Tag Archives: middle east

Nationalism, Class, and Activism in Lebanon in the Shadow of Syrian Civil War

Nationalism, Class, and Activism in Lebanon in the Shadow of Syrian Civil War

Yasemin Ipek, Assistant Professor in the Global Affairs Program, George Mason University

Monday, April 1, 2019, 4:30-6 p.m.
Scheuer Room, Kohlberg Hall

Between 2011 and 2014, more than a million registered Syrian refugees came to Lebanon, making the tiny country host to the largest refugee population per capita in the world. Based on ethnographic research in Beirut between 2012 and 2015 with a wide-ranging set of actors such as unemployed NGO volunteers, middle-class social entrepreneurs, advocacy activists, the returning Lebanese diaspora, and Western aid workers, this talk examines the reconfigurations of Lebanese nationalism and sectarianism in the aftermath of the Syrian civil war. The Lebanese experience of activism, which has been transformed in the context of the Syrian civil war and the refugee crisis, questions the common theorizing that tends to romanticize activism as inherently subversive. The talk suggests that local framings of activism cannot be understood only through lenses of the liberal human rights discourse or neoliberalism, but are also tied to diverse postcolonial aspirations and practices related to national identity.

Co-sponsored by the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Islamic Studies, Global Studies, the Arabic section and Peace and Conflict Studies

Free and open to the public.

The Jamal Khashoggi Tragedy & Its Implications for the Middle East

Thursday, October 25, 2018
4:30 – 6:00 pm | INTERCULTURAL CENTER (Big Room)

Faculty Teach-In, Featuring

Sa’ed Atshan (Peace and Conflict Studies)
Osman Balkan (Political Science)
Farha Ghannam (Sociology and Anthropology)
Ahmad Shokr (History)

Beshara Doumani, Director of Middle East Studies at Brown University, to visit Swarthmore PCS on Monday, March 26, 2018

Join the Progam in Peace & Conflict Studies at Swarthmore College for a lecture presented by Prof. Beshara Doumani.

Date: Monday, March 26, 2018

Time: 4:30-6:00 PM

Location: Kohlberg 228

Between House and Orchard: Family, Shariʿa and the Making of the Modern Middle East

In writings about Islam, women, and modernity in the Middle East, family and religion are frequently invoked but rarely historicized. Based on a wide range of local sources, Beshara Doumani argues that there is no such thing as the Muslim or Arab family type that is so central to Orientalist, nationalist, and Islamist narratives. Rather, one finds dramatic regional differences, even within the same cultural zone, in the ways that family was understood, organized, and reproduced. In his comparative examination of the property devolution strategies and gender regimes in the context of local political economies, Doumani offers a groundbreaking examination of ordinary people and how they shaped the modern Middle East.

Beshara Doumani is the Joukowsky Family Professor of Modern Middle East History and Director of Middle East Studies at Brown University. His research focuses on groups, places, and time periods marginalized by mainstream scholarship on the early modern and modern Middle East. He also writes on the topics of displacement, academic freedom, politics of knowledge production, and the Palestinian condition. His books include Family Life in the Ottoman Mediterranean: A Social History, Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900, Academic Freedom After September 11 (editor), and Family History in the Middle East: Household, Property and Gender (editor). He is the editor of a book series, New Directions in Palestinian Studies, with the University of California Press.

This event is sponsored by Peace & Conflict Studies, Arabic, Gender & Sexuality Studies, History, Islamic Studies, Sociology & Anthropology, and the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility.

State Failure and War in the Middle East: A Conflict of Our Times

From our friends in the Political Science Department:

“State Failure and War in the Middle East: A Conflict of Our Times”

Wednesday 18th January
11:45 AM – 12:45 PM
Trotter 303
Swarthmore College

*Sandwiches will be provided

Please join us for a lunchtime talk with William Reno, Professor of Political Science & Director, Program of African Studies, Northwestern University. Professor Reno will speak about his ongoing research in the Middle East. A leading expert on political violence, the organization and behavior of insurgent groups and the politics of authoritarian regimes, Professor Reno is the author of Corruption and State Politics in Sierra Leone (Cambridge University Press, 1995), Warlord Politics and African States (Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998) and Warfare in Independent Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2011). He visits Swarthmore from Iraq.

Ben Taub, foreign correspondent to speak on Syria and Isis

The Daily Gazette presents Ben Taub, a highly successful foreign correspondent with numerous articles published in The New Yorker.

A little over 2 years ago, Ben Taub was a philosophy student at Princeton, and a recent contestant on “The Voice.” He has since reported extensively about ISIS recruiting and ordinary lives in war-torn Syria.

On October 17, he will speak at Swarthmore about how he got where he is, his work, and his experiences in war reporting.

Monday, Oct 17, 2016
7:30 p.m.
Lang Performing Arts Center Room 301
Swarthmore College (directions)
Facebook event page

Dr. Sa’ed Atshan to join faculty in Peace and Conflict Studies

We are thrilled to announce that Dr. Sa’ed Atshan will join the Peace and Conflict Studies program for the fall semester of 2015!

Professor Atshan will offer a range of exciting new courses!:

PEAC 003 Crisis Resolution in the Middle East (Spring 2016)
PEAC 015 Introduction to Peace and Conflict Studies (Fall 2015)
PEAC 043 Gender, Sexuality, and Social Change (Spring 2016)
PEAC 053 Israeli-Palestinian Conflict (Fall 2015)
PEAC 103 Humanitarianism: Anthropological Approaches (This is a two-credit seminar, cross-listed with ANTH) (Spring 2016)

Dr. Atshan graduated from Harvard University in 2013 with a Ph.D. in Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies. He holds an M.A. in Social Anthropology from Harvard, an MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School, and a B.A. in Political Science and Middle Eastern Studies from Swarthmore College. He is currently a post-doctoral fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University.

Over the past six years, Atshan has regularly taught “Introduction to Peace and Justice Studies” in the Peace and Justice Studies Program at Tufts University, where he has also taught courses on “The Arab Spring and Nonviolent Strategic Action” and “Gender, Sexuality, and Human Rights in the Middle East.”

Dr. Atshan designed and taught courses at Harvard and Brown on social movements in the Middle East and the Arab Spring, among other topics. He has earned four of Harvard’s excellence in undergraduate teaching awards along the way.

Sa’ed has won multiple awards and fellowships from important organizations that include the National Science Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, Social Science Research Council, and the Paul and Daisy Soros Foundation, and in 2009, he was awarded a Kathryn Davis Fellowship for Peace.

In addition to his work on humanitarian politics and aid intervention, Atshan has conducted research into nonviolent Israeli and Palestinian social movements, countering old characterizations of nonviolence as foreign to the region. Instead he discovers and reveals “co-resistance” or coalition and joint struggles for social justice between Israeli and Palestinian activists.

Professor Atshan has worked with a range of organizations that include Human Rights Watch, the American Civil Liberties Union, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Seeds of Peace International Camp, the Palestinian Negotiations Affairs Department, and Medical Aid for Palestinians, all indicating his commitment to the practical pursuit of peace and justice to which our field aspires.

We look forward to having such an innovative scholar and teacher join our program!

Omar Offendum: hip-hop, poetry, and peace

Omar Offendum will be coming to Swarthmore on Thursday, November 20th to give a hybrid performance/lecture.

In addition to performing some of his songs, he will speak about connections between the artistic community and the Arab uprisings, with a special focus on hip hop. Omar will also discuss his efforts to use art and music to raise humanitarian relief funds for Syrian refugees. Opening performance by OASiS.

Thursday November 20, 2014
4:30-6:30 p.m.
Science Center 101
Swarthmore College (directions)

Omar is a Syrian American hip-hop artist, designer, poet and peace activist. He was born in Saudi Arabia, raised in Washington, DC, and now lives in Los Angeles, California. He tours the world performing at international music festivals, lecturing at major academic institutions, and fundraising for humanitarian relief organizations. Most recently, Offendum has been involved in creating several critically acclaimed songs about the popular democratic uprisings throughout the Middle East & North Africa. He is also working on several new collaborative projects while touring to promote his solo work.

This event is sponsored by the Arabic Section (MLL), the Intercultural Center, the William Cooper Foundation, the Islamic Studies Program, the Peace and Conflict Studies Program, the Department of Music and Dance, and the Muslim Students Association.

Interreligious Dialogue in Israel and the Middle East

“The Other Peace Process: The Role of Interreligious Dialogue in Israel and the Middle East”

Sunday, October 26
4:00 pm
Kohlberg 116, Swarthmore College
Featuring Rabbi Dr. Ron Kronish

Founder and Director of the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel (ICCI) since 1992, Ron Kronish is also a noted rabbi, educator, author, lecturer and speaker. He has lived in Jerusalem for the past 35 years, serving as Director of the Israel Office of the American Jewish Committee, Director of Staff Development and later Co-Director for the Melitz Centers for Jewish Zionist Education, and lecturer in education at Tel Aviv University and at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Dr. Kronish lectures to a wide variety of groups in Israel, including synagogue groups, Jewish community missions and Jewish, Christian and interreligious groups. In addition, he has been a scholar-in-residence in universities, synagogues and communities across the United States, Canada and Europe and in the Far East.

Educated at Brandeis University (BA), Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion in New York (MHL, rabbinic ordination) and the Harvard Graduate School of Education (doctorate in philosophy and history of education), Dr. Kronish has published articles and essays on Jewish politics, faith communities and the peace process, as well as education, culture and contemporary issues in America and Israel. He has represented ICCI at the Vatican and at many international conferences, and is frequently consulted by media representatives for background information and briefings. In addition, he blogs regularly for the Times of Israel and the Huffington Post.

Dr. Kronish is the editor of a new book,: Coexistence and Reconciliation in Israel: Voices for Interreligious Dialogue (2015). In addition, he has edited: Towards the Twenty-first Century: Judaism and the Jewish People in Israel and America, an anthology in memory of his beloved father, Rabbi Leon Kronish, Toward the Third Millennium and Pilgrimage in a New Millennium. He lives in Jerusalem with his wife Amy and is the proud father of 3 wonderful daughters (and 3 wonderful sons-in-law) and the even prouder grandfather of 4 fabulous grandchildren.

Please join us for a lecture followed by refreshments and a question-and-answer session.

Hosted by J Street U and the Israeli Cultural Society. Funded by the Forum for Free Speech and Peace and Conflict Studies.

The Arab Spring, Four Years Later: Hope or Despair?

The Arab Spring, Four Years Later: Hope or Despair?
Lecture by Dr. Sean Yom, Temple University

Monday, Oct. 6, 4:30 p.m., Kohlberg Scheuer Room

Four years on, the Arab Spring had generated wildly contrasting outcomes. From democratization in Tunisia to authoritarian revival in Egypt to civil war in Syria, the regional wave of popular protest has certainly washed away the foundations of the old order.

Can democratization spread to other countries without incurring the risk of war? This lecture aims to answer this question, giving a bird’s eye view of different processes and events from a political scientist’s perspective.

Sean Yom is Assistant Professor of Political Science (comparative politics). His research broadly focuses on authoritarianism and development, and he is now finishing his first book on state-building and political order in the post-colonial Middle East.

Sponsored by the Islamic Studies Program.

Troubled Political Transitions: A Perspective from Egypt

Ann Mosely Lesch ’66, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, American University in Cairo, will present the 2014 Islamic Studies Annual Lecture, “Troubled Political Transitions: A Perspective from Egypt”.

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

4:30 pm,

Science Center Room 199

Swarthmore College

Three years ago, Egyptians rose up to remove Hosni Mubarak’s corrupt authoritarian regime. Since then, they have been on an emotional roller-coaster, from the excitement of participating in three elections, to rising anger during the Muslim Brotherhood’s presidency, and then taking back to the streets to remove that president.

Today, they face uncertainty as to whether presidential elections will strengthen democracy or entrench the security state. Given Egypt’s centrality in the Middle East, it is important to examine and assess its troubled transition.

Egypt_freedom

Sponsored by the Islamic Studies Program, Arabic Section of Modern Languages & Literatures, Department of Political Science, and the Department of Sociology & Anthropology.