My proposal on "Water and Human Experience" (abstract below) was accepted by the Conference on Engaged Scholarship which will be held at Texas Tech on Oct. 8th and 9th, 2019. I am not able to attend but I hope to re-submit something similar next year.

Abstract:

The Global Water Crisis is a human behavior problem at its foundation. Not only behavior of "common people" but of collectives like corporations, and political entities. The global economy represents the larger unit of analysis which perhaps most critically a part of the crisis. We will need to operate from a deep understanding of human experience, and collective behavior in order to implement the technological solutions at hand or yet to be developed. Yet there is a siloed approach in our institutions of higher learning, and a notable divide between STEM and the humanities. We believed engaged scholarship is the direction forward.

The Middle East Studies Center at the Ohio State University has been working to bring the human dimension to research on the global water crisis by bringing together scientists and scholars from the Middle East and around the world to present both universals of water resource management and the particulars of life on the ground in the Middle East, especially in the Euphrates region. We are now focused on integrating concepts from this project to shed light upon the global water crisis, and to bolster our Middle East studies curriculum.

Water as an analytical lens is a great way to teach and study about world areas such as the Middle East. It is a universal human concern and it profoundly connected to multiple aspects of human activity which can be studies locally and in another area of the world. A few of the themes which have emerged from our "exploring global water contexts project are: agriculture; water resource management; water justice. These concepts can be applied equally to our local area in Ohio and to the Middle East. The contrast between the two regions deepens the learning, as well. We proposal a local/global approach to knowledge sharing and community building.