Of Near Eastern and South Asian Interest

On Thursday, the Emory Wheel broke the news that Salman Rushdie will join the University's English Department as writer in residence. Apparently, the University Library's special collections division will also become the repository for his papers. Yesterday, the AJC confirmed the story.

Not many stories bring both the cliches about closing barn doors after the horse is out and bringing coals to Newcastle to mind, but Matthew Miller,"MSU to Help Develop Arabic Curriculum," Lansing State Journal, 5 October, does.

Michigan State University and Dearborn public schools have received a grant from the federal government to develop the first comprehensive Arabic instruction curriculum for U.S. schools.
The grant, which will be approximately $1 million for the first year, comes from the Department of Defense and is tied to U.S. national security efforts.
"We realized after the end of the Cold War that the languages we were teaching are not the languages of need today," said Gail McGinn, deputy undersecretary of defense for plans.
"We needed to reorient from the German, the French and the Russian into the more critical powerhouse languages of the world like Arabic and Chinese and Hindi."

Nearly two-thirds of Dearborn, Michigan's population is of Near Eastern/Arabic-speaking descent; and it's a bit late in the game to be developing"the first comprehensive Arabic instruction curriculum for U.S. schools." Thanks to Chris Bray for the tip.