Pitch 3/22/24:
Profile Story Pitch Ideas
Profile Subject: Dr. Ali Ahmida → International awards and recognition following the publication of cutting-edge and controversial book.
For my profile story, I am thinking about writing about the recent international recognition and success that Dr. Ali Ahmida, Professor and founder of the Political Science department of UNE, has had in the last two years. Just this year, he was invited to speak and receive awards in Beirut, Lebanon, Tunis, Tunisia, and Cairo, Egypt. I think his unique experiences as a Libyan-American scholar and researcher will provide great context and depth to the profile, as he has had many experiences abroad and in our local community of UNE. Also, I want to keep in mind the relevancy aspect of this profile, and I think the angle on how his 20 years of work that led to his book, Genocide in Libya: Shar, A Hidden Colonial History, is finally receiving recognition and support globally could be a nice to highlight now.
In addition to the interview with Ahmida, I could gain some perspective on his dedication to his research by talking with his colleague and friend, Dr. Susan McHugh, in the English department, as well as some of his research assistants, like Senior Bella Caprio and Jackson Schuyler.
A few questions that I would like to ask are:
- Can you talk to me about the moment or experiences that made you decide to pursue this research?
- What were your goals when you first started, and how did they progress over the course of almost two decades?
- Can you tell me about your educational background and its role in writing this book?
- Would you mind sharing the reactions to Genocide in Libya: Shar, A Hidden Colonial History when it first came out both within the U.S. and internationally? Has that changed?
- Can you tell me about your time last spring being honored at the 6th Annual Arab Council of Social Sciences ceremony in Beirut?
- Can you tell me about the interview in Tunis just last month?
- You were asked to speak at your alma mater, Cairo University, just before spring break. Can you tell me more about this?
Early Draft (200 words) 3/29/24:
Two Decades of Research Culminates in Numerous Awards and International Events: A Recognition of Dr. Ahmida’s Dedication and Commitment
By Elia O’Hara
March 24, 2024
If you find yourself in Decary Hall on the University of New England’s Biddeford Campus, with some significant navigation, you will find, amidst the rows of office doors, the unassuming office of Dr. Ali Ahmida secluded on the third floor.
During numerous meetings in his office, they always begin with an offering of tea and a reassurance that, yes, I have eaten today – or else he will, in all seriousness, offer his own food without hesitation.
Twelve years ago, when Dr. Ahmida Started at the University of New England and founded the Political Science program, he was already a decade into his project that would continue to expand and impact the greater UNE community for years to come.
Looking back on the two decades of research Dr. Ahmida has conducted, resulting in two books, # of articles (find out via interview), and global recognition, he remembers …(Quote on what year he started his research and its origin, goals, and progression to now)
– Can you talk to me about the moment or experiences that made you decide to pursue this research?
- What were your goals when you first started, and how did they progress over the course of almost two decades?
(Transition into recent international engagements )
- Can you tell me about your time last spring being honored at the 6th Annual Arab Council of Social Sciences ceremony in Beirut?
- Can you tell me about the interview in Tunis just last month?
- You were asked to speak at your alma mater, Cairo University, just before spring break. Can you tell me more about this?
400 Word Draft – 4/5/24
Thirty Years in the Making: A Recognition of Dr. Ahmida’s Dedication and Commitment to Research
By Elia O’Hara
April 5th, 2024
If you find yourself in Decary Hall on the University of New England’s Biddeford Campus, you will find, amidst the rows of office doors, the unassuming office of Dr. Ali Ahmida, secluded on the third floor.
During numerous meetings in his office over my three years, they always begin with an offering of tea and a reassurance that, yes, I have eaten today – or else he will, in all seriousness, offer his own food without hesitation.
Twelve years ago, when Dr. Ahmida started at the University of New England and founded the Political Science program, he was already a decade into his project that would continue to expand and impact the greater UNE community for years to come.
“I always try to carry teaching and scholarship as two sides of the same coin. They complement each other and inform each other – doing the research and writing is linked to my teaching and my teaching informs my scholarship,” said Ahmida.
Bella Caprio, Senior Environmental Studies and Political Science major reflected on her experience as a research assistant for Ahmida.
“His work is really groundbreaking, and its importance to the larger community of political science academia is massive. His enthusiasm for teaching and advancing his research is what draws students to him and his courses,” Caprio said.
Looking back on the decades of research, which began in 1994 with his Ph.D. dissertation on the colonial invasion of Libya and its subsequent reactions, the book that has finally sparked this sweeping recognition is Genocide in Libya: Shar, A Hidden Colonial History, published in 2020.
“It took forever! But I couldn’t, in all honesty, hurry something as complex as this,” Ahmida said.
Ahmida’s research, done in three languages and spanning three continents, was dedicated to uncovering the genocide of thousands of Libyans during the Italian occupation from the early 20th century, resulting in the brutal concentration camps from 1929-1933.
“For ten years, I would go [to Libya] every summer after being kicked out of the Italian archives, and one honest historian said to me, ‘Ali, don’t waste your time because they either removed, destroyed, or manipulated archival evidence,” Ahmida expressed.
Yet, the countless setbacks proved to be the catalyst for an ingenious new method of research that would set his book and scholarship apart, calling attention to the need for reimagined work.
“The project evolved to become interdisciplinary and employ not only comparative political analysis and political theory of facism and genocide but also brought in the tools of anthropological and sociological studies of oral history and fieldwork,” he said.
In the years following the publication of Genocide in Libya: Shar, A Hidden Colonial History, the reactions varied at first, especially from Italian scholars, but it brought the discussion of this hidden genocide into mainstream scholarship.
“Now people are reexamining not only what happened in Libya but reexamining the Nazi connection I found and to keep pushing the envelope and examining dominant scholarship and cannons of modernity and westernized core,” Ahmida stated.
To this point, Caprio echoed Ahmida’s goal of both interdisciplinary research and teaching.
“Professor Ahmida’s passion and dedication to his research are evident in how he conducts his courses and the themes that he discusses within them. He is a master at tying together difficult and complex topics and delivering information in a digestible way for students to understand,” stated Caprio.
(Add quotes regarding the increase in recognition – Beirut Arab Council of Social Sciences award, Tunis TV show interview, and Egyptian Council of Culture speech)
While international recognition is immensely rewarding, Ahmida’s work has impacted the course offerings at UNE and given its small political science department well-deserved credit.
- The last quote from Bella
- Add the quote from McHugh on research and teaching.
(End with looking ahead → what other recognition is coming as he said, “It is ongoing” and how he has almost come full circle with the research as he was invited to speak at 4 universities in Libya on his research – quote of “I am finally a big deal! It’s true!)
Workshop Draft: 4/12/24
Thirty Years in the Making: A Recognition of Dr. Ahmida’s Dedication and Commitment to Research
By Elia O’Hara
If you find yourself in Decary Hall on the University of New England’s Biddeford campus, you will find, amidst the rows of doors, the unassuming office of Dr. Ali Ahmida, secluded on the third floor.
During numerous meetings in his office over my three years as his mentee, they always begin with an offering of tea and a reassurance that I have eaten today – or else he will, in all seriousness, offer his own food without hesitation.
A nameplate reading “I’m Kind Of A Big Deal” perched in the front of his desk may be a gesture of Ahmida’s humor, but now it seems others are finally catching on.
Twelve years ago, when Ahmida started at the University of New England and founded the Political Science program, he was already a decade into his project that would continue to expand and impact the greater UNE community for years to come.
“I always try to carry teaching and scholarship as two sides of the same coin. They complement each other and inform each other – doing the research and writing is linked to my teaching, and my teaching informs my scholarship,” said Ahmida.
Bella Caprio, Senior Environmental Studies and Political Science major reflected on her experience as a research assistant for Ahmida.
“His work is really groundbreaking, and its importance to the larger community of political science academia is massive. His enthusiasm for teaching and advancing his research is what draws students to him and his courses,” Caprio said.
Looking back on the decades of research, which began in 1994 with his Ph.D. dissertation on the colonial invasion of Libya and its subsequent reactions, the book that has finally sparked this sweeping recognition is Genocide in Libya: Shar, A Hidden Colonial History, published in 2020.
“It took forever! But I couldn’t, in all honesty, hurry something as complex as this,” Ahmida said.
Ahmida’s research, carried out in three languages and spanning three continents, was dedicated to uncovering the genocide of thousands of Libyans during the Italian occupation from the early 20th century, resulting in the brutal concentration camps from 1929-1933.
“For ten years, I would go [to Libya] every summer after being kicked out of the Italian archives, and one honest historian said to me, ‘Ali, don’t waste your time because they either removed, destroyed, or manipulated archival evidence,” Ahmida expressed.
Yet, the countless setbacks proved to be the catalyst for an ingenious new method of research that would set his book and scholarship apart, calling attention to the need for reimagined work.
“The project evolved to become interdisciplinary and employ not only comparative political analysis and political theory of facism and genocide but also brought in the tools of anthropological and sociological studies of oral history and fieldwork,” he said.
With the help of his work-study students, his resilience to learning to work with blindspots and dead ends, and a few friends able to help across the globe, this research resulted from adaptability and a truly investigative mindset.
“I could not examine this complex problem as a traditional political scientist, but bringing historical sociology, anthropology, comparative and postcolonial theory enabled me to have multiple lenses and approaches to figure it out,” Ahmida said.
In the years following the publication of Genocide in Libya: Shar, A Hidden Colonial History, the reactions varied at first, especially from Italian scholars, but it brought the discussion of this hidden genocide into mainstream scholarship.
“Now people are reexamining not only what happened in Libya but reexamining the Nazi connection I found and to keep pushing the envelope and examining dominant scholarship and cannons of modernity and westernized core,” Ahmida said.
To this point, Caprio echoed Ahmida’s goal of both interdisciplinary research and teaching.
“His passion and dedication to his research are evident in how he conducts his courses and the themes that he discusses within them. He is a master at tying together difficult and complex topics and delivering information in a digestible way for students to understand,” Caprio said.
While Ahmida’s work has continued to impact the course offerings at UNE and given the small political science department well-deserved credit, the international recognition is immensely rewarding.
“Above all, I am very happy that it is now reaching a larger academic but also non-academic audiences. I was honored in Beruit at the Arab Council of Social Sciences, then in Tunis, I interviewed for a TV show and went to Cario, where the Egyptian Council of Culture asked me to give a talk on why genocide has contemporary significance,” Ahimda said.
Ahmida’s recognition is ongoing, and in looking ahead to future events, there is another opportunity that would be a great full-circle moment from deciding to pursue untraditional methodologies in genocide studies and taking narrative culture and oral histories seriously.
“I was invited to participate in four university workshops in Libya across the country, three in the regions where the genocide took place and one in Tripoli,” Ahmida said.
As his research, which culminated in Genocide in Libya, continues to gain more recognition, there is also an element that surpasses just this one example of such a significant silenced history.
“It’s [Genocide in Libya] causing a big uproar and a challenge to our Western Anglo-American scholarship, and it allows the native people to have a voice – which is now, I hope, something to bring to our own American society,” Ahmida said.
Innovative in all aspects, Ahmida’s cross-cultural and detailed analysis reveals the consequences of knowledge that has been hidden and concealed, but his determination has not been forgotten.
“At the end, even though it took longer, I managed to recover the mystery of the genocide that has been forgotten for almost 70 years,” he said.
Revised Draft – Word Doc & Photo (800-1,000 words)
Workshop Experience Journal:
Our class workshop today was really helpful for me, and our group was engaged and willing to share some great ideas and constructive criticism. One big thing for me was how looking at my other group members’ profiles reminded me that I needed to add some things, such as a subhead. For others, they remembered they needed a photo or a byline, etc. After the workshop, I now have a solid list of items to work on for polishing up my profile, such as adding that subheadline, making sure I give enough context for the research, and adding the title of the book in the title or subheadline. I also had some helpful ideas on how to end the piece best, and I might try to find a better quote after adding in interview questions from Prof. McHugh. The one thing I am worried about is making sure those finishing edits don’t push the profile over the word count, as I am at a nice 971 words as of right now. I need to make sure that I am selective in the quotes I add from McHugh, and I might need to swap out a quote at the end rather than try to add more to make my conclusion.
Editorial Team Refelction:
As a part of the editorial team for our peer review group workshop for our profile project, we went through the four profiles one by one and made sure to hit on the journalistic conventions such as the headline/subheadline, lede (whetehr it was anecdotal or not), and then what worked for us, what we liked, and what points of suggestions or questions we might have. My group was Sarah Bo, Sarah Be, and Zak, and we started by each of us going around and saying what worked for us. For example, in Sarah Bordeau’s profile, Sarah Be. made a good point about how the subheadline worked for her in bridging the gap between the intriguing headline and knowing a bit more about where the profile is heading. She also highlighted how there wasn’t a direct quote from the subject of the profile until a page down and made a helpful suggestion for finding quotes that could do some of that background/context work for her. Zak also made an excellent suggestion for Sarah Be.’s profile, which was to have another student voice maybe later in the piece to help solidify a central point about Prof. Quinlan overcoming her worries about being a young teacher. For my piece, Sarah Bo. offered a suggestion/question relating to my subheadline, which was a great place to introduce the book, which led to all this recognition, and also to clarify that the research my student quote discusses is about the book. Overall, we all have a bit more work to do in adding interview quotes that came in later and making sure the flow of our profiles is working with the angle and focus of our story, but I would say we are all in a good place to have this done and polished by next week.
Profile Story Reflection:
As I reflect on the profile project as a whole, one significant takeaway is that I felt much more comfortable in the process than in my feature creature. I was more prepared for my interview and knew that because most of the piece would center around this one interview, I recorded the entire conversation and felt confident that the information I got matched what I wanted my profile to say. The profiles we read in class helped me understand how my profile could operate in terms of tone and that I had more leeway than hard journalism or strict reporting. For instance, after reading the profile from the UVM student paper on a recent alum being elected to office and noting how the journalist crafted the anecdotal lede, I started to play around with how I could do something similar. As Dr. Ahmida is a mentor of mine and someone I spend a lot of time with, I felt like it would come off almost too callous not to weave in just a touch of my experience initially. Those examples helped me find a balance where I could quickly step in front of the camera, so to speak, and allow the readers to know I have an academic relationship with my subject but then return the focus entirely to him. Finding the newsworthy angle of my profile was really fun as I spoke with Dr. Ahmida about his recognition abroad and connecting back to UNE. I also heard from students and fellow professors like Bella and Dr. McHugh, which was a great experience. During our peer review workshop as both editor and the subject of review from my group, I appreciated how professional my group was in taking this time seriously in how we could improve our profiles. My group gave helpful and specific advice and suggestions, and it was nice to have complete drafts from each group member so I could provide constructive feedback as well. I definitely felt that the narrative and storytelling aspect of journalism came through in our discussions during the profile project, and I spent a lot of time working on how best to get the necessary information across in a way that shows how meaningful the story and Dr. Ahmida’s work are.
