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.

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 faculty of the School of International and Public Affairs and Columbia University.

Events – SPRING 2012

• Monday, January 23rd
  The Salafis, Politics and the Revolution in Yemen"
  
  A lecture by Laurent Bonnefoy
  Moderated by Professor Brinkley Messick
  Time: 12:30-2PM
  Location: Knox Hall, Room 208 ~ 606 West 122nd Street, New York, NY
  
  Since the early 1980s, Salafism in Yemen has developed as a mostly apolitical movement. Yet, the revolutionary process that emerged in 2011 is changing much of its face in the country and fostering deep recompositions in the Islamist field. This lecture will analyze these changes and concentrate on showing why this political movement matters beyond issues of counter-terrorism.
  
  Laurent Bonnefoy (PhD), born in 1980, is a researcher in political science at the Institut Français du Proche-Orient (IFPO) based in Palestine. Building on four years spent in Yemen, his research focuses primarily on contemporary religious identities in the Arabian Peninsula. He is the author of Salafism in Yemen. Transnationalism and Religious Identity (Columbia University Press, 2012).
  
  Co-sponsored by the Middle East Institute and the Alliance Program.
  
  
• Monday, January 30
  Saddam Hussein's Ba'th Party: Inside an Authoritarian Regime
  
  A Lecture by Joseph Sassoon
  Moderated by Timothy Mitchell
  Time: 12:30-2PM
  Location: Knox Hall, Room 208 ~ 606 West 122nd Street, New York, NY
  
  The Ba`th came to power in Iraq in 1968 and remained there for thirty-five years until the 2003 US-led invasion. Under the leadership of Saddam Hussein, who became president in 1979, a powerful authoritarian regime was created based on a system of violence and extra-ordinary surveillance network, as well as reward and incentives for supporters of the regime. This lecture will focus on recent access to Iraqi documents which allow us to understand how authoritarian regimes operate and how they control their population.
  
  Born in Iraq, Sassoon obtained his PhD at St Antony's College Oxford. He teaches at Georgetown University and this term he is a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford. Sassoon has published widely on Iraq and the Middle East. His previous book was on the Iraqi Refugees post the 2003 invasion and called : The Iraqi Refugees: The New Crisis in the Middle East.
  
  
• Thursday, February 2
  Turkey's "New" Foreign Policy Activism: Evaluating its Political and Economic Underpinnings
  
  A Lecture by Ioannis N. Grigoriadis
  Moderated by Professor David Cuthell
  
  Time: 12:30-2pm
  Location: Knox Hall, Room 208 ~ 606 West 122nd Street, New York, NY
  
  Turkey's ambition to play a key regional role and become a global actor is not novel. What has, however, been indeed novel and has lent credibility to the whole experiment is Turkey's recent economic dynamism. This lecture will address Turkey's claims for a global strategic role and a value-based foreign policy, which may already be overblown. Turkey is bound to play a key regional role and may indeed become a global actor in the years to come; its capabilities, however, are not infinite, and significant risks may lurk in their overestimation.
  
  Dr. Ioannis N. Grigoriadis is Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science, Bilkent University and Research Fellow at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP).
  
  
• Thursday, February 9
  Saudi Arabia and the Arab Spring Uprisings
  Presentation by Bernard Haykel (Princeton University)
  
  Time: 5:45 pm
  Location: 1501 International Affairs Building - 420 West 118th street
  REGISTRATION STILL OPEN
  REGISTER HERE.
  
  *Please note that registration does not guarantee you a seat at the event.
  Saudi Arabia and the Arab Spring Uprisings
  
  Saudi Arabia's leaders have claimed that their regime is immune to the revolutionary changes associated with the Arab Spring uprisings. The Saudis have been quite actively engaged with these events and in complicated ways, domestically as well as regionally. They have encouraged some of the uprisings and attempted to clamp down on others. Haykel will explore Saudi Arabia's policies in response to the Arab Spring, which include enforcing religious sanctions against public demonstrations within the Kingdom, increasing various domestic subsidies in an effort to co-opt potential dissent, stabilizing the monarchy in Bahrain and stewarding a new government into power in Yemen.
  
  Co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion (CDTR), the Middle East Institute and RCPL
  
  
• Friday, February 10
  Arab Spring and Beyond: Social Networking and Political Change in the Middle East, Russia and China
  Time: 10:30AM – 12:00PM
  Location: International Affairs Building, Room 918, 420 West 118th Street
  
  Featuring:
  Xiaobo Lu, Professor of Political Science, Barnard College
  Thanassis Cambanis, Journalist
  Timothy Frye, Director, The Harriman Institute; Marshall D. Shulman Professor of Post-Soviet Foreign Policy
  
  Co-sponsored by the Middle East Institute, the Weatherhead East Asian Institute, and the Harriman Institute
  
  Registration begins Monday, January 30 at 5PM
  Register at http://socialnetworkingeastasia.eventbrite.com/
  Open to Columbia students only, with preferential registration given to current Columbia College, GS, SEAS and Barnard students. Columbia graduate students can sign up on a waitlist to attend each talk, and will be notified if space is available.
  Breakfast will be served.
  
  
• Tuesday, February 14
  Mobilities and Immobilities: Reflections of Fieldwork in Palestine
  Time: 5pm-7pm
  Location: International Affairs Building Room 411 ~ 420 West 118th Street
  
  A public talk by Distinguished Scholar Glenn Bowman, Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Kent and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at the Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life.
  
  His talk is part of an ongoing conversation that has been taking place in the Religion and Mobility Faculty Seminar, organized by Karen Barkey, Professor of Sociology and History, and Valentina Izmirlieva, Professor of Slavic Languages, and sponsored by the IRCPL.
  
  Co-sponsored by CDTR, IRCPL and the Middle East Institute.
  
  
• Wednesday, February 15
  IRAQ, THE ARAB SPRING, AND PROSPECTS FOR REFORM IN THE ARAB WORLD
  Time: 12pm-1pm
  Location: International Affairs Building, Room 801 ~ 420 W. 118th St.
  
  A Brownbag Lecture with David L. Phillips
  
  Director, Program on Peace-building and Rights at Columbia University's Institute for the Study of Human Rights
  
  Mr. Phillips is a former Foreign Affairs Expert and Senior Adviser to the Near Eastern Affairs Bureau of the U.S. Department of State. He is author of many articles and books on political developments in the Middle East, including Losing Iraq: Inside the Postwar Reconstruction Fiasco and From Bullets to Ballots: Violent Muslim Movements in Transition.
  
  Co-sponsored by the Middle East Institute and the Institute for the Study of Human Rights.
  
  
• Thursday, February 16
  Marwan Bishara to discuss his new book "The Invisible Arab: The Promise and Peril of the Arab Revolution"
  The Invisible Arab: The Promise and Peril of the Arab Revolution
  
  A Discussion with Marwan Bishara, host of Al Jazeera's Empire
  Moderated by Hamid Dabashi
  
  Time: 6-8PM
  Location: International Affairs Building, Room 1501 ~ 420 West 118th Street
  *REGISTRATION REQUIRED:(Registration will not guarantee seating; please arrive by 5:30PM to guarantee a seat.)
  Register here.
  
  One of the leading figures interpreting the Arab revolution on Al Jazeera was and continues to be Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera's Senior Political Analyst. Bishara will discuss his new book, THE INVISIBLE ARAB: The Promise and Peril of the Arab Revolution. Hailed as a brilliant, lucid and provocative analysis of the dynamics of the Arab revolution, it is particularly relevant given today’s context, as the world returns its gaze to the Middle East and North Africa with the first anniversary of the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions approaching—and as events in Syria, Yemen and Bahrain are still up in the air.
  
  Co-sponsored by the Middle East Institute and the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion (CDTR)
  
  
• Monday, February 20
  Replacing Space with Time: 'Gray Spaces' in Israel/Palestine
  Oren Yiftachel, Professor of Geography, Ben Gurion University in Beer Sheba, Israel.
  
  Moderated by Professor Yinon Cohen
  
  Time: 4-6PM
  Location: Knox Hall, Room 509, 606 West 122nd Street
  
  The lecture traces the legal geography of land policies in Israel/Palestine. It highlights the creation of 'gray spaces' as a key instrument of the ethnocratic state, and examines its ethnic, economic and political consequences.
  
  
• Tuesday, February 21
  Democratization in Turkey: Prospects and Challenges
  A talk with Nicole Pope, Author of Turkey Unveiled and Honor Killings in the 21st Century
  Moderated by David Cuthell
  
  Time: 12:30pm
  Location: Heyman Center, Common Room ~ 74 Morningside Drive
  Directions: http://www.heymancenter.org/visit.php
  
  Nicole Pope, journalist and author of Turkey Unveiled: A History of Modern Turkey, will examine Turkey's prospects for democracy and regime change. Her lecture will build on over 15 years of service as a foreign correspondent in Turkey for the French daily Le Monde and numerous other international publications.
  
  Co-sponsored by the Committee on Global Thought and the Middle East Institute.
  
  
• Thursday, February 23
  Pious Citizens: Modernizing Zoroastrianism in India and Iran
  
  A talk by Monica Ringer, Associate Professor of Middle East Studies, Amherst College
  Moderated by Professor Allison Busch
  
  Time: 1:15pm - 2:45pm
  Location: Knox Hall, Room 208, 606 West 122nd Street, between Broadway and Claremont Avenue
  
  Ringer tells the story of a major intellectual revolution in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century India and Iran, one that radically transforms the role of religion in society. Ringer demonstrates how rational and enlightened religion, characterized by social responsibility and the interiorization of piety, was understood as essential for the development of modern individuals, citizens, new public space, national identity, and secularism.
  
  Monica Ringer is co-editor of Comparative Studies of South Asia Africa and the Middle East. She teaches Middle Eastern history at Amherst College
  
  Co-sponsored by the Middle East Institute and the South Asia Institute.
  
  
• Thursday, March 1
  Turkey's Path to the European Union: Open Road or Cul de Sac?
  
  A talk by David Cuthell, Adjunct Associate Professor at Columbia University
  and Riccardo Serri, EU Foreign Service and Visiting Scholar at Columbia University
  
  Time: 12:30pm - 2pm
  Location: Knox Hall, Room 208, 606 West 122nd Street, between Broadway and Claremont Avenue
  
  In October 2005 the Republic of Turkey embarked on Accession Negotiations with the European Union. More than six years on, the process has all but stalled. By contrast, Croatia started negotiations on the same date, and is now slated to join in 2013. For Turkey, much remains to be accomplished and there was no tangible progress last year. This lecture will discuss what went wrong in the process, and whether Turkey is still on the path to joining the EU.
  
  Co-sponsored by the Middle East Institute and the Blinken European Institute.
  
  
• Wednesday, March 21
  A Climate for Abduction, A Climate for Redemption: Armenian Women and Their Children During and Immediately After the Genocide
  
  A talk by Lerna Ekmekcioglu, Assistant Professor of History, McMillan-Stewart Career Development, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  
  Time: 6:30 pm
  Location: Knox Hall, Room 207, 606 West 122nd Street, between Broadway and Claremont Aves.
  
  The talk will focus on the forcible incorporation of Armenians into Muslim households and orphanages during World War I, and post-war Armenian attempts to rescue the kidnapped. The speaker argues that this effort remained extremely inclusive whereby rape victims, former concubines and wives, as well as their (technically) Muslim children, were treated as full-fledged Armenians.
  
  Co-sponsored by the Middle East Institute, the Armenian Center at Columbia University, and the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR).
  
  
• Wednesday, March 21
  Slavery, Manumission and the British Policy in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea in the 1930s
  
  A talk by Jerzy Zdanowski, Professor in Middle East Studies, Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw
  Moderated by Professor Lawrence Potter
  
  Time: 12:30-2PM
  Location: Knox Hall, Room 208, 606 West 122nd Street, between Broadway and Claremont Aves.
  
  This talk will cover the engagement of the British authorities in suppressing the slave trade and the resultant eradication of slavery in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea throughout the first half of the twentieth century, which combined both diplomatic and military measures.
  
  
• Thursday, March 22
  Hamas; From Resistance to Government
  
  A talk by Paola Caridi, Italian journalist
  Moderated by Professor Brinkley Messick
  
  Time: 12:30-2PM
  Location: Knox Hall, Room 208, 606 West 122nd Street, between Broadway and Claremont Aves.
  
  Hamas; From Resistance to Government is a comprehensive history of the Palestinian Islamist movement and combines news analysis with interviews of residents of Gaza to paint an incisive and multi-layered portrait of this still largely clandestine organization. Caridi steers clear of sensationalist reporting of the 2006 elections that brought Hamas to power, and instead looks at the history of this war-torn region and analyzes the circumstances that led a secular people to elect a radical Islamist group and the larger effects that its had on the Israel/Palestine conflict.
  
  Paola Caridi has been living in the Middle East and Jerusalem since 2001, as the MENA region reporter for the Italian news agency Lettera22.
  
  
• Thursday, March 29
  Expanding and Shrinking Areas of Liberty: Morocco, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt and Syria
  
  Time: 2:00 pm - 7:00 pm
  Location: 1501 International Affairs Building ~ 420 West 118th Street
  
  This conference will explore factors that have led to greater, or more restricted, liberties in countries throughout the Middle East and North Africa, focusing on the role of religious actors, international bodies like the UN, civil society, and developments since the Arab Spring.
  
  Co-sponsored by the Middle East Institute and the Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration, and Religion (CDTR).
  
  
• Thursday, March 29
  The Poetics of Dissent in Modern Egyptian Literature
  
  A talk by Noha Radwan, Professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature at UC Davis
  Moderated by Professor Joseph Massad, Columbia University
  
  Time: 6:30-8PM
  Location: Room 207 Knox Hall ~ 606 West 122nd Street
  
  Did Egyptian Literature play a role in creating or fostering dissent, protest, and revolutionary fervor among the Egyptian public? Professor Radwan explores the answers to this question through an analysis of both fiction and poetry and the poetics of countering the dominant discourse during the last few decades.
  
  
• Tuesday, April 3
  "Budrus" Film Screening and Q&A with Director Julia Bacha
  For more information about the film, click here: http://www.justvision.org/en/budrus
  
  Time: 7-9PM
  Location: Schermerhorn Hall, Room 501, Columbia University
  
  Co-sponsored by the Middle East Institute, the Human Rights Institute at the Columbia Law School, and Columbia University's Anthropology Department.
  
  
• Wednesday, April 4
  Turkey, the United States and Canada: Security, Commercial and Cultural Opportunities for the Next Decade
  
  A Talk by M. Levent Bilgen, Consulate General of the Republic of Turkey
  Moderated by Professor David Cuthell
  
  Time: 11:30am - 1pm
  Location: Room 1219 International Affairs Building - 420 West 118 Street
  
  Turkish Diplomacy as well as the Turkish economy have gone from relative obscurity to daily coverage in the media and the general public. Recent high profile coverage of the Turkish role in mediating the Syrian uprising and Turkish leadership of the ISAF forces in Afghanistan is well known. What is less well understood is the growing Turkish diplomatic and business engagement with both the United States and Canada. Consul General Levent Bilgen has served both in Toronto and New York and will offer his perspectives on both of these topics.
  
  Co-sponsors: Middle East Institute and the Turkish Initiative
  
  
• Friday, April 13
  The Arab Revolts: Causes, Dynamics, Effects
  Time: 9:30AM-6:30PM
  Location: Room 501 Schermerhorn Hall, Columbia University
  
  Registration Required
  
  This conference will provide an analysis of causes, forms of political organization and mobilization, and challenges to authoritarian state structures across the Arab world.
  
  Opening Keynote: Rashid Khalidi, Columbia University
  
  Panelists:
  Gilbert Achcar, School of Oriental and African Studies, London University
  Asef Bayat, University of Illinois
  Mona El-Ghobashy, Barnard College
  Jason Brownlee, University of Texas at Austin
  Gershon Shafir, University of California San Diego
  Lisa Wedeen, University of Chicago
  
  Concluding Keynote: Khaled Hroub, Cambridge University
  
  Cosponsors; Center for Palestine Studies, the Trans-Arab Research Institute, Heyman Center for the Humanities and the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies.
  
  
• Monday, April 16th
  Bahrain: An Eyewitness Account of an Ongoing Revolution
  Time: 7:30-9PM
  Location: Columbia University, 501 Northwest Corner Building, 550 West 120th Street (on Broadway)
  
  A talk by Radhika Sainath
  Moderated by Professor Hossein Kamaly
  
  Sponsored by the Middle East Institute and American Council for Freedom in Bahrain
  
  Over the past year, tens of thousands of Bahrainis, inspired by the Arab Spring movements in Tunisia and Egypt, have taken to the streets in an attempt to win democracy and respect for their human rights. The regime responded by killing over 80 people, detaining thousands and beginning a campaign of retribution against anyone supporting or participating in protest. Radhika Sainath, a civil rights attorney, was able to gain entry and will discuss her experience and document the regime's epression of democracy activists.
  
  Radhika is a human rights activist with experience in conflict zones and has supported democracy movements in Mexico, Pakistan, Palestine and the Philippines.
  
  Co-sponsors include:
  Witness Bahrain, Campaign for Peace & Democracy, Global Justice Working Group at Occupy Wall Street, Coalition to Defend the Egyptian Revolution
  
  
• Tuesday, April 17
  Turkish Diplomacy Within the Framework of the UN in the 21st Century
  Time: 1-2PM
  Location: International Affairs Building, Room 1219, 420 West 118th Street
  
  A talk by Ambassador Ertugrul Apakan
  Moderated by Professor David Cuthell
  
  Ambassador Ertugrul Apakan will discuss Turkey's increasingly assertive role in international affairs, including its recent experience in the Security Council.
  
  Ambassador Apakan has been the Permanent Representative of Turkey to the United Nations since August 2009. Prior to his appointment, Ambassador Apakan served as the Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkey from December 2006 until August 2009, as Deputy Under-Secretary for Bilateral Political Affairs from 2004 to 2006, and as the Ambassador of Turkey to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus from 1996 and 2000.
  
  A light Turkish lunch will be served.
  
  
• Monday, April 23
  "This is Where we Take Our Stand" Film Screening and Q&A
  Time: 7:30PM-9:30PM
  Location: Schermerhorn Hall, Room 501 (enter through the gates on 116th and Broadway or Amsterdam)
  
  "This is Where We Take Our Stand" is the story of fifty five courageous veterans who publicly told their accounts of the realities they witnessed on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. In March of 2008, two hundred and fifty veterans and active-duty soldiers marked the fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq by gathering in Washington, DC, to testify from their own experience about the nature of the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. It was chilling, horrifying, and challenging for all who witnessed it.
  
  Against tremendous odds, they brought the voices of the veterans themselves into the debate. "This is Where We Take Our Stand" is the inside story of those three days and the courageous men and women who testified-a story that's as important to tell today as ever.
  
  Please watch the trailer here: http://thisiswherewetakeourstand.com
  
  The Q&A will feature Jose Vasquez and Jason Lemieux.
  
  Jose Vasquez is the Executive Director of Iraq Veterans Against the War. He served fourteen years in the U.S. Army and was honorably discharged in 2007 as a conscientious objector. Jose was a key organizer of Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan, Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations and represented IVAW in the editing process for the book published by Haymarket. He is pursuing a Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology at CUNY Graduate Center conducting research on the politics of veteran status in contemporary American society.
  
  Jason Lemieux testified at the Winter Soldier Hearings. He served three tours in Iraq with Third Battalion, Seventh Marines. Lemieux is a Masters Candidate at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA).
  
  Co-sponsored by the Middle East Institute and the Human Rights Working Group.
  
  
• Wednesday, May 2
  A Public Conversation With: Mahmoud Dowlatabadi
  Time: 6-8pm
  Location: Room 407 Altschul Auditorium, Columbia University, 420 West 118 Street, International Affairs Building,
  
  Featuring Author Mahmoud Dowlatabadi to discuss his latest publication The Colonel: A Novel
  
  Moderated by Prof Hamid Dabashi
  
  Sponsorship provided by the Iranian Studies Initiative, New York University and the Middle East Institute
  http://www.isi-nyu.org/isi-nyu/isi/2012/04/a-public-conversation-with-mahmoud-dowlatabadi.html

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