To Infinity and… Popcorn!

As the generation who grew up with Woody, pretended to be Buzz Lightyear blasting off into space, and cracked up at Mr. Potato Head’s snarkiness, we can’t turn down one last Toy Story adventure. (Accompanied by appropriate movie theater munchies, of course.)

This Friday at 7:30 p.m. on the Copley Lawn, GUAA and Student Affairs will screen the final chapter of the Toy Story series. We’ll be there—reminiscing at the past glory of our youth, chowing down on popcorn and cotton candy, and probably crying during the movie’s third act.

Gleekful Noms

So, there’s apparently there’s a show called Glee that’s tapped into the nation’s love of a capella. To celebrate the show’s season premiere, GPB is hosting a watch party in the Village C Alumni Lounge on Tuesday, beginning at 7:30 p.m. As if the Alumni Lounge’s five big screen TVs isn’t enough to tempt you, GPB promises snacks, a costume contest, singing competition, and trivia.

Come Home to Bagels

Homecoming is this weekend and while there’ll be plenty of entertainment—Mr. Georgetown, anyone?—you may not want to spend money after splurging on a Homecoming ticket.  So, why not ease your wallet with a free bagel brunch hosted by the Program for Jewish Civilization? Check it out next Sunday from 10 a.m. until noon in the ICC Galleria.

Actually being in the SFS or Jewish: not necessary. A love of carbohydrates: required.

(And, as a reminder, the Bioethics Research Library’s “Cookie Friday” is still happening.

Photo: IMDB

The summer got you hankering for some Georgetown education? Luckily for you, the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs and the Program for Jewish Civilization have just started producing a new series, “Faith Complex,” about religion, politics and art which is being broadcast on the Washington Post website.

The first episode, “A Bad Girl of Islam,” features PJC Director Jacques Berlinerblau (full disclosure: Berlinerblau is my certificate adviser) interviewing Muslim reformer and feminist Asra Nomani:

So far there’s only one episode up, but more should be added tomorrow, according to Berlinerblau. According to the program’s Facebook group, upcoming guests include “proponent of secular Islam Abdullahi An-Naim, David Freedman of the Anti-Defamation League (discussing Cyber-Anti-Semitism), and Father Thomas Reese discussing the Obama administration and the Catholic community.”

Ambassador Oren?

Georgetown professor and former Israeli Defense Forces spokesperson Michael Oren is a frontrunner to fill the post of Israeli Ambassador to the US, according to the Jerusalem Post.

A close associate [of Oren's] told The Jerusalem Posthe understood the American-raised historian to be “among the leading candidates” for the ambassadorship.

“He has not received any formal offer. If he received that offer, he would be very honored to serve, and he would serve just as he has served when he has been called into miluim [reserve duty].”

Oren joined the Georgetown faculty last year as a visiting professor with the Program for Jewish Civilization [full disclosure: I'm a PJC minor]. This year he taught courses on “America in the Middle East since 1776″ and “Military History: the Modern Middle East.”

Oren’s chief competition for the spot, according to the Post, is Dore Gold, President of the Jersualem Center for Public Affairs and former Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations. Gold is also familiar to Georgetown students, as he came to campus as a participant in the Doha Debates last month.

Photo from the PJC website.

Earlier this week, I wrote about a Jerusalem Post piece that attacked two Georgetown centers, the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and the Center for Muslim Christian Understanding, and championed the Program for Jewish Civilization as an antidote to those two.

Since my initial post, a few more of the relevant faculty members have chimed in with their responses, with professors on both sides saying that the article was ill-informed about what actually goes on here on campus. Listen to what CMCU Director John Esposito and PJC Director Jacques Berlinerblau have to say, after the jump. Read the rest of this entry »

The fighting in Gaza may have cooled for now, but the Arab-Israeli conflict seems to have set its sights on Georgetown.

Amir Romirowsky of the Jerusalem Post published an article earlier this week lauding Georgetown’s Program for Jewish Civilization and lambasting the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS) and the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding (CMCU), alleging that the Centers have a pro-Arab bias.

CMCU Associate Director John Voll called the article “basically ill-informed” and took issue with its characterization of his Center as “the locus of academic apologetics for Wahhabism in America”:

“I have seen the article and am glad to see that the Program for Jewish Studies gets a positive description. However,the author clearly has not bothered to read anything that the people on the faculty of the Alwaleed Center have written. For example, I would find it difficult to describe what I have written on Sufism (the mystical tradition in Islam which is opposed by strict Wahhabi teachers) as presenting ‘a glossy version of Wahhabi Islam.’”

Read the rest of this entry »