| Thanks to all who participated in the December 1 multicast teleconference on
Islamic studies. We did have some problems: for some reason Emory was not able to connect at all, and Duke (in
the very first teleconference from the new Franklin Center) had only
intermittent contact. But the connections with Seattle and with the
American University in Cairo were amazingly good. Despite the problems, I
think all who participated found the experience exhilarating and full of
promise.
Dan has indicated that the staff at CAVNER (Center for Advanced Video
Network Engineering & Research) monitored the teleconference, and they will
be asking the manufacturers of the teleconferencing equipment at UNC and
Duke for answers to the problems we encountered. We also made a video of the
teleconference as seen from UNC, and it is now on loan to the Duke
participants. We will be happy to send it to Emory if Rich Martin and Devin
Stewart wish.
We discussed several follow-up initiatives, including the desire to set up
another multicast teleconference in mid-January (more about that later). We
also talked about the possibility of bringing some participants in this
discussion to North Carolina for the workshop on Muslim Networks, Past,
Present, and Future tentatively planned at Duke March 30-April 1. This
workshop would include a discussion evaluating university press publications
in Islamic studies (with a view to a possible publication series of our
own); future workshops on the study of the Internet and culture at the
University of Washington; linkages with the American University in Cairo
(study abroad, faculty research); and further work on initiatives underway
at Duke (Muslim Networks), UNC (Islamweb), and Emory (Islam in America).
with best wishes --
Carl |
