Middle East Centre

Norman G Finkelstein gives a talk for the Middle East Studies seminar series. Norman G. Finkelstein received his PhD from the Princeton University Politics Department in 1988. He is the author of ten books that have been translated into 50 foreign editions, including THE HOLOCAUST INDUSTRY: Reflections on the Exploitation of Jewish Suffering and, most recently, GAZA: An Inquest into Its Martyrdom.​

Mariam Memarsadeghi (Tavaana) gives a talk for the Middle East Centre seminar series. Mariam Memarsadeghi is co-founder and co-director of Tavaana: E-Learning Institute for Iranian Civil Society. Launched in 2010, the virtual institute offers secure democracy and human rights educational opportunities, from graduate level seminars to animated PSAs, short tutorials, case studies of democratic transitions, panel discussions, translated ebooks, comedy skits and more. Now a household brand, Tavaana regularly reaches over 15 million Iranians via live e-classrooms, correspondence learning, satellite TV, robust social media networks and a mobile app. TavaanaTech provides the Iranian people with digital literacy training, digital safety alerts and tech solutions for access to a free, safe internet. Mariam is an outspoken advocate for the principles of liberalism, women's rights, democracy (and democratic) education and internet freedom, particularly in Islamic contexts. Her writings have appeared in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and other publications. She is a frequent speaker at think tanks and has appeared on the PBS NewsHour, NPR and other English, Persian and Arabic language news programs. Mariam is a 2017 Presidential Leadership Scholar and has been recognized by the Bertelsmann Foundation and the German Marshall Fund as a TransAtlantic Young Leader for her work promoting democracy and human rights globally.

Anne Sa'adah (Dartmouth College) gives a talk for the Middle East Centre Seminar series. Anne Sa'adah holds an A.B. in Social Studies and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Harvard University and is the Joel Parker Professor of Law and Political Science Emerita at Dartmouth College, where she taught from 1984 to 2017. She is currently writing a book about the Middle East, States of Disorder: Explaining the Vicious Circles of Middle East Politics; the book explores institutional paths, leadership and reform strategies, and coalitions. Her past research, including three books, focused on political development and democratic politics (including both democratic failure and democratic renewal) in France, Germany, Britain, and the United States.

Dr Elife Bicer-Deveci, postdoctoral fellow of Swiss National Science Foundation and academic visitor at the Middle East Centre, St. Antony’s College, gives a talk for the Middle East Centre seminar series. Bicer-Deveci is specialised in the field of gender studies, history of women’s movement, history of Iran and Turkey. She published several papers and a peer-reviewed monography based on her Phd-project about the history of the Ottoman-Turkish women’s movement and international women’s organisations. Both the Phd-project and the publication of the monography were granted by the Swiss National Science Foundation. She has defended her Phd-thesis at the Historical Institute of the University of Bern and was a fellow of the Graduate School for Gender Studies and Center for Global Studies in Bern. Her recent research project is about the history of international prohibitionist policies and their impacts on Iran and Turkey from 1900 until today.

Madawi al-Rasheed (LSE) and Courtney Freer (LSE), give a talk for the Middle East Centre Seminar Series at St Anthony's College Oxford, chaired by Toby Matthiesen (St Anthony's College). Dr Courtney Freer is a Research Officer at the Kuwait Programme at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Her work focuses on the domestic politics of the Arab Gulf states, with a particular focus on Islamism and tribalism. Her DPhil thesis at the University of Oxford revised rentier state theory by examining the socio-political role played by Muslim Brotherhood groups in Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE; a book version of these findings will be published by Oxford University Press in Spring 2018 under the title Rentier Islamism: The Influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Gulf Monarchies. She previously worked as a Research Assistant at the Brookings Doha Center and as a researcher at the US-Saudi Arabian Business Council. Professor Madawi Al-Rasheed is Visiting Professor at the Middle East Centre, London School of Economics. Previously she was Professor of Social Anthropology at King’s College, London and Visiting Research professor at the Middle East Institute, National University of Singapore. Her research focuses on history, society, religion and politics in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf, Middle Eastern Christian minorities in Britain, Arab migration, Islamist movements, state and gender relations, and Islamic modernism. Her latest book Muted Modernists: the Struggle over Divine Politics in Saudi Arabia was published by Hurst in 2015. Her presentation draws on her forthcoming edited volume: Salman’s Legacy: the dilemmas of a new era published by Hurst and OUP in March 2018.

Ziad Majed discusses his research on the political situation in Syria, which is the focus of his latest publication. Ziad Majed, a Lebanese/French political scientist, is an associate professor of Middle East studies and International Affairs at the American University of Paris. His research focuses on Lebanon, Syria, Political transitions, Consociationalist systems and Political Islam. In 2007, he co-founded the Arab Network for the Study of Democracy. Dr. Majed’s latest publication: Syrie, La révolution orpheline (Syria, the Orphan Revolution), Paris, 2014. He also has two blogs: ziadmajed.blogspot.com (in Arabic) and vendredis-arabes.blogspot.com (French and English).

Dr Hatsuki Aishima (National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka) gives a talk for the Middle East Studies Centre seminar series. This paper explores karate as a cultural practice of Egyptian middle classes in which they experiment on a variety of ways to be 'global'. They perceive karate as a means to join the global community, which is a rare opportunity for citizens who are situated at the margins of international political economy. I will focus on the aspirations of Egyptian Traditional Karate Federation (ETKF) members to reinstitute Japanese 'traditions' of karate by searching for its budo roots. ETKF was established shortly after the January 25 Revolution of 2011 which ousted President Hosni Mubarak. In their view 'traditional karate (karate taqlidi)' should be distinguished from the World Karate Federation style 'karate riyadi (sport karate)' which has become a mere competitive sport. Their goal is to spread “educational karate (karate tarbawi)” which is derived from what they perceive as the original ethos of budo that 'karate must be a lifestyle'. Although karate is the second most popular sports in Egypt after football, most practitioners are unaware of its Japanese or Okinawan origin. Alluding to Egyptian national team’s victories at international competitions, some asserted that “Karate might have come from Japan but it has become fully Egyptian”. It was the ETKF founder, an Egyptian karate master who has been residing Paris since the 1980s, that reintroduced the notion of budo to contemporary Egyptians. When budo means “the way of warrior” in Japanese, he defines the term as 'martial arts', using the English expression rather than its Arabic equivalent, funun al-qataliya. In other words, in Egyptian ears, budo sounds doubly foreign - Japanese and English, yet somewhat modern due to its English rendering. This complex genealogy of Egyptian karate illustrates the ways in which globalisation flows. Although the West ceased to be the colonial power, they continue to mediate and shape Egyptian images of Japan.

Dr Hugh Roberts gives a talk for the middle east studies centre seminar series. Dr Hugh Roberts is the Edward Keller Professor of North African and Middle Eastern History at Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, USA and a specialist on North African history and politics. He took up his post at Tufts in January 2012. For academic year 2015-2016 he was also the Simons Visiting Professor in Dialogue on International Law and Human Security at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada. Between 1976 and 1997 he lectured in the School of Development Studies at the University of East Anglia, the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex, the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley and the Department of History at the School of Oriental and African Studies in the University of London. From 1997 to 2002 he was a Senior Research Fellow of the Development Studies Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He has also worked outside academia, as an independent scholar and consultant on North African affairs and as Director of the International Crisis Group’s North Africa Project, based in Cairo, from 2002 to 2007 and again from February to July 2011. He is the author of The Battlefield: Algeria 1988-2002. Studies in a broken polity (Verso, 2003; p/b 2015); Berber Government: the Kabyle polity in pre-colonial Algeria (I.B. Tauris, 2014; p/b 2017) and Algérie-Kabylie: Études et interventions (Algiers, Éditions Barzakh, 2014).

Noa Landau (Editor-in-Chief at Haaretz English Edition) gives a talk for the middle east studies centre seminar series. In her talk she is going to address some of the key challenges modern Israel is faced with: How is Israel's relationship with the US changing in the Trump era? What is the future of Israel's relationship with the Jewish Diaspora? What are the key issues affecting the political climate in Israel? How can traditional media stay relevant and authoritative today?

Professor Robert Springborg (Italian Institute of International Affairs, Rome), gives a talk for the Middle East Centre seminar series. Robert Springborg is a non-resident Research Fellow of the Italian Institute of International Affairs, Rome. Until October 2013, he was Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School, and Program Manager for the Middle East for the Center for Civil-Military Relations. From 2002 until 2008, he held the MBI Al Jaber Chair in Middle East Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, where he also served as Director of the London Middle East Institute. Before taking up that Chair, he was Director of the American Research Center in Egypt, University Professor of Middle East Politics at Macquarie University in Sydney Australia; and assistant professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania. He has also taught at King’s College, London; University of California, Berkeley; the College of Europe; the Paris School of International Affairs of Sciences Po; and the University of Sydney. In 2016, he was Kuwait Foundation Visiting Scholar, Middle East Initiative, Kennedy School, and Harvard University. His publications include Mubarak’s Egypt: Fragmentation of the Political Order; Family Power and Politics in Egypt; Legislative Politics in the Arab World (co-authored with Abdo Baaklini and Guilain Denoeux); Globalization and the Politics of Development in the Middle East first and second editions, (co-authored with Clement M. Henry); Oil and Democracy in Iraq; Development Models in Muslim Contexts: Chinese, ‘Islamic’ and Neo-Liberal Alternatives and several editions of Politics in the Middle East (co-authored with James A. Bill). He co-edited a volume on popular culture and political identity in the Gulf that appeared in 2008. He has published in the leading Middle East journals and was the founder and regular editorialist for The Middle East in London, a monthly journal that commenced publication in 2003. His new book -‘Egypt’ has just been published in October 2017 by Polity Press.