Faculty & Staff
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Lutf Alkebsi Lecturer of Arabic Office: 2101A Susquehanna Hall Tel: 301-405-1606 lalkebsi@umd.edu Lutf Alkebsi received his M.A. in Arabic from Sana’a University (Yemen) in 2006. Lutf comes to us from Tufts University where he was a lecturer in Arabic (2009-2010). Prior to Tufts, he was a lecturer in Arabic at Brandeis University (2006-2009), teaching a variety of courses on Arabic language and culture. He was also among the core faculty at Middlebury Arabic Summer School for eight summer semesters. He brings to us extensive pedagogical experience in all levels of Arabic (beginning, intermediate and advanced), as well as his artistry in Arabic calligraphy. His teaching experiences overseas include diverse Arabic courses at the Center for Arabic Language and Eastern Studies in Yemen. |
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Valerie Anishchenkova Director of Arabic Programs Director Arabic Language Flagship Programs Assistant Professor of Arabic Literature and Culture Office: 3202 Jimenez Hall Tel: 301-405-7620 vani@umd.edu Valerie Anishchenkova received an MA with Honors from the State University of St Petersburg (Russia) in Oriental and African Studies, and MA and PhD in Near Eastern Studies from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She taught Arabic language and literature/culture classes at the University of Michigan, Middlebury Summer School, and Tufts University. Her pedagogical experience includes Arabic language curricular development, as well as creating culture courses such as "Narrating War Zones: Cinematic and Literary Gulf and Chechen War Representations," "Sexuality and Gender in Arabic Literature and Film," "Fascinating Monsters: Representing Arabs in American Pop Culture vs. Americans in Arab Pop Culture." Her research area focuses on identity studies, modern Arabic literature and film, cultural discourses on war, and sexuality studies. She is currently working on her book project Selves That Matter: Autobiographical Identities in Arab Literature and Film. |
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Meryem Cherrouk Meryem Cherrouk was born in Casablanca, Morocco. She is a speaker of various dialects including Egyptian and Moroccan. She also speaks French and Spanish. Ms. Cherrouk received her B.A in Arts and Visual Technologies from George Mason University in Virginia. She has previously taught total immersion and semi private programs in Modern Standard Arabic and French at Berlitz International Inc in Washington D.C where she acquired total training of the Berlitz teaching method which presents language in context of real-life situations, with extra targeted practice of grammar and vocabulary. She has been teaching at the University of Maryland since 2006. |
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Alaa Elgibali Dr. Elgibali received an M.A. in TAFL from the American University in Cairo (AUC) and a doctorate in general linguistics from the University of Pittsburgh. He taught at SAIS of Johns Hopkins, UC-Berkeley, Kuwait University, Ain-Shams University, AUC, the American University of Beirut and the University of Maryland at College Park. Elgibali is the author of several seminal publications, including Arabic as a first language: A study in language acquisition and development in 2003. He has also edited a number of important volumes including Understanding Arabic (1996) and Investigating Arabic (2004) and is the associate editor of the four-volume Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics. Elgibali served as executive director of the Center for Arabic Study Abroad (CASA), director of the TAFL program at AUC and acting director of the Arabic Language Institute and co-director of CASA. Current research agenda include K-12 Arabic, Advanced language proficiency, and the development of Standards for acquisition and testing. |
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Dina El-Hefnawy Dina El-Hefnawy received her B.A in English Literature and Language from the English Department at the Faculty of Arts at Alexandria University in Egypt. She received a M.A. in Teaching English as a Foreign Language from the American University in Cairo. She immigrated to the US in 1985. From 1989 until 1999 Dina taught Arabic at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. Dina has been teaching Arabic at the School of Languages, Literatures and Cultures at UMD since January 2004. Dina has been teaching English and Arabic in Egypt, UAE and the US over the last 20 years. She now focuses on teaching Arabic as a foreign language. She encourages her students to communicate with each other in Arabic both inside and outside of class for extra practice. |
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Sayed Elsisi Sayed Elsisi comes to UMD from Harvard University (2007-2010), where he taught advanced Arabic courses: “Arabic Cultural, literary and Political Readings.” He taught before at AUC (2000-2007), in the CASA Program, Modern and Classical Arabic Literature courses, in addition to Advanced courses of Arabic MSA and Egyptian Colloquial in Arab Cinema. He graduated from Cairo University where he received his BA (1993), MA (awarded as the best dissertation in Arabic Literature, 2000) and his PhD (forthcoming) in Modern Arabic Literature. He worked as a researcher and an editorial assistant for Alif (Journal of Comparative Poetics) (2000-2007). Sayed Elsisi specializes in Modern Arabic Literature and is finishing his PhD dissertation on “The Arabic Prose Poem: A Study in the Poetics of Genre”. His publications (in Arabic) include: "Alluring Text and Playful Reading" (2005), "Egypt: Culture and Society", a textbook for the CASA Summer program (2006), and a number of articles on the Arabic novel and poetry: "Sufi Vision to the Poetic Language in Salah Abdul Sabour's Poetry"(2003), "Absence as Strategy in Sa'di Yussuf's Poetry: An Intertextuality Approach", (2001),"the Realism in Conjuncture of AlـArd novel",(1994). Dr. Elsisi is currently working on a project to study The Omitted Genres throughout the history of Arabic criticism – questioning the "Poetics" in classical and modern Arabic literary criticism. |
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Peter Glanville Dr. Peter Glanville earned his Ph.D. in Arabic linguistics at the University of Texas at Austin. He holds an MSc in Applied Linguistics, awarded with distinction by the University of Edinburgh. His interest in Arabic began in Oman, where he lived for four years, teaching English at Sultan Qaboos University before continuing his graduate studies. His research focus is Arabic linguistics, and wrote his doctoral thesis on root and stem morphology and the Arabic verb. |
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Inas Hassan Dr. Inas Hassan, lecturer of Arabic, earned an MA (1997), and a PhD (2003) in Arabic language and Arabic linguistics from Alexandria University, Egypt. Previous to her appointment at UMD, She has taught Arabic language at Montgomery College, Dickinson College, central Pennsylvania Community College where she established new Arabic credit and non-credit program, TAFL (Teaching Arabic as a second language) institute, and Alexandria University. She has more than fifteen years of experience in teaching Arabic as a second language and as academic study with new and different techniques. Her learning and teaching in the foreign language classrooms have provided her with the motivation to start working in her proposed research; "Alphabet Arabic language". In this research, she is trying to facilitate the most difficult points of Arabic by relating it to the learner's native language, using narratives of classroom successes and failures as the bases for essential reflection on modern linguistics theory. |
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Sahar Jendi Sahar M.Jendi received her B.A in English Literature and Language from Damascus University in Syria and a M.A. in Urban Education with concentration in teaching English as a Second Language from New Jersey City University. She taught English as a second language at Passaic Community College. She also taught Arabic at Fairleigh Dickinson University, and William Paterson University in New Jersey. She worked with Columbia University, NY as a member in the research team for The Columbia Arabic Treebank CATiB. |
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Soulaiman Jendi Soulaiman Jendi received his B.A in Arabic Language and Literature and M.A. in Education from Damascus University in Syria. He is certified in teaching Arabic as a foreign language in the states of NJ and MD. Professor Jendi has taught Arabic in the United States for more than 20 years at many institutions and universities such as Fairleigh Dickenson University and William Paterson University in New Jersey where he founded the Arabic Language program in 1999. |
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Katlyn Leight Katlyn Leight serves as the Program Assistant for Arabic Flagship. Katlyn attended the University of Michigan and received her B.A. in Political Science and Middle Eastern Studies. She participated in the National Security Internship program in Washington, DC and afterwards continued her focus in studying Media Arabic. After graduating she spent a year living in Alexandria, Egypt as part of the Arabic Flagship program and is proficient in both Modern Standard Arabic and the Egyptian dialect. |
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Chelsea Sypher Chelsea Sypher joins us as Director of Special Programs from the University of Texas at Austin where she has worked for the past three and a half years as Assistant Director of the Arabic Flagship Program and Administrative Director of the Arabic Summer Institute. |
3215 Jiménez Hall College Park, MD 20742