This biennial award was established in 2006 to recognize the efforts of “a senior scholar in Middle Eastern anthropology who is an outstanding academic in terms of scholarly publications and service to Middle Eastern anthropology.”  The 2013 award will be officially granted at this year’s AAA meeting in Chicago.

“Our committee greatly values your efforts as a scholar, a mentor, and a leader who has been deeply invested in the anthropology of the Middle East. We very much value your impressive pioneering and important work on medical anthropology, science and reproductive technologies, the anthropology of gender, and religion in the Middle East. Your thick ethnographic accounts of the lives of men and women who struggle with infertility and how they appropriate different discourses and technologies in their quest for conception as well as your engagement with broader theories and concerns in anthropology have been very valuable contributions to our field. We also greatly value your service to the anthropology of the Middle East and leading role in making our discipline more visible in different institutions and organizations, including MESA as well as your committed work with the Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies. In addition, we deeply appreciate your mentoring of students and junior faculty. As was communicated by one of your students, you are renowned among graduate students and recent PhDs “as one of the best mentors in the field”  for your “support, enthusiasm, and warmth.”

“On behalf of MES Distinguished Scholar Award Committee, I would like to offer our heartfelt congratulations and warmly invite you to give our Distinguished Lecture at the MES Business Meeting during the AAA’s 2013 Annual Meetings, and we look forward to celebrating your work and contributions to our field.

Farha Ghannam, Chair, MES Distinguished Scholar Award Committee