Cross-Regional Approaches to Middle East Studies: Constructing and Deconstructing a Region

2007 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-29 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Kurzman
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Research Council ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
The Past ◽  
Chapel Hill ◽  
The Social ◽  
The University ◽  
Middle East Studies

The Middle East is deconstructing—that is, the concept of a coherent geographic entity with the label “Middle East.” A Thematic Conversation on this subject began at the 2005 MESA Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., and will conclude at the 2007 meeting in Montréal. These discussions grow out of efforts in the 1990s to rethink area studies globally, spurred by programs at the Ford Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council, among others. A variety of scholars have taken up these issues with regard to the Middle East specifically over the past decade, including the Carolina Center for the Study of the Middle East and Muslim Civilizations at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which organized this Thematic Conversation.

Introduction: The Many Crises of Middle East Studies

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seteney Shami ◽  
Cynthia Miller-Idriss
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
The Social ◽  
University Restructuring ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Middle East Studies

This introductory chapter sets out the book's purpose, which is to draw a portrait of the issues animating and challenging the field of Middle East studies (MES) in their academic and national contexts. The book presents some of the findings of a decade-long (2000–2010) research project organized by the Social Science Research Council in New York, which began with examining Middle East studies and expanded to investigate other area studies fields as well as the thrust toward the global in US universities. It is concerned with three main themes: the relationship between MES and various disciplines (political science, sociology, economics, and geography), current reformulations and new emphases in MES (in terms of university restructuring, language training, and scholarly trends), the politics of knowledge, and the impact on the field of MES of the many crises in the region.

Project on Law and Social Structure

1981 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-10
Author(s):  
Charles E. Butterworth
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Research Council ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Social ◽  
Learned Societies ◽  
Science Research Council

The Joint Committee on the Near and Middle East of the American Council of Learned Societies and the Social Science Research Council was appointed in 1959 to advance humanistic and social science research in and on the Near and Middle East. Over the years, in addition to offering fellowships and grants, it has held workshops and conferences to investigate topics which would allow humanists and social scientists to understand this vital area better. When appropriate, the papers from the conferences have been published as scholarly volumes.

Middle East Studies for the New Millennium: Infrastructures of Knowledge

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Middle East ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Social Science Research ◽  
Science Research ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Mechanical Field ◽  
The Social ◽  
Institutional Contexts ◽  
Global World ◽  
Middle East Studies

This chapter deplores the state of Middle East social sciences, which is described as demoralized, lacking academic freedom and reliable research data, and functioning in a general climate of repression, neglect, and isolation. Such conditions call into question the extent to which future social scientists will be able to build supportive scholarly communities or develop critical perspectives so key to social science research and the investigation of questions of public import. Echoing discussions in this volume on methodological shifts in the social science disciplines, it argues that the quantitative turn has produced a narrow, mechanical field unable to move forward in ways that attend to the diversity of the social and political world. As the field has emphasized technical skills over moral imperatives, and as the institutional contexts of US universities has changed, the result has been a simultaneous narrowing of the field and a projection of greater universalization for a global world.

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