Biographical Sketch for Elise Salem
Elise Salem was born and raised in Beirut, Lebanon. Educated at the American University of Beirut and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Dr. Salem is currently a professor of literature at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey. She is the auther of Constructing Lebanon: A Centruy of Literary Narratives [2003] and numberous articles, chapters, reviews, and encyclopedia entries on Arab women, Arabic literature, Lebanese culture, and the reception of Arab culture in the west. Her most recent scholarship is focused on the new cultural sites emerging in the reconstruction of downtown Beirut.
Dr. Salem is actively involved in undergraduate education. For the past 3 years, she has been the Asst. Dean for Academic Planning in her college, redesigning the general education curriculum, introducing new interdisciplinary minors, and leading the effort to internationalize courses and programs. For the past 2 years, she has co-chaired FDU's internationalization lab team, both assessing and offering recommendations to the university community on this increasingly important, and delicate, issue.
Dr. Salem coordinated a highly public and broad-ranging World of Islam program back in 1990. Since then, she has been instrumental in forming and participating in Middle East panels and workshops both at the university and at regional, national and international congerences. She has also worked to reshape FDU's curriculum to include a segment on Egypt in the university's required "Cross-Cultural Perspectives" course, and in teaching courses on Arab women and Atabiv literature. Perhaps most importantly, she has insisted on introducing Arab and Islamic cultural texts in almost every course she teaches. The challenge of teaching about the Middle East has always been great, but never more difficult, or more important, to do in the United States after September 11. Dr. Salem looks forward to sharing her experiences and engaging in dialogue on this topic.