Real Estate

AN OPEN LETTER TO ALL MEMBERS from AMEWS President
November 2005

Dear AMEWS members,

I want to begin by wishing all of you holiday greetings. I look forward to serving as president of AMEWS for the coming year and hope to see all of you at the AMEWS/MESA meetings in Boston next year. We had a wonderful session this year and special thanks must go to outgoing president Janet Afary for doing a great job and to Suad Joseph for organizing the spectacular Birthday Party for AMEWS which turned 20 this year. We all enjoyed the dinner and the presentations by Janet and Shahla Haeri. I also want to thank Amaney Jamal for her crucial service these past years as secretary-treasurer. It is a pleasure to welcome Azza Basarudin as our new secretary and also Amaney who has agreed to continue serving as treasurer. AMEWS is an organization that loves to celebrate and next year we turn 21 so there will be another party in Boston when AMEWS comes of age. During the coming year we hope to expand our membership and urge those of you who have not renewed your membership to do so. Our new journal, the Journal of Middle East Women's Studies, is well into its second year and you should be receiving your copies in good time. By all accounts it is having a major impact on the field and we urge you to submit your articles for consideration for publication. Submissions and book reviews from graduate students are also welcome. We hope to update the webpage in the near future to include summaries of AMEWS/MESA panels and member activities since we live in many places and need to be in contact via the Internet. Val Moghadam has facilitated a most welcome grant from UNESCO that will underwrite international postage for JMEWS subscribers so we urge all of you again to join and subscribe to the journal. The following website will direct you to the membership forms:

http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/catalog/index.php?cPath=519_1029
http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/catalog/index.php?cPath=519_832

We also want to warmly acknowledge Indiana University Press for its expertise in publishing the journal and managing our membership lists. It is turning out to be the right home for AMEWS/JMEWS. Finally, special thanks go to Marcia Inhorn, editor of JMEWS. We are in good hands.

Once again, holiday greetings to all of you.

Nancy Gallagher