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 The Middle East Institute of Columbia University, founded in 1954, has helped to set the national pace in developing an interdisciplinary approach to the study of the Middle East from the rise of Islam to the present, with a primary focus on the 19th and 20th centuries. Fostering an inter-regional and multi-disciplinary approach to the region, the Institute focuses on the Arab countries, Armenia, Iran, Israel, Turkey, Central Asia, and Muslim Diaspora communities. Staff
Regional Concentration in Middle East Studies
Students in the School of International and Public Affairs who have been admitted to candidacy for the Middle East Institute certificate receive the certificate upon completion of the requirements of the Institute. The certificate candidate draws up a program with the help of an assigned adviser and the approval of the Institute director. Programs vary, depending on the degree of the candidate's previous preparation, and the department or school in which the candidate chooses to earn an advanced degree. Courses: Each candidate must complete 40 points of course work as follows: Two region-wide courses (lecture or colloquium) one in history and one in political science (6 points); Four other lecture courses or colloquia selected from three different disciplines (12 points); Two seminars or colloquia (6 points); Language courses see below (16 points). In addition to seminars and colloquia specifically listed for Institute credit, candidates, with the approval of the director, may count one seminar or colloquium not primarily on the Middle East only if the candidate's work in the course was concentrated on the Middle East. Language Requirement: The language requirement is satisfied in full once the certificate candidate has demonstrated proficiency in at least one of the major area languages equivalent to three years of university instruction. A certificate candidate who comes equipped with such proficiency in one of the major languages is encouraged to study a second. Native speakers of one Middle Eastern language must take at least one year of a second area language or demonstrate equivalent proficiency. Students who wish to attend language courses beyond the elementary level and who have not fulfilled the prerequisites but have received equivalent preparation elsewhere may be permitted to register. This permission must be obtained in writing, at the time of registration, from the departmental representative. No credit is given for the first term of any elementary language course until the second term has been completed. Programs The Institute sponsors approximately 30 lunch-time talks per year on topics ranging from art and literature to current events, hosts conferences, and provides a neutral atmosphere for scholarly and student exchanges of views on issues concerning the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia. It offers courses and outreach seminars to teachers and adult education groups, briefs journalists, and generally acts as a clearing-house for requests for information on the region and its peoples by the media, educational professionals, and the interested public, drawing upon the expertise of its own staff and the multi-disciplinary and multi-cultural faculty of the School of International and Public Affairs and Columbia University. + Events - FALL 2008
+ Events - SPRING 2008
+ Events - FALL 2007
+ Events - SPRING 2007
+ Events - FALL 2006
Thursday, September 14 Thursday, September 21 Thursday, September 21 Thursday, September 21 Thursday, September 28 Friday, September 29 Thursday, October 5 Sunday, October 8 Tuesday, October 10 Thursday, October 12 Monday, October 16 Wednesday, October 18 Thursday, October 19 Thursday, November 2 Thursday, November 9 Tuesday, November 14 * The talk will be followed by a reception (2-4 pm)
Andrew Mango will discuss Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his legacy on
Turkey today. Mango's talk is particularly timely as we approach
the 125th anniversary of Ataturk's birth and the 83rd anniversary of the
proclamation of the republic.
Tuesday, November 14 Thursday, November 16 Thursday, November 16 Thursday, November 30 Thursday, December 7 + Events - SPRING 2006
Focusing on the history of Islam and China in the twentieth century, Zvi
Ben-Dor will discuss the complicated relationship between Chinese
Muslims and the emerging Chinese nation, the Japanese empire, and the
Islamic world. He will also address the question of what it means to be
a Muslim minority in a non-Islamic Asian country in the modern period.
Zvi Ben-Dor is Assistant Professor of History and Middle Eastern and
Islamic Studies at New York University, and is currently a Remarque
Institute Fellow. He received his Ph.D from UCLA and has taught at
Boston University, Rutgers University, and Ben-Gurion University in
Israel. The author of numerous articles on Muslims in China, his most
recent publication is The Dao of Muhammad: A Cultural History of
Muslims in Late Imperial China.
Different understandings and configurations of Jewish history, biology, and identity are at work in late-19th and early 20th century Jewish racial science, Israeli population genetics in the 1950s and 60s, and genetic anthropology today. Nadia Abu El-Haj will address an aspect of that work: who is a Jew at any moment in time, and what is the nature of kinship both within the (known) Jewish world and between Jews and non-Jewish populations, Arabs in particular, in these different scientific practices and social epochs.
Nadia Abu El-Haj is assistant professor of anthropology at Barnard College, with research interests in Israel/Palestine, the Jewish Diaspora, science, colonialism, nationalism, and contemporary practices of identity. She received her Ph.D from Duke University and taught at the University of Chicago before moving to Columbia. Among her many publications is Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society (2001).
Featuring Dr. Soner Cagaptay Room 1512, International Affairs Building
After intense negotiations and missed deadlines, Turkey has begun accession talks with the European Union--a milestone in its two-century quest to become a full-fledged member of the Western world. Dr. Cagaptay will analyze the dramatic transformation of Turkey under the ruling Justice and Development Party and comment on the unprecedented impediments on the path toward Turkey’s EU membership.
Soner Cagaptay is a senior fellow and director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s Turkish Research Program. He has written extensively on U.S.-Turkish relations and Turkish politics and nationalism, publishing in Middle East Quarterly, Middle Eastern Studies, and Nations and Nationalism. His commentaries have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, Der Spiegel, and La Stampa, and he appears regularly on CNN, Fox News, NPR, Voice of America, Al Jazeera, and al-Hurra. He also serves as chair of the Turkey Advanced Area Studies Program at the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute.
Formal accession talks for Turkey to join the European Union began in 2005, even as vocal segments of European society oppose Turkey's membership on cultural and political grounds. David Cuthell examines Turkey's bid to join the EU from a new perspective, focusing on key aspects of EU-Turkey relations often neglected in mainstream commentary, such as labor demographics, regional security, and European economic and trade policy.
David Cuthell is the Executive Director of the Institute of Turkish Studies in Washington, D.C., and an adjunct professor of history at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs. He lived in Turkey during the 1950s and 1960s, attended Yale University, and received an MBA from Columbia. He worked on Wall Street for 20 years before returning to Columbia, where he completed his Ph.D in 2004.
Between Arab and Jew, what is literature? The premises of literary history make it difficult to analyze literary traditions that transcend national, linguistic, religious, and generic boundaries. Although comparisons and relations between Hebrew and Arabic, between poetry and philosophy, have been examined by many scholars, attempts to map the larger boundaries that link, separate, and make sense of the rhetorical difficulties involved remain rare. Gil Anidjar will offer a sketch of what such a map might look like and provide elements of a solution, if not resolution.
Gil Anidjar is assistant professor of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures at Columbia, specializing in comparative literature, Arab-Jewish relations, Hebrew and Jewish culture, and post-colonialism. He is the author of Our Place in Al-Andalus: Kabbalah, Philosophy, Literature in Arab Jewish Letters (2002) and, most recently, The Jew, the Arab: A History of the Enemy (2003)
Presented in cooperation with the SIPA Turkish Initiative
Room 403, International Affairs Building
Istanbul is a metropolis spanning two continents, situated at the westernmost point of the East and the easternmost point of the West. It is here that the best-known fairytales of the West are enacted in the captivating film "Istanbul Tales," a movie consisting of five
stories that bring to life fairytale characters in Istanbul. Everyday people happen to meet Little Red Riding Hood, the Pied Piper, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella, and all tales are interconnected--a single murder, for example, can change the lives of not only the murderer and the victim, but those of many other people. The most insignificant and unconscious act can have awesome consequences.
Directed by five different Turkish directors, "Istanbul Tales" celebrates the allure of the city of Istanbul while reminding us that true fairytales are the same the world over.
Room 1118, International Affairs Building
Are you interested in studying a Middle Eastern language over the summer? If so, bring your questions and come hear your fellow students share their experiences studying Middle East languages at programs in Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Yemen, the United States, and more!
Hasaruf (literally, "the burned") was a hoax that shook Israeli culture in 2000 when a neglected Ashkenazi singer garnered attention and fame by posing to be a Mizrahi cripple injured in a fire as a child. His painful "oriental" music was an immediate hit and he was featured on the cover of the widest-read Israeli weekly supplement. In analyzing the hoax, Uri Cohen examines some of the cultural complexities shaping the colonial question in Israel.
Uri Cohen is assistant professor of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures at Columbia. He received his Ph.D from Hebrew University and specializes in modern Hebrew and Italian literature.
Director of the Middle East Institute and Edward Said Professor of Arab
Studies, Columbia University
and
Sara Roy
Senior Research Scholar, Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard
University
Room 1501
The recent Palestinian elections resulted in a decisive victory for
Hamas, the political party that has been branded a terrorist
organization by the United States, Europe, and Israel. In light of its
electoral victory, will Hamas change its position on peace talks with
Israel? Will Hamas be able to form a working government? What do the
election results mean for Israeli-Palestinian relations, and for
relations between the Palestinian Authority, the U.S., and Europe?
Addressing these and other questions, Rashid Khalidi, Director of
Columbia's Middle East Institute, and Sara Roy, Scholar in Residence at
Harvard's Center for Middle East Studies, will probe the complexities
underlying Palestinian politics and the implication of the 2006
elections for peacemaking, politics, and security in the Middle East.
Wednesday, March 29 A presentation by Ms. Nada Al-Nashif
Chief of the Regional Programme Division at the Wednesday, March 29 Nada Al-Nashif was appointed Chief of the Regional Programme
Division, Regional Bureau for Arab States, UNDP, in January 2005. She is
responsible for six UNDP programmes in the Arab region, focusing on
governance, trade and human development, quality assurance in education,
information and communications technologies for development, HIV/AIDS,
and the Arab Human Development Report series. Nada joined the Bureau
Headquarters from the Lebanon Country Office where she held the position
of Deputy Resident Representative since June 2000. Nada joined UNDP
through the Management Training Programme in 1991 after she completed
her Masters in Public Policy at the Kennedy School of Government,
Harvard University. She had earlier completed a BA in Philosophy,
Politics and Economics (PPE) from Balliol College, Oxford University,
and worked in the private sector as an economic analyst.
Calligraphy and miniature painting have emerged in the past two decades in Pakistan as two sides of a polarized debate on authenticity. Kishwar Rizvi will explore the way in which young artists in Pakistan, and likewise in the Middle East, ‘construct' a history of Islamic art on their own terms by owning and critiquing their cultural heritage through calligraphy and the miniature.
Kishwar Rizvi is assistant professor of art history at Barnard College. She received her Ph.D in architecture from MIT, has taught at the College of the Holy Cross and Yale University, and focuses her research interests on architectural history, Islamic art, and Iranian studies.
Room 628, Kent Hall
Farnoosh Moshiri is an Iranian-born author. Her poems and short stories were published in several Iranian periodicals prior to her escape from Iran in 1983. Her novels include At the Wall of the Almighty, The Bathhouse, and Against Gravity. Among the many literary awards she has received are the Barthelme Memorial Fellowship, the Barbara Deming Fiction for Peace and Social Justice, two Black Heron Press Awards for Social Fiction, and the Valiente Award of Voices Breaking Boundaries.
Moshiri will be reading from her recently released novel Against Gravity (Penguin, 2005).
Advancing the idea that Palestinian writers responded to the experiences of exile and dispossession by constructing an anticolonial humanism premised on notions of agency and struggle, equality and mutuality, and a conception of a just future, Bashir Abu-Manneh explores Palestinian culture in search of this humanist vision.
Bashir Abu-Manneh is assistant professor of English at Columbia. He received his doctorate from Oxford University and specializes in post-colonial theory. He is the author of the forthcoming article Towards Liberation: Michel Khleifi's Ma'loul and Canticle in Palestinian Cinema.
12:30 - 2:00 pm A brown bag talk and discussion with David Menashiri
The Islamic regime in Iran since the Revolution has seen western
influence as a major threat, viewing the U.S. as the "Great Satan" and
calling for Israel to be wiped off the map. Although some lessening of
hostility could be discerned under Khatami, moderate voices were
frustrated with the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June, 2005.
What does the regime gain from Ahmedinejad’s radical statements? What is
behind the Iran-U.S. talks over Iraq? What is Iran’s nuclear policy?
Addressing these and other questions, David Menashiri will explore the
ideologies and politics behind Iran’s attitudes toward the U.S. and Israel.
David Menashri is Director of the Center of Iranian Studies and the
Parviz and Pouran Nazarian Chair for Modern Iranian Studies at Tel Aviv
University. He has been a Fulbright scholar at Princeton and Cornell,
and visiting scholar at the Universities of Chicago, Melbourne, Munich,
and Waseda (Tokyo). In the late 1970s he spent two years conducting
research in Iranian universities on the eve of the Islamic Revolution.
Room 403, International Affairs Building
This special screening will be an opportunity to all students and scholars as well as all interested people to see these short documentaries, representing diverse approaches in terms of concept and style, as well as to meet with the six Turkish guest producers and directors. They include Mustafa Ünlü (“The Old Town’s Newsmen”), Nurdan Arca (“Time Capsules”), Sehbal Senyurt (“The Adyghe: The Exodus of the Circassian People”), Murad Özdemir (“Tinkos Fish Tinkos”), Ersan Ocak (“Ankara – an experimental documtary”), and Ozgur E. Arik (“Ribat”). Entry is free of charge, and open to general public.
Presented in cooperation with the SIPA International Media and Communication Concentration
Room 1118, International Affairs Building
Jane Arraf has seen Iraq through sanctions, crises, and the ongoing war. Her experience in the frontlines and interactions with soldiers and civilians from both sides provide her a valuable on-the-ground perspective.
Arraf will discuss the constraints of reporting from Iraq and how the gathering of information has changed since the war. She will comment on the implications of these media constraints on U.S. foreign policy and on public perception of the war, and will also touch on the ever-important and sometimes controversial relationship between the military and the media, as well as on the impact of the growing local media.
Jane Arraf is the Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. She is currently on leave from CNN where she has been Baghdad Bureau Chief and Senior Baghdad Correspondent. Arraf joined CNN in 1998 as its first permanent Baghdad Baghdad Bureau Chief and was for several years the only Western correspondent based in Iraq. She has covered Iraq through crisis, sanctions, and the continuing war. She moved to Istanbul, Turkey as CNN Bureau Chief in 2001, returning to Baghdad as Bureau Chief in 2002.
Before joining CNN, Arraf worked as a reporter for Reuters Financial Television in Washington, D.C. where her assignments included covering the White House, Capitol Hill and the Treasury Department. She also served as Reuters Bureau Chief in Jordan from 1990 to 1993, and has worked as a Reuters correspondent in Montreal and Reuters correspondent/desk editor in New York and Washington D.C. Arraf reported extensively from Iraq for Reuters after the 1991 Gulf War. Other reporting assignments included India, Haiti and Bosnia. She studied journalism at Carleton University in Ottawa.
Room 501, Schermerhorn Hall
Please join us for a screening of "Persepolis Recreated," a documentary by Iranian filmmaker Farzin Rezaeian, which features extraordinary reconstructions of Persepolis, the most spectacular palace of ancient Achaemenid Iran, before it was destroyed by Alexander the Great’s conquering army more than two thousand years ago. The film includes commentary from renowned scholars from France, the United States and Iran, and has received wide acclaim throughout the United States and Europe.
Although Egyptian judges have been tasked with supervising elections
since 1956, it was only in 2005 that they launched a concerted and
high-profile mobilization for full and meaningful supervision. Why was
2005 different? And will all future Egyptian elections feature judicial
collective action on the same scale as 2005? Mona El-Ghobashy will
discuss the 2005 Egyptian elections, exploring the dynamic relationship
between the judiciary, the executive, and the public at a time of
political ferment in Egypt.
Mona El-Ghobashy is an instructor in the political science department at
Columbia. Her work on Egyptian politics has been published in the
International Journal of Middle East Studies, and Transparency
International's Global Corruption Report 2004. Her article "Egypt's
Paradoxical Elections" appears in the spring 2006 issue of Middle East
Report.
Presented in cooperation with the SIPA International Security Policy Concentration and the student organizations Media and Communications in War and Peace and U.S.
Military Veterans of Columbia University.
Room 417, Altschul Auditorium, International Affairs Building
Mr. Gordon will be speaking on the planning, buildup, and initial execution of Operation Iraqi Freedom. His new book, written with retired Marine Lt General Bernard Trainor, is well on its way to becoming the authoritative history of the lead-up to U.S. operations in Iraq. Who were the players and what were their views and decisions? How did plans translate into actions in the Area of Operations, and what were the results on the ground? Please join us for a very well informed analysis.
This event will be moderated by Robert George, Associate Editorial Page Editor at the New York Post and blogger (www.raggedthots.blogspot.com).
"Cobra II" will be available for purchase and Mr. Gordon will sign copies of his book.
Presented in cooperation with the SIPA Turkish Initiative and the International Economic Policy Concentration
Commentary by Lisa Anderson, Dean of the School of International and Public Affairs, and Akbar Noman, Adjunct Associate Professor, School of International and Public Affairs
Room 1501, International Affairs Building
Kemal Dervis started as the new head of the United Nations Development Program on August 15, 2005. He is also the Chair of the United Nations Development Group, a committee consisting of the heads of all UN funds, program and departments working on development issues.
Prior to his appointment with UNDP, Mr. Dervis was a member of the Turkish Parliament representing Istanbul (Nov 2002-June 2005) and was Minister for Economic Affairs and the Treasury (Mar 2001-Aug 2002) responsible for Turkey's recovery program after the devastating financial crisis that hit the country in February 2001.
He earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in economics from the London School of Economics and his Ph.D from Princeton University. From 1973 to 1977 he was a member of the economics faculties of the Middle East Technical University and then Princeton University. In 1977 he joined the World Bank, where he worked until he returned to Turkey in 2001.
The UNDP Administrator is the third highest ranking official in the United Nations System after the Secretary-General and the Deputy Secretary-General. He is appointed by the Secretary-General and confirmed by the General Assembly for a term of four years.
In recent decades, terms such as "Islamic fundamentalism," "Islamic activism," and "Islamic radicalism" have been used to describe the phenomenon of contemporary political Islam. Some observers have re-invented the term "Islamism," which has been used to mean Islam. Ousmane Kane will discuss several notions: that Islamism is a new phenomenon, that "Islamists" are primarily Salafi, and that Islamist movements are irrational and violent.
Ousmane Kane is an associate professor of international and public affairs at Columbia. He received his master's in Islamic studies at the Sorbonne nouvelle in 1985 and his Ph.D from Sciences Po, Paris, in 1993. He received fellowships from Yale, the University of London, Northwestern University, and the Institute for Advanced Study, Berlin. He is the author of Muslim Modernity in Postcolonial Nigeria (2003), Intellectuels non europhones (2003), and Islam et islamisme au Sud du Sahara (with Jean-Louis Triaud, 1998).
+ Events - FALL 2005
Date: Monday, September 12 Ayman Abdel Nour, respected Syrian economist, politician, and ruling Baath party member, will discuss the economic and political dynamics at work in Syria today and the status of the reform measures which accompanied President Bashar al-Assad's coming to power five years ago. Abdel Nour is the founder of all4syria.org, a website banned within Syria, which publishes a daily newsletter and provides a unique forum for political dialogue and debate.
Sponsored by the Center for International Conflict Resolution, the Middle East Institute and the Media in War and Peace student group.
Date: Thursday, September 22 A prominent Iranian blogger (http://hoder.com), Hossein Derakhshan went to Tehran last June to observe the presidential elections. Aside from the process of the elections and its surprising result, he saw that a new wave of young but realistic reformists is subtly changing the political dynamics both inside and outside the reformist camp in Iran.
Showing pictures and videos he took during the trip, Derakhshan will discuss the signs of this change and suggest how the world can best help the new movement.
Date: Thursday, September 29 Dan Bahat, for many years the Official Archeologist of Jerusalem, will discuss the Muslim conquest of Jerusalem in 638. He will explore relations with Christians in the city, the arrival of Jews into Jerusalem and their settlement patterns, subsequent events on
the Temple Mount, and Christian spiritual references to the Muslim conquest.
Dr. Bahat is currently the archaeologist of the Western Wall of the Temple Mount and its tunnels and has excavated many sites in Jerusalem, including Herod's palace. Widely published, he has received many awards for his work in Jerusalem. He teaches
archaeology at the University of Toronto and Bar-Ilan University in Israel.
Date: Wednesday, October 5 The Shatt al-Arab river – which forms the southernmost part of the boundary between Iran and Iraq – has proved one of the most troublesome territorial divides in the Middle East. A boundary definition before 1975 caused many disputes between the two states, while an agreement reached in 1975 was called into question by Iraq as a prelude to its invasion of Iran in 1980. Doubts about the exact status of the river boundary persist today.
Richard Schofield, prominent geographer and expert on the Shatt al-Arab, will discuss this delicate border dispute and explore the degree to which Iraq recommitted itself to the 1975 agreement in the aftermath of its invasion of Kuwait. He will also discuss how resolution of the issue could best serve prospects for economic rejuvenation and reconstruction in the area, and boost regional cooperation between Iran and Iraq.
Monday, September 26 Palestinian Member of the Israeli Knesset since 1996, Leader of National Democratic Assembly, and Celebrated Writer and Intellectual
introduced by Rashid Khalidi Date: Thursday, October 27 Dr. Seznec, prominent expert on the Persian Gulf, will discuss the
strategy that Saudi Arabia has adopted to become as dominant in the
petrochemicals market as they are in the oil market. He contends
that the Saudis are likely to become the largest producers in the
world, displacing German producers and other large Western firms.
This economic battle is taking place mainly in China, which in
itself has important political and strategic ramifications.
Dr. Seznec has been an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University’s
Middle East Institute for 19 years. His research centers on the
influence of Arab-Persian Gulf political and social variables on
the financial and oil markets in the region. He is Senior Advisor
to PFC Energy in Washington, DC, has published and lectured
extensively, and is interviewed regularly by the national and
foreign press.
Date: Thursday, November 3 Presented in cooperation with the Alliance Program
The author of the recent book The Saudi Enigma,Pascal Ménoret will
discuss the recent history of Saudi Islamic movements, from the
emergence of Muslim Brother activism in the 1960s, the religious
and cultural developments of the 80s, the politicization and
repression of the 90s, and the recent reformulations of Islamic
“activist capital,” from violent militancy to electoral
participation. Ménoret explores the multiple purposes of Saudi
Islamic movements, analyzing the various strategies they use to get
around the authoritarian closure of the public space and the
“top-down modernization” schemes imposed by the Saudi state.
Pascal Menoret is a Research Associate at the French Center for
Archaeology and Social Sciences in Sana‘a, Yemen. He has worked at
the French Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and served as an
advisor to the Minister’s Board at the French Ministry of
Communication and Culture.
Wednesday, November 9 Reception to follow at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender (754 Schermerhorn Extension)
Free and open to the public
Please join Egyptian director Hala Galal for a screening of her
documentary “Women's Chit Chat,” about generations of feminist
women in Egypt. Galal is one of the key figures in the founding of
the independent production company SEMAT, which has been
responsible for making some of the most interesting short and
documentary films coming out of Egypt in recent years, as well as
training young filmmakers and producing a film magazine. She is
also currently working together with Syrian director Omar Amiralay
on starting a new film school that will be traveling throughout the
region.
Along with "Women's Chit Chat," two other films, both by woman
directors and produced through SEMAT, will be shown at this special
evening of Egyptian films. These are a short film called “The
Elevator” and a short documentary called “Do You Know Why” about a
teenager trying to break into the world of film acting.
This special event takes place in the context of ArteEast's first
CinemaEast film festival, which will take place at the Quad Cinema
from November 4 to 10. In addition to a screening a selection of
films from throughout the region, ArteEast will offer a number of
workshops with visiting filmmakers and critics from the region,
dealing with a range of issues such as cinema of trauma and the
independent documentary.
Sponsored by ArteEast, the Middle East Institute of Columbia
University, the Columbia Institute for Research on Women and
Gender, the Columbia Department of Middle Eastern and Asian
Languages and Cultures, and Turath.
CANCELLED The approximately 25-28 million Kurds constitute the largest nation
in the world without a state. The desire of many Kurds for
statehood, or at least autonomy, has been refused for fear that it
would lead to the breakup of the states they inhabit. The de facto
state of Kurdistan in Iraq has great importance for Turkey and Iraq
in particular, while also impacting the policies of the United
States, Iran, Syria, and Israel, among others. Professor Gunter
will discuss Turkey’s EU candidacy in light of the Kurdish issue in
Turkey, how the Iraqi Kurds are influencing the current political
situation in Iraq, and Turkey’s concern over the current Kurdish
situation in Iraq.
Michael M. Gunter is a professor of political science at Tennessee
Technological University. He is the author of five critically
praised scholarly books on the Kurdish question, the most recent
being Kurdish Historical Dictionary and The Kurdish Predicament in
Iraq: A Political Analysis. He is frequently interviewed about the
Kurdish question by the national and international press.
Presented in cooperation with the Department of Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures
Date: Friday, November 11 Join Palestinian poet and writer Nathalie Handal, Egyptian poet, educator, and activist Matthew Shenoda, and Iranian poet and translator Sholeh Wolpe in a discussion on poetry, politics, history, and decolonization.
Each poet will discuss the challenges and advantages of being a Middle Eastern-American/North African poet in today's climate, teaching Arab American/North African and Middle Eastern Literature, and what fuels their work. Discussion open to audience.
Date: Monday, November 14 Suad Amiry provides an original, ironic, and humorous look at the
day-to-day absurdities and agonies of being a Palestinian living on
the West Bank from the early 1980s to the present day. She recounts
her frustrations with West Bank life, including having her one
month visitor’s permit torn up on her wedding day, as well as the
joys of meeting her husband and hanging out with friends. The book
also describes the bombardment of Arafat’s headquarters in
Ramallah, the curfews, and the destruction of the historic district
of Nablus.
"Extremely funny…[the book] provides unique insights into life under
occupation. This powerful little volume should be required reading
for American neocons and all those involved in prosecuting the war
on terror. Amiry’s acute ear for gossip makes it almost a kind of
Palestinian ‘Desperate Housewives’." Suad Amiry is an architect and the founder and director of RIWAQ,
Centre for Architectural Conservation, in Ramallah. She studied
architecture at the American University of Beirut and at the
universities of Michigan and Edinburgh, participated in the 1991-93
Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations in Washington, DC, and from
1994-96 was assistant deputy minister and director general of the
Ministry of Culture in Palestine. She was awarded Italy's
Viareggio-Versilia Prize in 2004 for this book.
Date: Thursday, November 17 "Coffins on Our Shoulders" provides an original analysis of the
Arab-Israeli conflict, combining the unique perspectives of Israeli
Jews and the Palestinian citizens of Israel. Written jointly by an
Israeli anthropologist and a Palestinian family therapist, the book
merges the personal and the political as it explores the various
stages of the conflict, from the 1920s to the present. The authors
weave family history into a sophisticated multidisciplinary
analysis of the political drama that continues to unfold in the
Middle East. Offering an authoritative inquiry into the traumatic
events of October 2000, when thirteen Palestinian citizens of
Israel were killed by Israeli police during political
demonstrations, the book culminates with a radical blueprint for
reform.
"A fascinating work. Rabinowitz and Abu-Baker succeed not only in
challenging many basic assumptions and stereotypes about the
victims of the Arab-Israeli conflict, but also in undermining much
of the public discourse on the Palestinian minority inside Israel" Dan Rabinowitz is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and
Anthropology at Tel-Aviv University and Khawla Abu-Baker is Senior
Lecturer in the Department of Behavioral Science at Emek Yizrael
College.
+ Events - SPRING 2005
The Middle East Institute, MEALAC and the East Central European
Center invite you to an evening with film director Roni Aboulafia
Wednesday, February 2, 2005, 8PM We will screen two of her films, both of which premiered at the 2004
Jerusalem Film Festival. Discussion will follow.
Ida Fink-Traces (Israel 2004, 50 minutes)
A film by Roni Aboulafia and Uri Cohen (Hebrew/Polish with English
subtitles)
The writer Ida Fink was born in Zbaraz, (now in Ukraine), to a
Jewish family. On the eve of World War II she began to study music
at the Lvov Conservatory. In 1941, under the Nazi occupation, Ida
Fink survived 4 selections and worked as a forced laborer. With the
liquidation of the ghetto, she and her sister disguised themselves
as Polish peasants and fled to Germany where they survived until
the end of the war in constant danger of being identified. In 1957,
she immigrated to Israel with her sister, father and husband Brunek,
a survivor of four camps. She has written one novel Podroz (THE
JOURNEY) (1990) and two collections of stories Skrawek Czasu (A
SCRAP OF TIME) (1987), and Slady (TRACES) (1996) and was honored
with the Anne Frank Prize in 1985.
The film follows Ida on a vacation trip to the Galilee, accompanied
by Uri, a young writer who wants to understand her past. The film
moves between the hills of the Galilee, the kitchen and the porch
and between Hebrew, Israeli, and Polish literature focusing on Ida
and the history that she embodies in her life and writing. Above
all this is an attempt to touch the coattails of a great artist.
Followed by a short:
Meet Michael Oppenheim Roni Aboulafia is a graduate of Sam Spiegel Film and Television
School in Jerusalem, Israel. She regularly directs for TV magazine
shows and entertainment programs in Israel.
Uri Cohen is an Israeli writer and teaches Israeli literature and
culture at Columbia
Date: Thursday February 3, 2005 Craig Unger is the author of the New York Times bestseller, "House
of Bush, House of Saud: The Secret Relationship Between the World's
Two Most Powerful Dynasties", which was featured in Michael Moore's
Fahrenheit 9/11. He appears frequently as an analyst on terrorism
and Saudi-American relations on CNN, the ABC Radio Network and many
other broadcast outlets.
Craig Unger will discuss the Bush-Saudi relationship and how the
Bush administration turned a blind eye towards the Saudi role in
terror. He will also discuss Big Oil, the
neoconservative-evangelical alliance, and the roots of the Iraq
war.
Date: Thursday, February 24, 2005 Dr. Borsch will explore the socioeconomic impact of the Black Death
on Egypt and Western Europe. Starting with an analysis of the
disease and its transmission, the presentation will cover the
"classic" Western European economic response to the Black Death.
Dr. Borsch received his Ph.D. in History from Columbia University in
2002. He currently teaches World History and Middle Eastern History
at Assumption College. He is the author of numerous articles.
Date: Thursday, March 2, 2005 A documentary by Danae Elon
Director Danae Elon, daughter of Israeli intellectual Amos Elon,
grew up in Jerusalem and was taken care of by an Arab housekeeper,
whom her parents hired after the 6 Day War. Years later Danae goes
in search of Moussa Mahmoud Obeidallah, the man who cared for her
from the time she was a baby until she went into the army. Danae’s
journey takes her to Paterson, New Jersey, to visit with six of
Moussa’s eight sons, now settled in America’s largest Palestinian community and tending to families and
businesses of their own. Over the course of the documentary Danae
allows distances to come into focus: the distance between the
Obeidallah family and the left-leaning, well-intentioned Elons and
the distance between herself and her own father.
Co-sponsored by the Alliance Program
Date: March 3rd, 2005 Olivier Roy, PhD in political sciences from Sciences Po is a
research director at the CNRS in the "Iranian World" research unit
and Associate Scholar at the CERI. Olivier Roy will address the
question of the efforts of westernized Muslims to assert their
identity in a non-Muslim context and how the revival of Islam among
Muslims populations is often wrongly seen as a backlash against
westernization rather than as one of its consequences.
Date: Thursday March 24, 2005 Dr. Fahrad Khosrokhavr is a professor at the EHESS in Paris. His
research interests include sociology of religion, contemporary
Islam and Iran.
Dr. Fahrad Khosrokhavr will address the question of the subjectivity
of the jihadist people within activist or terrorist organizations
referring to Islam as their source of vindication. The brown bag
will focus on the way radicalization occurs mainly in Europe, among
the people, be they converts or second and third generation
Europeans of North African or Asian origin.
Co-sponsored by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute and Harriman
Institute
Date: Wednesday March 30, 2005 Mr. Miyahara will describe present threats to the stability and
peace and suggest what President Karzai and his government should
do and how the international community could support them for
winning Afghan people’s support, by quoting Japanese experiences.
Mr. Miyahara has served as Minister-Counselor and Deputy Chief of
Mission in the Embassy of Japan in Afghanistan since 2002. He is
conducting research on Japan’s role in facilitating the Bonn
Process and its contributions to consolidating peace and stability
in Afghanistan.
Date: Wednesday, March 30, 2005 The epic adventures of the legendary Baran the Bandit following his
release from prison. After serving 35 years, it is no surprise that
the world has changed dramatically. Still, Baran can't help but be
shocked to discover that his home village is now underwater thanks
to the construction of a new dam. He then heads for Istanbul to get
revenge upon his former best friend, the man who snitched on him and
stole his lover Keje. Along the way, Baran teams up with Cumali, a
tough young punk who finds the thief's old-fashioned ways rather
quaint. When Cumali gets into deep trouble with a crime boss, Baran
adds another vengeful task to his roster.
Date: Thursday March 31, 2005 A film by Anat Halachmi
Subliminal is described in the local rap scene as the "reinventor of
Hebrew language". He presents himself as the first proud Zionist
rapper. Similarly, Tamer (TN) an Arab rapper from Lod who became a
cultural icon for Israeli Arab youth, is no less proud of his
Palestinian identity. Just like Siamese twins, Subliminal and Tamer
are the two inseparable parts of the same unsolved conflict, which
defines our lives. A patriotic Zionist rapper and a nationalist
Arab rapper use the power of words and music to state as loud as
they can what politicians in Israel can’t seem to put into words.
Channels of Rage won an award for 'Best Documentary' at the
Jerusalem International Film Festival.
Co-sponsored by the Center for Energy, Marine Transportation and Public Policy
Date: Thursday, March 31, 2005 The talk will center on the meaning of the booming economic
relations between Saudi Arabia and China. It will show that China
is shortly going to overcome the US as the Saudi's main trading
partner, and that Saudi Arabia has a key role in the Chinese's
ability to dominate the trade deficit with the US.
Dr. Seznec has been an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University's
Middle East Institute for 18 years and at Georgetown University for
three years. His research centers on the influence of the
Arab-Persian Gulf political and social variables on the financial
and oil markets in the region.
Date: April 5, 2005 Co-sponsored by the Turkish Initiative
Professor Sabri Sayari is the Executive Director of the Institute of
Turkish Studies and a Research Professor in the School of Foreign
Service at Georgetown University. Prior to his current position, he
was a Senior Staff Member at the National Academy of Sciences'
National Research Council (1992-94), a Resident Consultant at the
RAND Corporation (1985-93), and a Professor of Political Science at
Bogazici University in Istanbul (1974-84). Dr. Sayari holds B.A and
Ph.D. degrees from Columbia University. He has also taught at
Rutgers University, and served as a Visiting Professor at Columbia,
University of California, Irvine, and Aarhus University in Denmark.
Dr. Sayari has published extensively on Turkey's domestic politics
and foreign policy, and on issues concerning political development,
democratization, and international political economy. His most
recent publications include "Turkey and the Middle East in the
1990s" Journal of Palestine Studies (1997), "Between Allies and
Neighbors: Turkey's Burden Sharing Policy in the Gulf Conflict" in
Andrew Bennett et al (eds), Friends in Need: Burden Sharing in the
Gulf War (St. Martin's Press, 1997), and "Parties, Party Systems,
and Economic Reforms: The Turkish Case," Studies in Comparative
International Development (1997).
By Fareed Mohamedi
Date: April 6, 2005 Fareed Mohamedi is Senior Director, Country Strategies and Analysis,
PFC Energy, a Washington based energy consultancy.
He will review the latest developments in the geopolitics of energy
security and how the large producer and consuming countries are
adapting to perceptions of future constraints in oil production
worldwide.
Date: Thursday April 7, 2005 Marvine Howe takes us behind Morocco's exotic facade to discover the
largely tolerant Muslim country, struggling to catch up with modern
times and cope with the penetration of political Islam, sweeping
the world. Marvine Howe, a former reporter for The New York Times, began her
career as a free-lance journalist in North Africa. She will be
talking about her latest book: "Morocco: The Islamist Awakening
and Other Challenges".
Date: Monday, April 11, 2005 Amira Hass was born in Jerusalem in 1957, the daughter of
Yugoslavian-Jewish refugees. A journalist for the Hebrew daily
Ha'aretz, she covers Gaza and the West Bank. She received the UPI's
International Award and the Sokolow Prize, Israel's highest honor
for journalists, and received UNESCO's Guillermo Camo World Press
Freedom Prize in 2003. Hass is the only Jewish Israeli
correspondent on Palestinian affairs to live among the people about
whom she reports. She is the author of Drinking the Sea at Gaza:
Days and Nights in a Land Under Siege (Metropolitan/Owl, 2000) and
Reporting from Ramallah: An Israeli Journalist in an Occupied Land
(Semiotext(e), 2003).
On the 90th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide
Date: Wednesday April 13, 2005 Speaker: Vahakn N. Dadrian Chair: Mark Mazower Date: Thursday April 14, 2005 Gal Levy is a lecturer in the MA program in Democracy Studies at the
Open University in Israel. His research focuses on the relationship
between education, ethnicity and citizenship, and most recently, on
the education of labor-migrant children and Arab education.
Seeking an explanation to the becoming of the Arab minority in
Israel 'bearers of liberal citizenship rights', Gal Levy will
explore the role of the state in delineating the boundaries of
citizenship and ethnicity which allow and delimit their political
and social incorporation.
Date: Thursday, April 21, 2005 Elizabeth Bishop teaches nineteenth- and twentieth-century Arab
history at the University of Texas at Austin. Her work emphasizes
public and private spheres and the region's nation-states. She is
currently completing a monograph on gendered modernities.
Elizabeth Bishop will discuss women’s oppression of other women. Her
observations might profitably be extended to imperialism so as to
consider Gertrude Bell’s body and its mobile signification among
flows of bodies, credit, and weapons.
Date:April 25th, 2005 Panel speakers: Date: Wednesday April 27, 2005 The Middle East Institute invites you to its End of Year Party.
Please join us for Middle Eastern food and wine.
Date: Thursday April 28, 2005 Fawwaz Traboulsi is a writer, translator and academic. He teaches
History and Political Science at the Lebanese American University
in Beirut. In addition to his fields of specialization, Traboulsi
has written extensively on criticism, foklore, memory and culture.
His most recent translations are Edward Said’s Out of Place and his
posthumous Humanism and Democratic Critique. Traboulsi is presently
working on a History of Modern Lebanon.
Date: April 28th, 2005 Co-sponsored by "The Baha'i Association of Columbia Law School"
1) "U.S. Policy and its Implications for Human Rights in Iran" Gary Sick served on the National Security Council staff under
Presidents Ford, Carter and Reagan. He was the principal White
House aide for Iran during the Iranian Revolution and the hostage
crisis and is the author of two books on U.S.-Iranian relations. He
is a member (emeritus) of the board of Human Rights Watch in New
York and chairman of its Middle East and North Africa advisory
committee.
2) "Women's Rights in Iran" Elahe Sharifpour-Hicks is one of the leading commentators and
advocates on human rights issues in Iran. She is the current
Program Director of the "Human Rights and Policy Group" in New
York. Prior to that, she worked at the "United Nations Office of
the High Commissioner for Human Rights" focusing on Iraq. She has
also worked for "Human Rights Watch, Middle East and North Africa
Division" where she conducted five unique human rights fact-finding
missions to Iran.
3) "The Patterns of Human Rights Violations in Iran: The
Implications for a
New Human Rights Strategy" Ramin Ahmadi is a Professor at Yale University and is one of the
founders of the "Iran Human Rights Documentation Center". He has
also founded the "Griffin Center for Health and Human Rights" and
has developed numerous curriculum on Health and Human Rights at
Yale University.
4) "Religious persecution as a crime against humanity" Payam Akhavan is a Senior Fellow at Yale Law School and the Yale
University Genocide Studies Program. He is President and
Co-Founder of the Iran Human Rights Documentation Centre, and was
previously Legal Advisor to the Prosecutor of the International
Criminal Tribunals for former Yugoslavia and Rwanda at the Hague.
He has advised the UN and Governments on transitional justice and
human rights in Cambodia, East Timor, Eritrea, Guatemala, Peru, and
Uganda.
For more info: Contact Nima Yousefian (Ny2120@columbia.edu)
+ Events - FALL 2004
Date: September 14, 2004 Dennis Ross was U.S. Envoy to the Middle East 1988-2000 and is currently counselor
and Ziegler distinguished fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
He will talk about his new book, the history of the Middle East peace process,
the prospects for peace, and America's current and future role in the region.
Click here for the Press Release.
Date: September 21, 2004 Gilles Kepel, the noted French historian of Islam and the Middle East will be
speaking about his new book, The War for Muslim Minds:
Islam and the West. Gilles Kepel is a researcher at the Centre
National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and teaches at the
Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris. Some of his other books include:
Jihad, the Trail of Political Islam, Muslim Extremism in Egypt: The Prophet
and Pharaoh, Bad Moon Rising, and Allah in the West: Islamic Movements in America and Europe.
Click here for the Press Release.
Date: Thursday, September 30, 2004 A look at the attitudes of American Jews toward Zionism, the Israeli state, the peace process, and the state of affairs since the Al-Aqsa Intifada.
Sam Freedman is a Professor at Columbia University’s School of Journalism. He also works as the education columnist for The New York Times, and is the author of four books, including “Jew Vs. Jew: The Struggle for the Soul of American Jewry", published in 2001.
Date: Thursday, October 7, 2004 Safa Abu-Rabia will be telling the special story of her community, Palestinian Bedouins from the Negev. She will also be talking about her work for women rights and for reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians.
Hannah Safran is a veteran feminist and peace activist. She will talk about the Israeli society, joint Israeli-Palestinian activism for reconciliation and peace, and her work to promote women rights for Israeli and Palestinian women.
Date: Thursday, October 7, 2004 Tanya Reinhart is a Professor of linguistics at Tel Aviv University and writes a bi-weekly political column for Israel's largest newspaper, Yediot Ahronot. Poet Aharon Shabtai will speak about his latest book, “J'accuse”, winner of the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation.
Date: Wednesday, October 13, 2004 Screening of "Assyrians in Armenia", an English language documentary with Aramaic (Syriac) dialogue.
Date: Thursday, October 14, 2004 Zaid A. Zaid is a first year Richard Paul Richman Fellow at Columbia Law School and a Foreign Service Officer. He served most recently in Baghdad as the liaison between the Coalition Provisional Authority and the Iraqi Governing Council. He will talk about his experiences at the US Mission to the United Nations in the lead up the war in Iraq and about his experiences in Baghdad.
Date: Monday, October 18, 2004 Are you looking for an internship in the Middle East or in a field related to the region? Come hear all about your fellow students’ experiences! You will have the opportunity to ask questions and meet with other students interested in the Middle East. Pizza and drinks will be served!!
Please register on SIPATRAK for this event.
Date: Tuesday October 19, 2004 Dr Mai Yamani was born a Saudi national and became one of the
leading British experts on Saudi politics and sociology.
She is now a research fellow with the Middle East Programme at the
Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House and writes
and broadcasts frequently on Saudi affairs.
Mai Yamani's latest book, "Cradle of Islam - the Hijaz and the Quest
for an Arabian Identity" (2004) will be available for purchase during the event.
Date: Thursday October 28, 2004 Four years after his rise to power, all bets remain on the ability
of the young Syrian President to deliver on the long overdue reform
of his country's internal and foreign policies. Can he still
deliver? Ammar Abdulhamid is a Syrian novelist and social analyst living in
Damascus.
Date: Thursday, November 4, 2004 Are you interested in spending some time studying a local language in the Middle East? Come hear all about your fellow students’ experiences. They have studied Arabic, Persian, Turkish or Hebrew and they will be there to answer your questions about the programs they attended and about fellowship opportunities (FLAS…).
The Middle East Institute in collaboration with The Institute for
Research on Women and Gender, and Qanun--the Middle Eastern Law
Students Association.
Date: Monday, November 8, 2004 Qudsia Mirza is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of East
London. Kate Stoneman is a Visiting Professor of Law and Democracy,
Albany Law School.
Qudsia Mirza, editor of the forthcoming book, Islamic Feminism and
the Law, and author of numerous publications on critical race
theory, feminism and law, and women and Islamic law will discuss
the new interpretive methodologies in contemporary Islamic feminism
and the implications that these have for law and the creation of
gendered legal rights.
*Schermerhorn is just north of Fayerweather and Avery, themselves
north of St. Paul Chapel on the main campus. After entering the
building turn right then left; follow the green tile floor to the
elevator. This is Schermerhorn Extension; seminar room is on the
7th floor.
From the American Studies Association
Date: Tuesday November 16, 2004 With the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq continuing, what does
American Studies in the Middle East look like? Two American Studies
practitioners, Mounira Souliman from Cairo University and Patrick
McGreevey of the American University of Beirut, will discuss these
issues and their experiences.
Date: Tuesday November 16, 2004 Co-sponsored by the Alliance Program
Georges Corm is by profession an economist, specialized in the
Middle Eastern and Mediterranean region. He is a well-known
consultant to International Organization and central banks as well
as the former Finance Minister for Lebanon. In addition to his
academic articles and books on economic and financial issues, he is
also the author of articles and books pertaining to the contemporary
history and sociology of the Arab East.
Date: Wednesday November 17, 2004 Co-sponsored by the Alliance Program.
Olivier Roy is research director at the CNRS in the "Iranian World"
research unit, a specialist of Afghanistan, Central Asia and of
Islam.
Olivier Roy will discuss his latest book, "Globalized Islam"
(Columbia University Press, 2004). Globalization of Islam refers to
the "passage to the West" entailed by the growing influence of
Western consumption habits, cultural models and sociological
behaviors inside Muslim societies.
Date: Wednesday December 1st, 2004 The Middle East Institute invites you to its End of Year Party.
Please join us for Middle Eastern food and wine.
Date: Tuesday December 7, 2004 "Out for Love...Be Back Soon", is a groundbreaking documentary
picturing Dan Katzir in Israel torn by the Oslo agreements and the
violent protest against them. The author’s quest for love runs
along with the quest for peace, culminating with the murder of P.M
Yitzchak Rabin.
Dan Kazir's grandfather - Aharon Katzir, was killed by the notorious
Japanese terrorist Kozo Akomoto at Ben Gurion Airport in 1972.
Aharon's brother - Efraim became the fifth president of Israel
1973-1978.
Co-sponsored by The Columbia Iranian Students Association and the
SIPA Iranian Transition
Movie Screening of "Children of Heaven" - Bacheha-Ye Aseman
Date: Wednesday, December 8, 2004 Join us for our second movie screening of the year..."Children of
Heaven" directed by Majid Majidi. "Children of Heaven" has recently
become Iran's first-ever Oscar Nominee for Best Foreign Language
Picture (1998).
Set in modern-day Iran, the story tells of an eight-year-old boy Ali
and his younger sister, Zahra, who are accustomed to shouldering
much responsibility. When Ali loses Zahra's only-and recently
mended-pair of shoes, the siblings are too scared to tell their
father about the loss and can't afford to buy another pair. When
the shoes are finally found on another girl, who probably needs
them just as much, it's up to the boy to find a way to get his
sister a new pair of shoes. A fascinating film about the lower
rungs of society, where what you wear on your feet says much about
your status.
Date: Thursday December 9, 2004 Rita E. Hauser is President of The Hauser Foundation. She is an
international lawyer and of counsel to the New York City law firm,
Stroock & Stroock & Lavan where she was a senior partner for more
than twenty years. Dr. Hauser was appointed by President George W.
Bush to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and to
the Intelligence Oversight Board.
+ Events - SPRING 2004
Mehrangiz Kar, is a human rights lawyer, writer, essayist, and former editor of the
now-banned Zan literary review. Her work as an activist for women's rights often put her
in conflict with the Iranian authorities. Kar has published widely on women's issues in Iran.
Her publications include Children of Addiction: Social and Legal Position of the Children of
Addicted Parents in Iran (1990); Quest for Identity: the Image of Iranian Women in Prehistory
and History (1992).
Monday, May 3rd, 2004 Prof. Hadian is a Visiting Adjunct Professor at Columbia’s
Department of Middle Eastern and Asian Languages and Cultures. He
is a member of the faculty of Law and Politics at the University of
Tehran, and has contributed to various publications with regard to
Iranian domestic politics.
Thursday, April 29th, 2004 Prof. Greilsammer is a full Professor in Comparative Politics and
Israeli Politics at the Department of Political Science of Bar-
Ilan University (Ramat-Gan, Tel-Aviv) and Director of the Center
for European Studies of Bar-Ilan University. He is the author of a
dozen of books on French politics and Israeli politics.
He holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Paris I
(Panthéon-Sorbonne).
Monday, April 19th, 2004 Born in Egypt, Prof. Ibrahim received his education at Cairo University and U. of Washington. He is also the founder and first Secretary General of the Arab Organization for Human Rights (1983-87). Because of their advocacy of democracy and defense of human rights, he and 27 of his associates were arrested in 2000, tried and convicted twice and sentenced by an Egyptian State Security Court to 7 years at hard labor. Upon an appeal Egypt's highest Court of Cassation tried him a third time, acquitted him and his 27 associates of all charges. Saad Ibrahim is a visiting professor this Spring at Columbia University and New York University.
Monday, April 12th, 2004 Bill Berkeley is a former reporter and editorial writer for The New York Times and the
author of The Graves Are Not Yet Full -- Race, Tribe and Power in the Heart of Africa (2001).
Prof. Berkeley has just returned from his second journey to Iran this year. He will give
an update on his current book project, a reexamination of the Iran hostage crisis as seen
from the vantage point of a generation later. He is focusing on the surviving Iranian
hostage-takers, some of whom have emerged in middle age as leading figures in Iran's
embattled reformist movement, in vehement opposition to the ruling mullahs in whose
name they acted in their youth.
The talk was videotaped and can be viewed at http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/media/04/291_iran_hostage_crisis_reform
Thursday, April 8, 2004 Dr. Keyder is a Sociology Professor at Bogazici University in Istanbul and at SUNY-Binghamton.
Most recently, he is the author of From the Ottoman Empire to the European Union (in Turkish).
He is also the author of State and Class in Turkey, and he edited and contributed to
Istanbul: Between the Global and the Local.
Thursday, April 1st, 2004 Dr. Shmuel Sandler is currently The Sara and Simha Lainer Professor
in Democracy and Civility at Bar-Ilan University. He is also an
Associate at The Begin-Sadat Center For Strategic Studies. His
research interests include Religion and International Relations,
International Politics and Comparative Government; The Arab-Israeli
Conflict; Israeli Politics and Foreign Policy; and Ethnonational
Politics and Foreign Policy. Dr. Sandler has authored numerous
books, articles, and reviews. His most recent book, in
collaboration with Jonathan Fox, is Bringing Religion Back to
International Relations.
Thursday, March, 25th Mr. Dunbar is a SIPA alumnus. He was a U.S. diplomat for 31 years
and served as Ambassador to Yemen during the 1991 Gulf War.
Earlier, he was Ambassador to Qatar and Chargé d'Affaires in Kabul
during the Soviet Union's occupation of Afghanistan. He also served in Iran,
Afghanistan, Morocco, Algeria, and
Mauritania. In 1998, he was Secretary-General Kofi Annan's Special
Representative responsible for the U.N.'s effort to organize a
referendum in Western Sahara, which has been occupied by Morocco
since 1975.
Thursday, March 11th, 2004 Peter Sluglett has been Professor of Middle Eastern History at the
University of Utah, Salt Lake City, since 1994; he taught at the
University of Durham between 1974 and 1993. His doctoral thesis,
published as Britain in Iraq,1914-1932 in 1976, was on the British
mandate in Iraq; he is also co-author (with the late Marion Farouk-
Sluglett, of Iraq since 1958: from Revolution to Dictatorship (3rd
revised edition, 2001). He has just edited a large collective
volume on the comparative history of the British and French
mandates in the Middle East, and is working on a monograph on the
social history of Aleppo between the late nineteenth century and
the end of the French mandate.
Thursday, March 4th, 2004 This event will be held in the Dag Hammarskjold Lounge, 6th Floor,
International Affairs Building on Thursday, February 19th, 2004, from 12-2 PM.
Featured speakers include: Moderator: Thursday, February 19th, 2004 Ambassador Ahmad Kamal served as a professional diplomat in the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Pakistan for close to forty years.
During this period he held diplomatic postings in India, Belgium,
France, the Soviet Union, Saudi Arabia, and with the United Nations
both in Geneva and in New York.
Thursday, February 12th, 2004 Alexei Vasiliev is the director of the Institute of African and
Arab Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and editor-in-chief
of Asia and Africa Today. He has written extensively on relations
between Russia and the Middle East.
Monday, February 9th, 2004 Mr. Aburaya is a Postdoctoral Fellow in Political Science at Brown University.
Thursday, February 5th, 2004 + Events - FALL 2003
Cultural Heritage and Human Rights Under Fire by Nermin Al-Mufty and Amal Al-Khedairi
Monday, December 1st, 12:30pm - 2:00pm Dag Lounge, 6th floor International Affairs Building
Nermin Al-Mufty received her B.A. in Journalism at University of
Baghdad. She is currently a full time journalist with the CNN
office in Baghdad. Amal Al-Khedairi has devoted her life entirely
to the arts. In 1988, she opened an art and cultural center in
Baghdad in her family home, where she features the works of
contemporary Iraqi artists.
"Building Civil Society: A Report on the Independent Press in
Morocco" with guest Aboubakr Jamai.
Monday, November 24, 2003 4:00pm - 6:00pm Dag Lounge, 6th Floor
International Affairs Building
Mr. Jamai is the publisher of Le Journal Hebdomadaire, Morocco's
first independent newsweekly. He is a recipient of the Committee
to Protect Journalists 2003 International Press Freedom Award for
his courage in reporting on "government corruption, corporate
impropriety and taboo political topics."
Tuesday, November 18, 2003 Sponsored by the Society of Fellows in the Humanities, the Center
for Comparative Literature and Society, Middle East and Asian
Literatures and Culture, the Middle East Institute and ArteEast.
Mr. Cypel is editor-in-chief of Le Monde. He is the former general
director of Courrier International, a French weekly. Mr. Cypel
holds a Masters Degree in Contemporary History from the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem.
Dan Rabinowitz, an anthropologist, is a senior lecturer in
sociology and anthropology at Tel-Aviv University. A regular
contributor to the op-ed page of Haaretz, he is a leading
commentator on politics, environmental issues and society in Israel
and the Middle East.
Dr. Burgat is currently chargé de recherches at the Centre National
Francais pour la Recherche Scientifique. He was the director of the
French Center for Yemeni Studies. He has written extensively on
political and ideological change in Islamic movements in the
contemporary Arab world, as well as on Muslims in Europe and the
West. He is the author, most recently, of Face to Face with
Political Islam.
Cultural Critique and Cultural Malaise
Tuesday, November 11th, 12:30pm – 2:00pm, Room 1134 Professor Kassab will present and discuss the feminist
contributions to the issues of cultural malaise and cultural
critique that have dominated Arab debates for the last century. How
and where is the “Woman Question” located in the colonial and post-
colonial discourse? What are the critical contributions of
feminists concerning post-colonial and post-independence tensions?
Ambassador Zarif was in Tehran throughout the negotiations with the
IAEA and the European foreign ministers about Iran's nuclear
program and he will share first-hand perspectives.
Yoav Peled is a Professor of Political Science at Tel Aviv
University. He received his PhD in Political Science from UCLA in
1982. He is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Center for the
Critical Analysis of Contemporary Culture at Rutgers.
Writer, Journalist, and translator, Najem Wali was born in Al-
Amarah (Iraq) in 1956. He currently lives in Hamburg, where he is a
reporter for Al-Hayat, the largest Arab Newspaper. He published a
number of novels and collection of short stories, among which "A
Place named Koweit," which is the portrait of contemporary Iraq
during the Gulf War.
+ Events - SPRING 2003
+ Events - FAll 2002
+ Events - SPRING 2002
A Panel Discussion Featuring Journalists from Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates + Events - FAll 2001
Lisa Anderson Thursday, September 13th A Discussion of Origins of Terrorist Attacks against America and Analysis of U.S. Response.
Ali M. Ansari Thursday, September 20th Democratic Reform in Iran and Implications of the September 11 Terrorist Attack for Relations between the U.S. and Iran.
Peter J. Sinnott Thursday, September 27th Relations between Central Asian states and anti-Taliban forces in Northern Afghanistan- The role of the United States
Gary G. Sick Wednesday, September 26th Implications of the September 11 Terrorist Attacks for the United States and the World and Ways to combat International Terrorism.
Jean-François Seznec Thursday, October 4th 2001 The Use of Gulf States’ Moneychangers for the Financing of Terrorist Operations and the Financing of the September 11 Attack
Fawaz Gerges Wednesday, October 10th 2001 Common Misperceptions of the United States in the Arab/Muslim Public Opinion
John Lister Thursday, October 18th 2001 Life in the Gaza Strip and the Impact of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict on the Lives of Gaza Citizens
Dr. Barham Salih Wednesday, October 17th 2001 Achievements and Prospects of the Kurdish Autonomous Administration in Northern Iraq
Monday, October 22 The Plight of Women in Afghanistan under the Taliban Regime
Patrick N. Theros Wednesday, October 24th 2001 The Impact of U.S. Relations with Qatar and the Gulf States after the September 11 Attacks.
Maha Muna Wednesday, October 31st 2001 Sarah Grow, MIA2, Turkey Tuesday, November 20th 2001 Internship Experiences and Opportunities in Middle Eastern Countries, as Discussed by Students, who have interned in the Region
Dr. Emmanuel Sivan Wednesday, December 5th 2001 Douglas Newton, US Dept. of Energy Wednesday, December 5th Dr. Bruce Rutherford Thursday, December 6th 2001 Amaney A. Jamal Monday, December 10th 2001 This conference is presented by former students of Professor Edward
Allworth in honor of his career at Columbia University's Middle East and
Asian Languages and Cultures Department and at the Harriman Institute as
the Professor of Turco-Soviet Studies and the founder of the Nationalities
Program. The conference is organized by the Caspian Project of Columbia
University at the School of International and Public Affairs.
Dr. Murhaf Jouejati Wednesday, December 12, 2001 + Events - SPRING 2001
+ Events - WINTER 2001
+ Events - FAll 2000
Acting Director Dr. Gary Sick kicked off the Fall 2000 Brown Bag Series by discussing the current political situations in Iran and Iraq. He argued that it was critical for the United States to pay more attention to rebuilding and nurturing political and economic ties with Iran. In the case of Iraq, Dr. Sick suggested that the US should not be the cause of economic devastation.
Barbara Ibrahim spoke about the arrest of her husband Sa'ad Eddin Ibrahim a well-known Egyptian professor and intellectual by the Egyptian government. She argued that her husband had been arrested due to his political views, and that the arrest is a clear case of human rights violations and a threat to academic freedom and other forms of freedom in Egypt.
Mr. Abu-Hamad maintained that the Prince has already begun the process of reform. However, its success will depend on regional and global factors.
Ms. Sciolino presented her recently published book and discussed the current social and political environment in Iran.
Mr. Zahid argued that women had no problems in Afghanistan, and that all women's problems could be reduced to financial and economic factors. Women, according to him, would have broad rights in terms of education and profession if there be more financial means to support such programs.
Mr. Gunter asserted that the US treatment of Qaddaffi has been unfair and arbitrary. The US has not followed the policies it applies to other authoritative and adversarial regimes in its dealing with Libya. He argued that the State Department was going for Qaddafi's jugular arbitrarily.
Director of UN Studies, Professor Weinberger, DIPA Economist Professor Weissman, and Political Science Ph.D. candidate Awad discussed the Aqsa Intifada in Israel and the Palestine National Authority wondering whether the Oslo peace agreement was dead, whether it could or even should be revived. The three panelists generally agreed that a short-term goal was an end to the violence and a long-term goal was the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Palestinian territories, as well as the establishment of an autonomous Palestinian state.
Ms. Abdo spoke about the increasing social and cultural Islamization of Egyptian society. This Islamization, she pointed out, was a cultural development and lacked a political dimension. The Egyptian population might simply have rediscovered its piety.
Olivier Roy of the Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, focused on identity changes in Central Asia, especially in Farghana where so many Central Asian nations meet betwixt Soviet designed borders. He focused on how Islam affects identity in this area of newly independent states.
Barak Barfi (JTS) jashar@umich.edu Shirabe Yamada (SIPA, MIA 1) shirabey@yahoo.com Samar Mussa Al-Bulushi (CC'01/ SIPA, MIA 1) sma42@columbia.edu BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights Bethlehem Heidi Altman (SIPA, MIA 1) heidi_altman@yahoo.com B'Tselem, Israeli organization doing human rights work in occupied territories, Israel Yasmine Mahdavi (SIPA, MPA 2) ym179@columbia.edu United Nations Regional Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia Beirut, Lebanon Neguin Yavari ny71@columbia.edu Kareem Fahim kf210@columbia.edu Michael Morefield (CC'01) msm49@columbia.edu The journalists argued that the US media presentation of the Middle East conflict is biased and pro-Israeli.
Mr. Goodman argued that Yassir Arafat shows inability to commit himself to co-existence, which is due to his ideology. He also argued that Arafat manipulates the street situation. Security, Mr. Goodman argued, was the ultimate unifying factor of Israeli political opinion.
With:
Chaired by:
Dr. Bechri talked about the limitations imposed by the state on the academic freedom of its citizens.
Dr. Elsadda gave a history of women's liberation and struggles for freedom in the past century.
Dr. Djerbal presented the audience with the history of violations against academic freedom in Algiers and recent forms of attacks on democratic freedoms.
Dr. Fakhro spoke on the academic environment in Bahrain.
Dr. Tamari argued that it wasn't so much the limitations set by states that offset the flourishing of academia generally, but a general lack of academic production in the universities due to the lack of books and the influx of students from rural areas whose views are more conservative.
After the conference, the panelists took questions from the audience.
Mr. Howe focused on Turkey's admission to EU.
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