How can we learn a language that’s so different from English, it’s even written in the opposite direction (from right to left instead of left to right)? Are our ideologies really so different? Come find out how similar English and Arabic really are– and it all starts with a cup of coffee.



Heather Sweetser, Professor of Arabic at the University of New Mexico, will focus her presentation on the language of Arabic. She is currently authoring a book on coffee, and will delve into the Middle Eastern Origins of coffees as well.

Sweetster received her MA in Arabic in 2012 from the Ohio State University. A former linguist for the U.S. Army and a Gulf War II veteran, she currently teaches first through third year Arabic students at the University of New Mexico. Heather formerly lived in Syria, Egypt, and Yemen, and is working on a book on the history of coffee and its legality in Islam.

Llyd Wells, faculty at St. John’s College, will discuss antiquities collected by the ancients, including En-nigaldi-Nanna, the daughter of the last king of Babylon who created her own kind of museum of artifacts several millennia ago.

Enjoy date cookies especially created for SITE by Two Sprout Farm while sampling middle eastern coffees at this event!

$10 general admission // $5 all members, students