. Doria Shafik
would have been proud.
This year the American University in Cairo will co-sponsor the AMEWS annual meeting at MESA in Boston at the Marriott Copley Plaza on November 17. Martina Rieker, who was Cynthia’s colleague at the Institute for Gender and Women’s Studies and is now Director of the Center and Associate Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, will speak at the beginning of a panel dedicated to Cynthia and to AMEWS’ twenty-first birthday. The AMEWS panel is titled “New Directions in Middle East Women’s Studies: The Next Generation” and will have junior scholars as the panel participants. More details will be available in the MESA program, which should be out shortly.
Cynthia Nelson Graduate Fellowships Fund
The American University in Cairo is delighted to announce the establishment of the Cynthia Nelson Graduate Fellowships in Gender and Women’s Studies at The Cynthia Nelson Institute for Gender and Women’s Studies (IGWS) in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences.
For more information, please visit:
www.aucegypt.edu/academic/igws/fund.html |
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