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Harvard University is "an academic powerhouse," says
Dalia El-Shayal, an English department faculty member at Cairo
University. She spent much of 2001 doing research on African-American
theater while attending lectures and seminars at Harvard.
"People were generous and helpful-in fact, very pleasant
to deal with," says El-Shayal.
It wasn't her first trip to the States; she had been a Visiting
Scholar at the University of Wisconsin a few years earlier. But
her stay in the Boston area was a revelation in many ways. She
found studying at Harvard and being in a region with hundreds
of colleges and universities a heady experience, with opportunities
to observe some of America's best academic life.
At Harvard, El-Shayal studied with Henry Louis Gates Jr., who
she says not only shared his broad knowledge of African-American
history and tradition but also "graciously" invited
her to academic and social events. She took classes on race, philosophy,
African-American literature and landscape, and did additional
research at the W.E.B. DuBois Institute for Afro-American
Research. Her research focused on non-verbal expression in African-American
theater and also on the African-American response to place.
She also found time to attend a conference held on the West Coast
and to deliver a paper at Mills College. She is working on a paper
to be presented at the Cairo Conference in December 2002.
El-Shayal believes she learned a lot not only about her field
of study but also about significant elements of teaching methodologies,
including utilizing new techniques, handling classroom discussions
and developing coherent curricula. She is teaching this year at
Boston University, but looks forward to putting what she learned
to good use at her home institution in Egypt when she returns.
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