Scholars-In-Residence

Professor Carole A. O'Leary is the Scholar-in-Residence for the Middle East Initiative at the American University Center for Global Peace. A key area of her research is the politics of identity in the Middle East, specifically in Iraq and Iran. Professor O'Leary established an "Iraq Working Group" at the Center in 2001 to examine the premise that federalism is the best organizing framework for governance in a future Iraq. Since 1994, she been an adjunct professor in the School of International Service for Middle East Studies, cross-appointed to the Divisions of International Peace and Conflict Resolution and Comparative and Regional Studies. Professor O'Leary has traveled widely throughout the Middle East and conducted in depth research on the politics of identity in Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Iran and Lebanon. Most recently, she conducted research in Iraqi Kurdistan in June 2001 and again in July 2002 focused on democratization, pluralism and civil society building in the region. Professor O'Leary also oversees the public program activities that are associated with the Mustafa Barzani Scholar of Global Kurdish Studies at AU. She is the editor of "Islam: An Introduction," published by the American Institute for Islamic Affairs in 1985 and the editor of AIIA's Occasional Paper Series on Islam and the Muslim World, published between 1985-87. Her most recent article on Iraq, The Kurds of Iraq: Recent History, Future Prospects," was published in the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal in December 2002. With Charles MacDonald, she is the co-editor a volume entitled The Kurdish Identity in an Unsettled World that will be published in 2003.

Courses:
Middle East Culture and Society (undergraduate)
Rethinking Identity: Tribes, Nations, States in the Middle East (graduate)
The Politics of Identity in 20th Century Iran (graduate)
The Politics of Identity in the Middle East (graduate)

Dr. Edmund Ghareeb is the American University's Center for Global Peace's first Mustafa Barzani Scholar of Global Kurdish Studies. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Middle East history and politics in the School of International Service at American University. He is an internationally recognized expert on the Kurds, Iraq, and media issues. He has also taught at Georgetown University, George Washington University, the University of Virginia and McGill University. He is the author of “The Kurdish Nationalist Movement” and of the “Kurdish Nationalist Movement” and “The Kurdish Question in Iraq” and is the co-author of “War in the Gulf” recently issued in paperback by Oxford University Press. He is the editor of “Split Vision: The Portrayal of Arabs in the American Media”. Dr. Ghareeb has written and lectured widely on US policy towards the Middle East, US-Arab relations, Arab-Americans, the American media and its coverage of the Middle East and the Information Revolution in the Arab World, Iraq, the Kurds and the Gulf. He worked as a journalist for many years and has been widely interviewed by major American, Arab, European and Asian media outlets.

Dr. Mary E. King is a prize-winning author and political scientist is a Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at the University for Peace of the United Nations, Costa Rica.  She is also Distinguished Scholar with The American University Center for Global Peace, in Washington, D.C.  In January 2004, she will additionally become Visiting Research Fellow, Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford, England. Dr. King has been a practitioner of international relations for twenty-five years, requiring personal contact with heads of state and government ministers of more than one hundred developing countries.  As a presidential appointee in the Carter Administration, confirmed by the Senate, Dr. King had world-wide responsibility for the Peace Corps (60 countries), VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America), and other national volunteer service corps programs.  Since 1984, she has served as a special adviser on the Middle East to former president Jimmy Carter.               Dr. King's doctorate in international politics is from the University of Wales at Aberystwyth. In November 2003, she was given the Jamnalal Bajaj International Award, instituted in 1988 in commemoration of the birth centenary of Bajaj, Gandhi’s silent financial backer. The award recognizes the promotion of Gandhian values outside India. In receiving this prize in Mumbai (Bombay), India, she joined the ranks of such previous winners as Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu of South Africa, Professor Sir Joseph Rotblat of the United Kingdom, and Professor Johan Galtung of Norway.

Dr. Pamela Day Pelletreau earned her BA from Smith College, her MA from Columbia University and her Ph.D. in Political Science from The George Washington University. Pelletreau currently serves as a scholar in residence and adjunct faculty at the School of International Service at the American University. Pelletreau also served as an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at the American University in Cairo, a guest lecturer at the University of Tunis, a visiting scholar at the African Studies Program in the School of Advanced International Studies at the Johns Hopkins University, and an assistant lecturer in the Institute of African Studies at the University of Ife, Ibadan Nigeria. Pelletreau served as a special government employee at the Center for Democracy and Governance, Global Bureau, USAID, and also worked as a social scientist for USAID, Cairo from 1992 to 1993. From 1989 to 1991, Pelletreau served as a research and evaluation officer at USAID, in Tunis. In 1988, Pelletreau worked as a consultant to the Regional Office for Housing and Urban Development (RHUDO) USAID in Tunis. Prior to that, Pelletreau served as a consultant and Deputy Director for the Family Liasion Office at the Department of State, and an educational program specialist in the Office of Management at the National Institute of Education. In the private sector, Pelletreau served as a delegate to the National Democratic Institute Observer Delegation for Yemen Parliamentary elections, a program officer for the African American Institute and an administrative assistant in the African Studies Center at UCLA.

Dr. Fera Simone completed her Ph.D. in Intellectual History and Political Theory from the University of Colorado and went on to a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in the American Studies Program at Yale University. Simone is currently involved in a study of S.G.W. Benjamin, the first American envoy to Iran in 1833-1885. Simone is the founder of the Women International Network for Community Leadership and a Member of the Board of Directors for the Women International Center for Democracy, and Nonviolence International. Simone has served as a visiting professor at The George Washington University, an Associate and Assistant Professor in the Department of History at Tehran University where she also served as the Dean of Women and Deputy Associate Director for Student Affairs. As a journalist, Simone served as a Managing Editor and International Broadcaster for the Voice of America at the USIA, a regional editor of the Journal of American Studies International at The George Washington University, and Assistant Director of Research and Publication at the Franklin Book Company in Tehran. Her publications include A History of American Social and Political Developments, Tehran University Press 1978, and A Study of Social and Political Thought of Mirza Malkam Khan Nazim Ud Dula, Franklin Book Programs, Tehran. 1975.