miriam cooke papers, 1981-2017

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Access restricted. Collection contains Duke University administrative materials. For a period of twenty-five years from the origin of the material, permission in writing from the office of origin...
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Summary

Creator:
cooke, miriam
Abstract:
After joining the faculty at Duke in the 1980s, miriam cooke served as a professor in the Department of Asian and African Languages and Literature (now Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies), was founding director of the Duke University Middle East Studies Center, and established an exchange program between Duke and Cadi Ayaad University in Morocco. The miriam cooke papers include materials documenting the faculty exchange program as well as other projects related to Islam and the Middle East, such as the Duke Islamic Center (DISC) and a draft of the book Mediterranean Passages: Readings from Dido to Derrida (2008). The papers also include materials about Duke faculty operations, particularly within the Department of Asian and African Languages and Literature (AALL), and correspondence.
Extent:
2 Linear Feet
14.8 Gigabytes
Language:
Materials are in English, French, and Arabic.
Research Center:
Duke University Archives
Collection ID:
UA.29.02.0257
University Archives Record Group:
29 -- Papers of Faculty, Staff, and Associates
29 -- Papers of Faculty, Staff, and Associates > 02 -- Individuals

Background

Scope and content:

This collection documents the professional and administrative activities of miriam cooke, professor in the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies (formerly AALL, Asian and African Languages and Literature) of the Trinity College of Arts and Sciences.

Professional activities documented include the development of a faculty exchange program between Duke and Cadi Ayaad University in Marrakesh, Morocco, beginning with a festival of Moroccan culture held at Duke in 1985. Several files contain correspondence with the United States Information Agency (USIA), which provided grant funding for the program, and journals from faculty members in the United States and Morocco detailing their exchange experiences. Other files in this series contain information relating the Center for Study of Muslim Networks, which formally developed into the Duke Islamic Center (DISC) in 2006; and a project on War and Gender conducted in the early 1990s with Duke University History professor Alex Roland. Also includes materials related to events like the MESA conference and the faculty and student exchange program between Duke University and Universite de Tunis I.

Administrative activities documented focus on cooke's role as a Duke professor. Files include records about faculty and courses in the AALL Department; correspondence with three deans of Arts and Sciences at Duke: Richard White, Hans Hillerbrand, and Malcolm Gillis; and correspondence with other Duke administrators such as Richard Brodhead and Nannerl Keohane. Also includes general correspondence from faculty, students, and colleagues. Some materials relate to cooke's time on committees monitoring the interests of women faculty and non-regular faculty at Duke.

Publications files include correspondence with members of the Mediterranean Study Committee, information about the Oceans Connect project between Duke and Middle Eastern faculty, and draft chapters for the book Mediterranean Passages: Readings from Dido to Derrida.

Materials are largely textual, comprising correspondence, minutes and agendas, faculty travel journals, clippings, publications, and related printed matter. VHS tapes, a few photographs, and optical discs are also in the collection.

Biographical / historical:

miriam cooke was born in Colorado on August 30, 1948. (cooke uses lowercase letters in her name.) She received her M.A. from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1971; and her D.Phil. from the University of Oxford, U.K., in 1980. From 1981-1987, she was assistant professor at the Duke Center for International Studies. In 1987, she founded Duke's Department of Asian and African Languages and Literature (AALL), later known as the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. She was chair of AALL from 1987-1999 and from 2001-2004, teaching classes in Arabic language, literature, and culture. Beginning in 1985, miriam cooke was instrumental in establishing an exchange program between faculty at Duke and at Cadi Ayaad University in Marrakesh, Morocco. She was a Mellon Fellow at the Gender and War Institute at Dartmouth College (1990) and was awarded two Fulbright Scholarships, which allowed her to conduct research in Lebanon and Yemen (1982) and in Syria (1995-1996). In 2007, she was founding director of the Duke University Middle East Studies Center. In 1983, cooke married Bruce Lawrence, fellow Duke professor and founding director of the Duke Islamic Center. She served on the executive committee of Duke's Middle East Studies Center, and from 2012 to 2017, she was the Braxton Craven Distinguished Professor of Arab Cultures at Duke University. cooke retired as emerita faculty in 2017.

Bibliography

The Anatomy of an Egyptian Intellectual: Yahya Haqqi Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press, 1984

Good Morning! (translation and edition of stories by Yahya Haqqi). Washington, D.C.: Three Continents Press, 1987

War's Other Voices: Women Writers on the Lebanese Civil War, London/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988

Opening the Gates: A Century of Arab Feminist Writing (co-edited with Margot Badran), London: Virago/ Indiana University Press, 1990

Gendering War Talk (co-edited with Angela Woollacott), Princeton University Press, 1993

Blood into Ink: 20th Century South Asian and Middle Eastern Women Write War (co-edited with Roshni Rustomji-Kerns), Westview Press, 1994

Women and the War Story, University of California Press 1997

Hayati, My Life: A Novel, Syracuse University Press 2000

Women Claim Islam: Creating Islamic Feminism Through Literature, New York: Routledge 2001

Muslim Networks. From Hajj to Hip Hop (with Bruce Lawrence), UNC Press 2005

Dissident Syria: Making Oppositional Arts Official, Duke University Press 2007

Mediterranean Passages from Delos to Derrida (with Grant Parker & Erdag Goknar), UNC Press 2008

Nazira Zeineddine: Biography of an Islamic Feminist Pioneer, Oxford: Oneworld Press (Makers of the Muslim World Series) 2010

Tribal Modern: Branding New Nations in the Arab Gulf, Berkeley: University of California Press 2014

Dancing in Damascus: Creativity, Resilience and the Syrian Revolution, NY: Routledge 2017

Acquisition information:
The miriam cooke papers were received by the Duke University Archives as a gift from miriam cooke in 2016, 2023, and 2026.
Processing information:

Processed by Erin Ryan, July 2016.

Accessions described in this collection guide: UA2016.0016, UA2023.0050, UA2026.0004

Accession UA2023.0050 added and finding aid updated by April Blevins, September 2023

Accession UA2026.0004 added and finding aid updated by April Blevins, 2026 April

Arrangement:

Organized into the following series: Professional Materials, Administrative Materials, and Publications.

Rules or conventions:
Describing Archives: A Content Standard

Contents

Using These Materials

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Using These Materials

Restrictions:

Access restricted. Collection contains Duke University administrative materials. For a period of twenty-five years from the origin of the material, permission in writing from the office of origin and the University Archivist is required for use of administrative records. After twenty-five years, records that have been processed may be consulted with the permission of the University Archivist. Contact Research Services for more information.

Access restricted. Some materials in this collection are personnel records. Records pertaining to employment where individuals are identified are closed for 70 years.

Access restricted. Some materials in this collection include student records. In accordance with the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act of 1974 as amended, Duke University permits students to inspect their education records and limits the disclosure of personally identifiable information from education records. Contact Research Services for more information.

Access note. Some materials in this collection are original audiovisual items that need to be reformatted before use. Contact Research Services for access.

Access note. Some materials in this collection are digitized audiovisual materials that require special equipment. Contact Research Services with questions.

Terms of access:

Copyright for Official University records is held by Duke University; all other copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

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Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], miriam cooke papers, Duke University Archives, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

Permalink:
https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/m1h121