Issues in African Development Seminar Series examines critical concerns in contemporary Africa using a different theme each semester. The seminars provide a forum for participants to explore alternative perspectives and exchange ideas. They are also a focal activity for students and faculty interested in African development. In addition, prepares students for higher level courses on African economic, social and political development. The presentations are designed for students who are interested in development, Africa’s place in global studies, want to know about the peoples, cultures and societies that call Africa home, and explore development theories and alternate viewpoints on development.

"Bilingual Community-Based Language Pedagogy: An Arab-Jewish Language Café in Jerusalem"
Yarden Kedar
Israel Institute Visiting Faculty, Department of Psychology, Cornell University

The Good Neighbors – Abu Tor/Al-Thuri project is a grassroots, volunteer-based initiative that started in 2014 in order to promote a shared life approach and to build a joint community between Jews and Palestinians who live side by side in Abu Tor, a binational neighborhood, which is located on the seam between East and West Jerusalem.
This unique project, which is extraordinary given the long geopolitical and national conflict and the explosive daily tension between Arabs and Jews, includes initiatives such as language courses in Arabic and in Hebrew; a community organic garden; "Abu-Job" – a job placement project; a bilingual street library; and a variety of community events and festivities that are organized by and intended for Jerusalemites from both nationalities.
We focus on the Language Café, an authentic, bottom-up local initiative in which Jews and Palestinians actively teach and learn Hebrew and Arabic from each other. This study explores the unique bilingual pedagogy that has evolved in the Language Café and the participants' perceived language learning process and its outcomes (i.e., their motivations to learn the language of the other group, their attitudes toward the learning situation, and its potential outcomes, particularly sociocultural outcomes).
The findings reveal that the pedagogical model that has been developed and employed by the Language Café non-professional tutors promotes values of equity, equality, and mutual respect among the Jewish and Palestinian participants alike. Moreover, this new model builds on the language and cultural repertoire of the participants, hence affording them the opportunity to learn and teach each other's language and culture. Despite the long-standing political tension, the language tutors seem to have created a safe learning environment that allows both Jewish and Palestinian participants to feel at ease. Participants express genuine interest and desire to learn the language and culture of the other national, religious, and cultural group. Furthermore, they report having gained not only conversational language skills in the languages they wanted to learn but also novel insights about each other's cultures, enabling them to engage in various social activities within their neighborhood and beyond.
These findings may contribute to the development and advancement of both formal and informal pedagogical frameworks worldwide – in language as well as other subject matters – based on inter-group appreciation and collaboration. Such frameworks could also bring about more tolerant and integrated societies in conflict zones.

Bio: Yarden Kedar is an Israel Institute Visiting Faculty in the Department of Psychology at Cornell University. He has served as Head of the Early Childhood Education Department in the Faculty of Education at Beit Berl College between 2015-2021. He is also the Head of the Language and Cognition Development Lab at Beit Berl College.
Dr. Kedar received his Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology (2007) from Cornell University and then became a Kreitman Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Department of Psychology at Ben-Gurion University (2007-2010), focusing on the neurolinguistic aspects of syntactic processing in young children.
Dr. Kedar's research interests relate to Language Acquisition, Cognitive Development, and Early Childhood Education across several cultures and languages and a variety of child populations (e.g., infants, children, and adults; monolinguals and bilinguals; Arabic, English, and Hebrew learners). In other lines of research, he explores the interaction between language and socioemotional aspects of development such as immigration, gender, and various preschool educational environments.

This event will be held in person in G25 Stimson and will also be streamed live over Zoom. Join us at the LRC or on Zoom.

The event is free and open to the public. Campus visitors and members of the public must adhere to Cornell's public health requirements for events, which include wearing masks while indoors and providing proof of vaccination or a recent negative COVID-19 test.

The Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, in partnership with the Society for the Humanities, presents this symposium featuring five cutting-edge researchers whose work crosses disciplinary lines to tackle some of the world’s most pressing problems.

Join postdoctoral fellows Mohamed Abdou, Eman Ghanayem, Bamba Ndiaye, Eleanor Paynter, and Grace Tran for a discussion of their work in the fields of migration studies and global racial justice. Topics will include identity, colonialism and decolonization, indigeneity and dispossession, refugee studies and mobility, economic and social justice, and critical race theory. Learn how new approaches and developments are changing scholarship in these critical fields.

Einaudi Center director Rachel Beatty Riedl will introduce the event, and Viranjini Munasinghe (Department of Anthropology) will moderate.

Speakers

Mohamed Abdou, Global Racial Justice Postdoctoral Fellow, Einaudi Center"Non-statist Indigenous and Muslim Conceptualizations of Sovereignty: The Decolonial Inseparability of Race from Religion"

Eman Ghanayem, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Comparative Literature and Society for the Humanities"Being Native, Being Refugee"

Bamba Ndiaye, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Music and Society for the Humanities"From Mbas Mi to Mbëkk Mi: Covid-Induced Migration and Social Movement Advocacy in Senegal"

Eleanor Paynter, Migrations Postdoctoral Fellow, Einaudi Center"Witnessing Migration 'Crises': Race, Coloniality, and Asylum in Italy"

Grace Tran, Migrations Postdoctoral Fellow, Migrations Initiative"What’s Love Got to Do With It?: Transformative Effects of Vietnamese-American Engagement in 'Marriage Fraud' Arrangements"

Learn about the Laidlaw Undergraduate Leadership and Research Program. Open to first- and second-year students, this 2-year program provides generous support to carry out internationally-focused research, develop leadership skills, engage with community projects overseas, and join a global network of like-minded scholars from more than a dozen universities.

Join us to learn more about the program, its benefits, and the application process, as well as tips for approaching potential faculty research mentors and writing a successful application. Sponsored by the Tatkon Center for First-Year Students and the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies.

Join us for a presentation by Anh V. Vu, Lydia Wilson, Yi Ting Chua, Ilia Shumailov, Ross Anderson of Cambridge University as they discuss their extensive data set on extremism and misogyny, compiled by scraping the web looking for cyber criminals. Paper available here: https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.04479