Curated by Tarek ElhaikThis project has been partially funded by a grant from the Sultan Program of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at UC Berkeley.This fall the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at UC Berkeley presents a series of lectures and screenings around the theme of "Arab Identity." The Center's film series includes not only classics such as Tewfiq Saleh's widely acclaimed The Dupes and Heiny Srour's polemical and rarely screened Leyla and the Wolves, but also the unsettling work of emerging Moroccan director Daoud Aoulad Syiad (Adieu Forain), and, in November, several shorts by directors from the Arab Diaspora. The selection reflects the extraordinary diversity of experiences and viewpoints in the Arab world and foregrounds "Arab identity" as a multilayered consciousness, always in flux, polysemous, and predicated on a complex dialectic between the subjective and the collective, the local and the global. Rehearsing Arab Identity features works arising from particular historical moments and sensibilities, and sets out to probe the often tense relation between postcolonial Arab identity and cinematic practice in the Middle East and North Africa.-Tarek Elhaik A native of Morocco, Tarek Elhaik is currently a graduate student in cultural and social anthropology at UC Berkeley. Monday September 18, 2000