Nayla Hamadeh, Secretary General of the Lebanese Association for History (LAH), is currently participating in the Alliance for Historical Dialogue (AHDA) fellowship program that is part of the Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University. The program has three components: professional training through workshops on historical dialogue and project design on how to deal with the past; networking meetings; and an academic component through courses at Columbia.
Nayla’s focus is on the 1975 – 1990 Lebanese civil war with particular attention to the role and impact of memory of past violence on Lebanon’s contemporary politics, society and culture. The focus questions of her study are: How can we establish historical dialogue about that sensitive past? How can we bring memories to surface? How can we face that past and move along? Nayla is currently working on an oral history project to bring back with her to Lebanon to address memory of the mountain war of 1983 – 1984. She is also designing a research project to bring together narratives of the war.
