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The workshop is intended for military, government, and NGO personnel who may be working in Afghanistan, or who are working with Afghan cultural issues. The Afghan Culture Workshop is a current events-based course, providing cultural and background information to prepare students for living and working in Afghanistan, or for dealing with cultural issues domestically. The first-hand experiences that both instructors will be sharing will engage students at every level of knowledge about Afghanistan. They will focus on issues such as the drug trade, civil society development, and US-Afghan relations, as well as Afghanistan's history, and insights into daily life and customs of diverse Afghan linguistic and cultural groups. Language instruction for negotiating daily situations will be integrated into the cultural aspects of the program.

Cultural sensitivity with regard to the specific situations personnel may encounter in Afghanistan, and enough language ability to perform necessary daily tasks and make a positive impression, are the primary instructional objectives. Among the outputs of the program, recordings from the lessons, guides and instructional materials will be created in hard copy and made available on the workshop's web site.

The Instructors:

Dr. Alam Payind, Director of the Middle East Studies Center at the Ohio State University
Dr. Alam Payind is the Director of the Middle East Studies Center (MESC), a senior teaching member of the International Studies Program and the Near Eastern Languages and Cultures department, a liaison for the Office of International Students and Scholars, and a member of University's International Programs Task Force. born and raised in Afghanistan, and previously a holder of government and academic positions in Kabul, he speaks Pashto, Dari and Urdu with native fluency. He continues to conduct field work, provide consultations on a regular basis in Afghanistan and has visited the coutnry 6 times since September 11th, 2001. He travels extensively within the Afghan borders, and during his most recent trip last June he was a witness to the Taliban's resurgence in Qandahar.

Dr. Payind is a founding member of the Council of Area Studies Center Directors, a board member and former president of the Eastern Consortium in Persian and Turkish. His concurrent appointments and position on the task force provide MESC with a strong link to the academic units charged with administering and realizing the university’s international vision and education goals. Dr. Payind has a direct impact on students lives as an advisor for Middle Eastern students adjusting to American educational system and culture, and to American students majoring in Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies. He teaches International Studies 245: Introduction to the Modern Middle East, and the interdisciplinary upper-division International Studies 645: Contemporary Issues in the Middle East, offered through International Studies and Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. He co-directs the Center's Summer Institute on Middle Eastern Cultures with Professor Merry Merryfield, and has taken the lead role in organizing area studies centers' support for her online course and web site on global studies and world cultures. In addition, he provides vital consultations to press and news agencies on Middle Eastern affairs and delivers an average of 70 public lectures on Middle Eastern issues per year.

Dr. Payind served in the Afghan government as the Director General of Cultural and Foreign Relations, and was a professor at Kabul University before the Soviet invasion in 1979 forced him to seek refuge in the US. Dr. Payind has seen Afghanistan through many phases: under King Zahir Shah, President Dawud, the ten-year Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the Mujahiddin regime, followed by the Taliban regime, and the US-lead invasion of Afghanistan, and subsequent Karzai government. In late 2006, Dr. Payind was offered the position of Ambassador of the Afghanistan to the United Kingdom which he turned down for personal and professional reasons. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science and Higher Education, as well as an M.A. in Political Science in 1977 from Indiana University, his M.Sc. in Higher Education from Indiana University in 1972; and his BA in Political Science & Islamic Law from Kabul University in 1966. His combination of academic qualifications and life experience uniquely qualifies him to give the cultural, historical, and current social context for recent events.

Dawood Azami, Senior Producer for the BBC World Service
Dawood Azami is a writer and broadcast journalist. He has been working with the BBC World Service for ten years. As a senior producer in the BBC World Service, he supervises and produces news and current affairs transmissions in Pashto and Persian languages. He has also worked in BBC World Service's English Network, BBC World Television and BBC News Online; covering international news and current affairs.

Dawood specialises in politics, security and culture in Central and South Asia and the Middle East (especially Afghanistan, Iran & Pakistan including the Tribal Areas).
He has produced and presented several special radio documentaries for the BBC World Service on a wide range of topics including politics, religion and human rights; programmes that have included investigative features on “Globalisation of Conflict and the Tribal Areas (on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan) in 2003)”; "Buddhism and Folk Culture in Afghanistan (2001)" and "Drug production and addiction in Afghanistan and the region" (2007).

He made two long series of programmes on “Human Rights in Afghanistan and Pakistan (2002)” and "Crisis in Baluchistan & its strategic importance (2006)". In 2007, he produced another series of radio features on "The Durand Line & Conflicts in the Borderlands" (2007). Recently, he produced a special documentary for the BBC English network on "weapons used in Afghanistan and its impact on health and the environment".

In 2004, he went to Turkey for research on Sufism and produced several radio programmes for the BBC on the "Survival of Sufism in Turkey". He has done extensive research on the history and culture of Afghanistan and Central and South Asia and writes poems and short stories in Pashto. Dawood has already published a book in Pashto as well as articles and poetry in various journals in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Dawood has served as an external supervisor for a Ph.D. thesis on the impact of Soviet invasion on Pashto literature in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He taught at the Ohio State University (USA) as a visiting scholar in summer 2006. He has participated as a speaker in seminars and conferences in several countries, including USA, UK, Italy and Estonia. He has been visiting the region regularly to cover various landmark events for the BBC and can speak English, Pashto, Persian/Dari and Urdu/Hindi.

He studied Geography and Political Science at university level and holds three Masters degrees. He got his third MA degree in International Studies and Diplomacy from the Centre of International Studies and Diplomacy, SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies), University of London.