Question: How Should Middle East Studies Address the Issues of Academic Freedom and Academic Boycotts?

2008 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 188-190
Author(s):  
Laurie A. Brand

Challenges to academic freedom have been much in the news of late, with coverage and interest extending well beyond college newspapers and the publications of our profession.In the United States, there is no question that members of the Middle East studies community have been disproportionately targeted. A number of our colleagues have been victims of ugly smear campaigns regarding their scholarship; several tenure cases have triggered vicious, high-profile “extramural” attacks against junior faculty; and, in a handful of cases, our colleagues have been barred from giving talks or participating in educational events, owing to their political positions on Middle East-related issues. Others from outside this community who have also ventured to engage key regional issues in critical ways have had their invitations to give presentations in policy or academic forums rescinded.

2018 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 160-161
Author(s):  
Jeff VanDenBerg

In November 2017, the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) sponsored the fourth annual Undergraduate Research Workshop in Washington, D.C. Organized by MESA's Committee for Undergraduate Middle East Studies, the workshop provides an opportunity for talented undergraduate students to present their scholarship in a professional context. Participants are selected through a competitive application process, and, since the program's inception have come from universities in Sweden, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Singapore, Canada, Mexico, France, and across the United States.


2011 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 779-781
Author(s):  
Jane Hathaway ◽  
Randi Deguilhem

André Raymond, who passed away at his home in Aix-en-Provence on 18 February 2011, leaves an international legacy in Middle East studies. Born in 1925 in Montargis, a small town situated about seventy-five miles south of Paris, Monsieur Raymond, as he was known to his numerous students and to younger scholars in Europe, Russia, the Middle East, the Far East, and North America, taught for many years at the University of Provence and, after his retirement, in the United States.


2012 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-164

Challenging students to identify and analyze diverse perspectives is a key objective in any Middle East studies course. This article describes an assignment used in a history course which asks students to compare and contrast articles from Middle Eastern online newspapers. Comparing multiple articles on the same topic exposes students to contrasting views on significant issues. The easy availability of online newspapers “de-centers” students’ perspectives by requiring use of materials from outside the United States. This assignment teaches specific analytical skills, such as finding relevant articles, reading them critically, writing effective summaries, and developing synthetic comparisons. Through an analysis of this assignment, this article discusses the advantages, as well as limitations, of this approach, using students’ own evaluations to assess the achievement of desired learning objectives.


1986 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-170

This Presentation is a rather impressionistic as well as eclectic view of Middle Eastern Studies, one which does not pretend to be complete. Many of you have been associated with Middle Eastern Studies for much longer than I have, and you could undoubtedly see greater changes—or lack of changes—than I will present.Let me begin by briefly looking at the history and growth of the Middle East Studies Association of North America, for the growth of MESA is somewhat a reflection of the structure and changes in Middle East studies, particularly, of course, in the United States. Also, in this way I can make comparisons with MESA when looking at developments elsewhere.


2007 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 343-345 ◽  
Author(s):  
ZACHARY LOCKMAN

The short answer to the question as posed is, Yes, of course, 9/11 changed the field of Middle East studies. However, the next question we need to ask is, In what ways have the events of 9/11 (and all that they set in motion, in the United States and internationally, including the U.S. invasion of Iraq) actually affected our work as scholars, students, teachers, resource specialists, and so forth, whose primary focus is the Middle East and/or the Muslim world, as well as the institutions, networks, and field(s) with which we are engaged? Space limitations allow me to offer only a few brief thoughts.


2010 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 547-548
Author(s):  
Beth Baron ◽  
Sara Pursley

When three articles with an environmental history theme were accepted in quick succession through our peer review process, it seemed like an opportunity to organize an IJMES Roundtable on how the incorporation of environmental history into Middle East studies affects our understanding of the region's past and present. We did not know that, as this issue was going to press, the United States would be facing what is widely considered the worst environmental disaster in its history, with over two million gallons of oil pouring into the Gulf of Mexico every day. As Giancarlo Casale points out in his contribution to the Roundtable, the catastrophe underscores both the concerns of today's students and the need for a reevaluation of the humanities that may culminate in a full-fledged “environmental turn.”


MERIP Reports ◽  
1975 ◽  
pp. 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Johnson ◽  
Judith Tucker

1988 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 9-18
Author(s):  
Margot Badran

The wave of the study of women which led directly into the formation of the new discipline called women’s studies started in the 1960s in the Middle East and the United States concurrently. A generation earlier, foreshadowing the creation of the new field, Zahiyya Dughan, a Lebanese delegate to the Arab Women’s Conference in Cairo in 1944, called upon Arab universities to accord the intellectual and literary heritage of Arab women a place in the curriculum by creating chairs for the study of women’s writings. By now, at the end of the 1980s, women’s studies as a distinct field has found legitimacy in the academy. In the United States there are women’s studies programs in all major colleges and universities—more than sixty graduate programs offer M.A.’s and Ph.D.’s—and fifty major research centers, most of which are attached to universities. The National Women’s Studies Association (NWSA) and the Middle East Studies Association equally claim some three thousand members. However, the study of women remains marginal within Middle East studies, while women’s studies still remain largely centered on the West.


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