The next Bisan Lecture webinar will take place on Wednesday, April 12th at 7pm Palestine time* (7pm Central European Time, 1pm US Eastern time). We will have the pleasure to welcome Prof. Nergis Mavalvala (MIT) who will speak (in English with simultaneous Arabic translation for those who wish) on The Warped Universe: the quest to discover Einstein’s elusive gravitational waves. You can register for the webinar by clicking here!
Dear Colleagues,
Joel Beinin, professor emeritus of history at Stanford University, delivered the Bisan Lecture of March 8th. Beinin’s subject was the strong presence of Egyptian popular culture in Palestine during the first half of the 20th Century. That was a time when new forms of mass culture developed with the advent of the new technology of audio recordings. That was also a time when Cairo emerged as the cultural capital of the entire Eastern Arab (Mashreq) region, of which Palestine was an integral part. Beinin traced the history of the repeated tours in Palestine of the most celebrated Egyptian artists of the period, including the giants of Egyptian popular music, the singers Umm Kulthum and Muhammad Abdel Wahhab, the stage actors Naguib al-Rihani and Yusuf Wahbi, who regularly toured Palestine with their respective theatre companies, along with many other prominent Cairo-based performers such as Zaki Murad, Badi‘a Masabni, Farid al-Atrash, Asmahan, and Layla Murad. Beinin recounted moments and events when these artists and their accompanying troupes were warmly received and performed to wide acclaim in Palestine, notably in Jaffa, Haifa, and Jerusalem.
You can watch the video recording here. The lecture slides are available here.
We are pleased to announce that the next Bisan Lecture webinar will take place on Wednesday, April 12th at 7pm Palestine time* (7pm Central European Time, 1pm US Eastern time). We will have the pleasure to welcome Prof. Nergis Mavalvala (MIT) who will speak (in English with simultaneous Arabic translation for those who wish) on
Title: The Warped Universe: the quest to discover Einstein’s elusive gravitational waves
(*) Please note that the start of daylight saving time has been delayed in Palestine, which exceptionally shifts the webinar time in many other places.
You can register for the webinar by clicking here!
Abstract: The first direct detections of gravitational waves in 2015 launched a new era of gravitational wave astrophysics. I will describe the scientific and human story behind these discoveries that provide a window into some of the most violent and warped events in the Universe.
Biographical Sketch: Nergis Mavalvala
Nergis Mavalvala is the Curtis and Kathleen Marble Professor of Physics and Dean of Science at MIT. Raised in Karachi, Pakistan, and educated at Wellesley College and MIT, she is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, and in 2010 she was named a MacArthur Fellow. She is a leading contributor to the LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) experiment that provided the first direct observation of the “gravity waves” resulting from the merger of two cosmic black holes as predicted by Einstein’s theory of General Relativity. In 2015 this team was awarded a Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics, and in 2017 Rainer Weiss (MIT) and Kip Thorne and Barry Barish (CalTech) were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for this work. Prof Mavalvala will describe the history and future prospects of this amazing experiment.
You can register for the webinar by clicking here!
This lecture is sponsored by the Bisan Center for Research and Development, Scientists for Palestine and the Center for Palestinian Studies of Columbia University
Hoping to see many of you at this webinar, we send you our best regards.
The Bisan Lecture Series Steering Committee
Next BLS webinar
– Wednesday May 10, 2023, 7 pm Palestine time
Prof. Ivar Ekeland (Université Paris-Dauphine)
Title: Climate change: transition, bifurcation or catastrophe ?
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BLS Statement of purpose
In concert with Scientists for Palestine and the Bisan Center for Research and Development, and in keeping with their joint commitment to full integration of Palestine in the global community of learning, the Bisan Lecture Series sponsors discourses on subjects of cultural, scientific, and societal importance by leading research experts and public intellectuals of varied heritage and viewpoint. The interactive webinars are free and open to the public, and recordings of each will be posted soon afterward.