Egyptian Fulbright Scholar to present public lecture at Texas State

By Ann Friou
University News Service
March 16, 2012

Eman ElMeligi, a Fulbright Scholar from Egypt, will visit Texas State University-San Marcos March 21-23.

ElMeligi will speak to English classes of Teya Rosenberg, Lindy Kosmitis, and Chad Hammett, and to students in Sigma Tau Delta, the English honor society. ElMeligi’s talk at 11 a.m. in March 21, in Flowers Hall 341, is open to the public. It is titled “Death of a Salesman and the Emperor Jones, as Compared with Oedipus by Sophocles, al-Hakim and Ali Salem.” Those interested in attending are asked to contact Nancy Wilson at 245-7660 or nw05@txstate.edu.

ElMeligi is a lecturer on the faculty of arts at Alexandria University in Damanhour, Egypt, and a 2011-2012 visiting Fulbright Scholar at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania.

She received her Ph.D. from Alexandria University, writing on Edward Said's cultural and literary criticism. Her master of arts thesis explored symbolism in the novels of Tawfiq al-Hakim and V.S. Naipaul. Among her published articles are "Dehyphenated Identity and Carnivalesque Polyphony: A Bakhtinian Reading of Hybridity and Female Characters in Zadie Smith's White Teeth and Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior," "Alaa al-Aswany: A Foucauldian Reading," and "Archaeological Dynamics of Memory and Amnesia: An Archetypal Reading of Toni Morrison's Beloved." She also scripted, wrote screenplays and presented TV documentaries for the Alexandria Channel from 1990-2002. Among these is the series titled Egyptian Genius: Ancient and Modern, which explored topics such as ancient Egyptian literature, theatre, music, sports, mathematics, medicine, mummification and architecture. ElMeligi is currently working on a comparative study of Arab-American and U.S. Chicano literature.

The Fulbright program is the flagship international educational exchange program sponsored by the U.S. government and is designed to “increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries.” With this goal as a starting point, the Fulbright Program has provided almost 300,000 participants--chosen for their academic merit and leadership potential--with the opportunity to study, teach, conduct research, exchange ideas and contribute to finding solutions to shared international concerns. The Fulbright Program awards approximately 7,500 new grants annually. Currently, the Fulbright Program operates in 155 countries worldwide.

ElMeligi’s visit is funded by the Department of English, the Provost’s Office and the Council for the International Exchange of Scholars.