CBRL news May 2019
Welcome to CBRL’s May newsletter.

Throughout our centenary year we are holding a number of events that take a critical look at the Mandate history of the Levant. Earlier this month we organised a workshop and public lecture in collaboration with the London Middle East Institute at SOAS on the King Crane commission of 1919 – we spent the afternoon and evening listening to fascinating talks from some of the most preeminent historians of this period. You can read more about the day in this excellent article, written by workshop attended Caroline Rose (LSE). Podcasts of the workshop and lecture are now available on our Sound Cloud.

The urgency of the global need to tackle climate change has been in the UK news recently and we addressed this issue with two recent lectures organised in partnership with the University of East Anglia. Drought scientist, Benjamin Cook (NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies & Colombia University) discussed the impact of drought in the Levant at CBRL. Benjamin’s lecture is also available as a Podcast here.

There has been excellent press coverage in the Jordan Times of recent CBRL Amman lectures including Edward Zychowich-Coghill’s (University of Cambridge) research on social change in the early Islamic era and Micaela Sinibaldi’s lecture on the Islamic Baydha archaeological project that took place in partnership at ACOR Jordan. The Islamic Baydha excavation is now recruiting Jordanian volunteers for the autumn season – more details here.

We currently have two prize opportunities open – the 2019 prize for best paper for Contemporary Levant and the Undergraduate Dissertation Prize. Please do spread the word with colleagues and friends.

Finally we wish you all our readers, whether observing or not a Ramadan mubarak. We hope you enjoy reading our current news, our latest research blog posts and listening to our Podcasts.

From all at CBRL
News from the field
Former CBRL grant recipient, Georgios Tsourous, describes his ethnographic research that seeks to understand the shifting dynamic of social relations among diverse Christians in Jerusalem. Read more
2018 CBRL Fellow, Simone Lemmers describes how teeth can tell us about people's lives thousands of years ago and the effect that urbanisation had on the health of individuals in Bronze Age Cyprus. Read more
Upcoming events...
CBRL at the British Academy’s Summer Showcase:
21- 22 June
The British Academy's Summer Showcase will include a display by 2018 CBRL Pilot Study awardee, Yafa Shanneik (Birmingham University) who's work with Syrian refugee women addresses narratives of displacement through a 'body mapping' technique. Read more.
Catch up on recent CBRL lectures
The past & future of climate, people & drought in the Eastern Mediterranean.
Dr Benjamin Cook (NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies & Colombia University)
D  r Andrew Patrick (Tennessee State University)
Dr Lori Allen (SOAS)
Dr Lauren Banko (Yale University) &
James Barr (historian & writer).