Among the campus buildings at Rice University in Houston, Texas, one curious structure stands out. The first feature you’ll probably notice is that it’s made of reeds; but these are not just any reeds. They arrived inside a 40-foot shipping container, harvested and partly assembled by master artisans in the marshlands of southern Iraq, where structures like this one have been made for centuries. It’s called a mudhif, and for Iraq’s Marsh Arab ethnic minority, it’s a traditional village meetinghouse where disputes are settled and important gatherings are held. On…
