ShelfLife@Texas

Four years ago, Associate Professor of Government Ami Pedahzur investigated the use of human bombs in terrorist attacks around the world in the 2005 book “Suicide Terrorism” (Polity).

Now, after a decade of studying terrorism, he turns his attention to Israel’s battle in “The Israeli Secret Services and the Struggle Against Terrorism” (Columbia University Press, 2009).

In the book, Pedahzur argues that Israel’s counterrorism policy has not been successsful. To learn why, read the Austin American-Statesman’s interview with Pedahzur in the Jan. 18
Read More …

After the Iranian Revolution of 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini’s secret police executed and imprisoned tens of thousands of dissidents in a sweeping attempt to destroy all opposition to the regime.

UT doctoral student Nastaran Kherad was one of many who were imprisoned after the revolution.

More than 20 years after her brutal incarceration and flight from Iran, she has decided to share her story in the memoir “In the House of My Bibi: Growing Up in Revolutionary Iran” (Academy Chicago Publishers,
Read More …

Elizabeth Warnock Fernea, professor emerita of Middle Eastern Studies and comparative literature, passed away earlier this week. She was 81. Read an obituary here.

Known as “B.J.” to her friends and family, Fernea was a noted scholar, filmmaker and author of several books on women’s issues in the Middle East.

Her memoir “Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village” (1965) which detailed her immersion into the lives of the women of Al-Nahra, was a national bestseller.

Did you know
Read More …