Past Events

 

2019 Annual Kuwait Chair Lecture: “Force or Diplomacy: The Conundrum of American Middle East Policy” Featuring Amb. Edward W. Gnehm Jr.

Wednesday, 5/15/2019, 5:00pm - 6:00pm

Amb. Gnehm discusses the conundrum the U.S. faces in protecting its interests in the Middle East.

Book Launch: Matt Buehler, “Why Alliances Fail: Islamist and Leftist Coalitions in North Africa”

Wednesday, 4/24/2019, 12:00pm - 1:30pm

Since 2011, the Arab world has seen a number of autocrats, including leaders from Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Yemen, fall from power. Yet, in the wake of these political upheavals, only one state, Tunisia, transitioned successfully from authoritarianism to democracy.

The Americanization of English Teaching in Israel: How Chicago Jews Created Hollywood Hills in Tel-Aviv with Eitan Bar Yosef

Monday, 4/22/2019, 12:30pm - 2:00pm

The creative, entertaining and sometimes zany English instruction programs, produced by the Israeli Educational Television in the 1970s, abandoned the respectability associated with “Shakespeare” in favor of the plots and images of American popular culture.

Issue Launch: “Middle East Report: The Fight for Yemen” with Jillian Schwedler, Kate Kizer, and Waleed Alhariri

Friday, 4/19/2019, 4:00pm - 5:30pm

The ongoing war in Yemen that began in 2015 has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters. While critical awareness of the magnitude of the crisis is growing, the political and economic roots of the crisis and the complex realities of Yemeni political life are often obscured by misunderstandings.

IMES 2019 Annual Conference: INFRASTRUCTURE, NEW MATERIALISM & THE AGENCY OF OBJECTS

2019 IMES Annual Conference: Infrastructure, New Materialism & the Agency of Objects

Friday, 4/19/2019, 8:00am - 4:30pm

This conference presents historic and contemporary academic work centered around the material dimensions of politics and power struggles in the Middle East and North Africa.

Book Launch: “Winning Hearts and Votes” with by Steven T. Brooke

Thursday, 4/11/2019, 12:00pm - 1:30pm

Steven Brooke argues that authoritarians often seek to manage moments of economic crisis by offloading social welfare responsibilities to non-state providers. But providers who serve poorer citizens, motivated by either charity of clientelism, will be constrained in their ability to mobilize voters because the poor depend on the state for many different goods.

Global Fables, Folklore and Fantasy

Global Fables, Folklore and Fantasy in Children’s & Youth Literature

Wednesday, 4/10/2019, 10:00am - 3:00pm

IMES Outreach Event

Book Launch: Lisel Hintz, “Identity Politics Inside Out: National Identity Contestation and Foreign Policy in Turkey”

Monday, 4/8/2019, 12:00pm - 1:30pm

Lisel Hintz will discuss her new book Identity Politics Inside Out: National Identity Contestation and Foreign Policy in Turkey, with POMEPS on Monday, April 8, 2019 at the Elliot School of International Affairs, Room 505.

For the War Yet to Come: Planning Beirut’s Frontiers with Hiba Bou Akar

Thursday, 4/4/2019, 5:00pm - 7:00pm

For the War Yet to Come examines urban planning in three neighborhoods of Beirut's southeastern peripheries, revealing how these areas have been developed into frontiers of a continuing sectarian order.

Navigating the New Middle East: Challenges and Obstacles to Fieldwork

Wednesday, 4/3/2019, 1:00pm - 3:00pm

Join us for a panel discussion on the difficulties facing academics conducting fieldwork in the Middle East.

Ungovernable Life: Mandatory Medicine and Statecraft in Iraq with Omar Dewachi

Thursday, 3/21/2019, 5:00pm - 7:00pm

Once the leading hub of scientific and medical training in the Middle East, Iraq's political and medical infrastructure has been undermined by decades of U.S.-led sanctions and invasions.

Book Launch: Ariel Ahram, “Break All the Borders”

Thursday, 3/21/2019, 12:00pm - 1:00pm

With detailed studies of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, the federalists in eastern Libya, the southern resistance in Yemen, and Kurdish nationalist parties, Ahram explains how separatists captured territory and handled the tasks of rebel governance, including managing oil exports, electricity grids, and irrigation networks.

Global Fables, Folklore and Fantasy in Children’s & Youth Literature

Wednesday, 3/20/2019, 5:15pm - 8:00pm

The Judge offers a portrait of Judge Kholoud Faqih, one of the first women to serve as a Palestinian family court judge.

Film Screening: By the Dawn’s Early Light: Chris Jackson’s Journey to Islam with Zareena Grewal

Thursday, 3/7/2019, 5:30pm - 7:00pm

Tracing his evolution from a media darling and icon of the American dream to an "un-American foreigner," this timely film documents the history of anti-Muslim racism and xenophobia through a simple, poignant story of one man's spiritual journey turned public trial.

Book Launch: Dina Bishara, “Contesting Authoritarianism: Labor Challenges to the State in Egypt”

Monday, 3/4/2019, 12:00pm - 1:30pm

Bishara examines the relationship between labour organizations and the state in Egypt to shed light on how political change occurs within an authoritarian government, and to show how ordinary Egyptians perceive the government’s rule.

Saving the Past for the People: A Critique of the “Universal” Heritage Model with Stephennie Mulder

Thursday, 2/21/2019, 5:00pm - 7:00pm

In this talk, Stephennie will argue that the dominant universalist model of archaeological heritage preservation, wherein heritage is envisioned as a property-based model belonging “to all humankind”, has in fact been an important motivation for the destruction of heritage in wartime and the alienation of local communities from their heritage following reconstruction.

Book Launch: Wendy Pearlman and Boaz Atzili, “Triadic Coercion: Israel’s Targeting of States that Host Nonstate Actors”

Thursday, 2/14/2019, 12:00pm - 1:30pm

Finding it difficult to fight these opponents directly, many governments instead target states that harbor or aid nonstate actors, using threats and punishment to coerce host states into stopping those groups.

Book Launch: Partitions A Transnational History of Twentieth-Century Territorial Separatism with Arie Dubnov & Laura Robson

Thursday, 1/31/2019, 5:00pm - 7:00pm

Making use of the transnational framework of the British Empire, which presided over the three major partitions of the twentieth century, contributors draw out concrete connections among the cases of Ireland, Pakistan, and Israel—the mutual influences, shared personnel, economic justifications, and material interests that propelled the idea of partition forward and resulted in the violent creation of new post-colonial political spaces.

Book Launch: Ziya Meral, “How Violence Shapes Religion: Belief and Conflict in the Middle East and Africa”

Thursday, 1/24/2019, 5:00pm - 6:00pm

Ziya Meral will discuss his new book, How Violence Shapes Religion: Belief and Conflict in the Middle East and Africa(Cambridge University Press, 2018), with POMEPS on Thursday, January 24, 2019 at the Elliott School of International Affairs, Room 505.