Sabbagh Lecture: Iraq's Cultural Heritage Under Occupation

Zainab Bahrani, a professor of ancient Near Eastern art history and archaeology at Columbia University, will give this year's Sabbagh Lecture, "Mesopotamia as Battleground: Iraq's Cultural Heritage Under Occupation." Bahrani's address is Thursday, Feb. 24, at 7 p.m. at the Arizona Historical Society Museum, at 949 E. Second Street in Tucson on the corner of Park and Second Street.

Both the lecture and the reception that follows are free and open to the public.

Zainab Bahrani is a specialist in the art and architecture of Mesopotamia and has written extensively on the cultural heritage of Iraq. She is the author of numerous publications, including "Women of Babylon: Gender and Representation in Mesopotamia" (Routledge, 2001) and "The Graven Image: Representation in Babylonia and Assyria" (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003).

A native of Baghdad, Iraq, she was educated in Europe and the United States, and has a both a master's and a doctorate in art history and anthropology from the New York University Institute of Fine Arts.

In addition to Columbia University, Bahrani has taught at the University of Vienna, Austria, and State University of New York, Stony Brook, and was a curator in the Near Eastern antiquities department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art from 1989 to 1992. She has earned fellowships and awards from the American Schools of Oriental Research, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and from the Getty, Mellon and Guggenheim foundations.

The Sabbagh Lecture is presented by the anthropology department at the University of Arizona. These lectures focus on the Arab cultures of the Middle East from an anthropological perspective.

Through the generosity of Tucsonans Entisar and Adib Sabbagh, an expert in Arab cultures is brought to campus each year for a public lecture and a master seminar for graduate students. The Sabbaghs have sponsored the series for 13 years.

Entisar (Vivi) Sabbagh is a doctoral graduate of the UA department of anthropology, and Dr. Adib Sabbagh is a Tucson cardiac surgeon. The Sabbaghs sponsor these lectures to enhance the public understanding and appreciation for the complexity and diversity of Arab cultures. The lectures also serve to enrich the curriculum of the department of anthropology by bringing to it the scholarship and learning of eminent scholars.