I moved to Washington, DC eight years ago expecting to find a cold soulless city of political cyborgs and detached opportunists. While those specimens certainly exist, they are in the minority of those I have come to know. Instead, I have made the deepest friendships, met the most phenomenal colleagues, taught and learned from the most invigorated students, and commiserated with the most committed comrades. I am filled with gratitude for the fortune of crossing paths with so many terrific people who have had an instrumental impact on my life and work. Georgetown Universitys Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and Georgetown-CCT have been the most stimulating and enriching intellectual homes for me throughout this time. But some good things come to an end. In the fall, a new journey begins when I start teaching global communication at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. Only a city as brilliant as Vancouver couldve convinced me to leave DC and be 5 hours farther from the Middle East! Also, as a closeted Canadian, this is a bit of a homecoming, albeit to the opposite side of the country. For once I might actually find enjoyment in the antipodean life--where what you say and write might be of little interest to those around you and perhaps of limited overall impact given your distance from the centers of power. But proximity to power was never what brought me to DC on what kept me in it. Thank you DC and everyone (wont name names here but everyone knows who they are:) for the memories! You will all be greatly missed. Merci and Chapeau!
Posted on: Thu, 10 Jul 2014 05:20:00 +0000
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