Middle East Centre

Professor Charles RH Tripp (SOAS) delivered the 47th annual George Antonius Memorial Lecture on Friday 5th June 2026, chaired by Professor Eugene Rogan (St Antony’s).

Dr Farah Ben Jemaa (University of Manouba) delivered this seminar at the MEC, chaired by Professor Michael Willis (St Antony’s College), as part of the Gender and Sexuality Seminars series. This talk examines examples of North African literature, from early twentieth-century texts to more recent works. These writings question forms of female emancipation associated with Western norms and imaginaries, while opening space for alternatives rooted in affects and collective experience. The talk will also reflect on the methodological approaches — particularly spatial ones — that may help us read and understand these literary representations. Farah Ben Jemaa is a professeure agrégée of French literature at the University of Tunis. Her research focuses on space and representations of the self in modern and contemporary literature. She completed a PhD in French Literature at the University of Manouba, with a dissertation on spatiality in the work of Valery Larbaud. She has published on authors including Georges Perec, René Char, and Valery Larbaud, as well as on contemporary cultural productions and artistic practices. Her recent work explores alternative cartographies, and the intersections of literature, politics, and feminist critique. She is currently a visiting academic at St Antony’s College for the Trinity term, thanks to the support of the Hazem Ben-Gacem Tunisia-Oxford Cooperation Programme.

This MENA Politics Seminar was delivered at the Middle East Centre on Thursday 7 May 2026 by Dr Ali Kadivar (Boston College) and chaired by Professor Neil Ketchley (St Antony’s College). What drives the uneven geographic spread of revolutionary episodes? While structural approaches emphasize pre-existing fault lines, contingency approaches highlight emergent processes. We synthesize these perspectives, arguing that specific triggers shape a revolutionary episode's social geography by activating certain fault lines while leaving others dormant. Through a comparative analysis of three revolutionary episodes in Iran (2017–2022), each with a distinct trigger, we demonstrate how different triggers shape patterns of contention. Using event-history and spatial regression analysis of subnational protest data alongside socioeconomic and political variables, we show that a fuel price hike activated grievances in oil-producing areas, while a repressive event targeting a woman from an ethnic and religious minority mobilized protests in minority-populated districts. Our findings illustrate how triggers structure revolutionary mobilization, offering broader insights into the interaction between structural conditions and contingent events in contentious politics.   BIOGRAPHY Mohammad Ali Kadivar is a Fellow at the **Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and an Associate Professor of Sociology and International Studies at Boston College. He received his PhD in sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and previously held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University.   His work contributes to political and comparative-historical sociology by examining the causes, dynamics, and consequences of protest movements. While growing out of his experience as a participant-observer of the pro- democracy movement in Iran, his research agenda extends comparatively to explore these processes globally using historical analysis, case studies, and statistical methods.   His book Popular Politics and the Path to Durable Democracy (2022) was published by Princeton University Press. His research has appeared in journals including American Sociological Review, Social Forces, Comparative Political Studies, European Sociological Review, and Comparative Politics, and has received awards from multiple sections of the American Sociological Association.

This seminar was delivered at the Middle East Centre on Thursday 12 March 2026 by Professor Nizar Messari (Al Akhawayn University) and was chaired by Professor Michael Willis (St Antony’s College). Nizar Messari is Professor at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane. His areas of expertise are International Relations Theory, Critical Security Studies, North African Politics and Latin American Politics. He has published in Arabic, English, Portuguese and French in journals such as Security Dialogue, International Studies Perspectives, Review of International Affairs, Journal of North African Studies, Contexto Internacional (in Portugueses) and Cultures & Conflits(in French) as well as numerous chapters in edited volumes in Portuguese and English. He was a visiting professor at Yale University, Universidade Estadual do Rio de Janeiro, the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and the Military Academy of Agulhas Negras (Brazil). He is currently finalizing a manuscript on Decolonizing Security Studies. He is the co-author with João Pontes Nogueira of Teoria das Relações Internacionais: Correntes e Debates. (Rio de Janeiro: Elsevier/Campus, 2005).

This MENA Politics Seminar was delivered at the Middle East Centre on Tuesday 10 March 2026 by Professor Neil Ketchley (St Antony’s College) and was chaired by Dr Maryam Alemzadeh (St Antony’s College). Does public sector employment make graduates less likely to join anti-regime protests? Recent scholarship argues yes, with consequences for bottom-up democratization in late-developing economies with expansive public and higher education sectors. This paper examines whether this thesis travels to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). We find that well-educated public sector employees were actually more likely to join anti- regime protests in Algeria and Egypt, while we estimate null effects for state dependency in Lebanon, Iraq, Sudan, and Tunisia. Supplementary analyses show that educated public sector employees who protested in Algeria – a critical case for the state-dependency argument – prioritized political rights and grievances over economic considerations. Importantly, these preferences were not visible in surveys from the pre-protest period. The findings put bounds on the external validity of the state middle class thesis, caution against inferring future protest participation from attitudinal data, and identify political conditions when the state middle class may suddenly become more protest prone.

This seminar was delivered at the Middle East Centre on Thursday 5 February 2026 by Dr Dominik Krell (Wolfson College), and was chaired by Professor Pascal Menoret (Magdalen College). This talk explores how Saudi legal thought is shaping the ways in which Islamic law is applied by Islamic courts beyond the Arabian Peninsula. Since the 1960s, Saudi Arabia has made significant efforts to promote a distinct Saudi understanding of Islam globally, mainly through international students at Saudi universities such as the Islamic University of Medina. Dr Krell examines how this understanding of Islamic law has influenced Islamic courts in two contrasting contexts: The Gambia and Sri Lanka, two countries with a similar number of graduates from Saudi universities. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with Islamic judges and scholars in both countries, the talk looks beyond simple depictions of “Salafisation” or “Wahhabisation”. It explores both the reasons for, and the consequences of, the differing receptions of Saudi ideas in court practice, and the implications this has for everyday Islamic adjudication in local settings.

This talk explores the impact of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 on militant Islamism using new evidence. How did the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 affect the evolution of the transnational jihadi movement? The consensus view since the mid-2000s has been that the war fuelled militant Islamism, but there have since been few attempts to specify the effects and identify the mechanisms involved. In this talk I draw on a wide range of unexploited quantitative and qualitative evidence to understand the war's impact on transnational militancy. I find that the detrimental effects were even larger than previously assumed, and I make the case, through counterfactual analysis, that jihadism as a transnational movement could have largely fizzled out in the late 2000s had the Iraq war not occurred. Bio: Thomas Hegghammer is Senior Fellow in Politics at All Souls College. He is a political scientist and historian who specializes in the study of militant Islamist groups. His books include /Jihad in Saudi Arabia: Violence and Pan-Islamism since 1979/ (Cambridge 2010), /Jihadi Culture: The Art and Social Practices of Militant Islamists/ (Cambridge 2017), and /The Caravan: Abdallah Azzam and the Rise of Global Jihad/ (Cambridge 2020).

Dr Marc Owen Jones (Hamad Bin Khalifa University) and Dr Sahar Khamis (University of Maryland) give a talk for the MEC Friday Seminars Series. Chaired by Professor Walter Armbrust (St Antony’s College, Oxford). Moderator: Professor Eugene Rogan (St Antony's College, Oxford) This evening Professor Walter Armbrust (St Antony’s College) is joined by Dr Mark Owen Jones (Assistant Professor, Hamad Bin Halifa University) and Dr Sahar Khamis (Associate Professor, University of Maryland). Ten years after the eruption of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, which had a wide range of eclectic outcomes, it became obvious that the transitions to democratization have been derailed in the so-called post-Arab Spring countries, with the exception of Tunisia. This presentation unpacks the complexity of the parallel surge in anti-authoritarianism resistance movements, on one hand, and repressive counter-revolutionary movements, on the other hand, in this post-Arab Spring mediated political and media environment. It explains how anti-authoritarian activists continue to resist dictatorships across the Arab world, using a plethora of digital media platforms, and how authoritarian regimes are using the same digital tools and techniques, in parallel, to sabotage such efforts. In doing so, it illustrates how the phenomenon of “cyberactivism” is opening up new horizons in this ongoing tug-of-war between authoritarian rulers and their opponents in the Arab region, who are not just resisting political repression, but are also pushing back against all forms of gender-based, socially-based, culturally-based, and politically-based marginalization and discrimination, simultaneously. Biographies: Dr Marc Owen Jones received his BA in Journalism, Film and Broadcasting from Cardiff University in 2006, and a CASAW-funded MSc in Arab World Studies from the University of Durham in 2010. Following this, he completed his PhD (funded by the AHRC/ESRC) in 2016 at Durham, where he wrote an interdisciplinary thesis on the history of political repression in Bahrain. His thesis won the 2016 AGAPS prize. He spent much of his childhood in Bahrain, and has also lived in various parts of the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia, Sudan, and Syria. Prior to joining HBKU, he won a Teach at Tubingen Award at Tuebingen University’s Institute for Political Science, and worked as a Lecturer in the History of the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula at Exeter University’s Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies. He is currently Assistant Professor in Middle East Studies and Digital Humanities at Hamad Bin Khalifa University, Qatar. He is co-editor of two books Gulfization of the Arab World (Gerlach Press, 2018) and Bahrain’s Uprising: Resistance and Repression in the Gulf (Zed Books 2015), and author of the recently published book Political Repression in Bahrain (Cambridge University Press, 2020). In addition to his academic work, he enjoys communicating his research to broader audiences, and has bylines in the Washington Post, New Statesman, CNN, the Independent, PEN International, and several others. He has also appeared frequently on the BBC, Channel 4 News, and Al Jazeera. Dr Sahar Khamis is an expert on Arab and Muslim media, and the former Head of the Mass Communication and Information Science Department in Qatar University. She is a former Mellon Islamic Studies Initiative Visiting Professor at the University of Chicago. Sahar is currently Associate Professor at the Department of Communication, University of Maryland, USA. She is the co-author of the books: Islam Dot Com: Contemporary Islamic Discourses in Cyberspace (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009) and Egyptian Revolution 2.0: Political Blogging, Civic Engagement and Citizen Journalism (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), and the co-editor of Arab Women's Activism and Socio-Political Transformation: Unfinished Gendered Revolutions (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). Additionally, she has authored and co-authored numerous book chapters, journal articles and conference papers, regionally and internationally, in both English and Arabic. She is the recipient of a number of prestigious academic and professional awards, as well as a member of the editorial boards of several journals in the field of communication, in general, and the field of Arab and Muslim media, in particular. Dr. Khamis is a media commentator and analyst, a public speaker, a human rights commissioner in the Human Rights Commission in Montgomery County, Maryland, and a radio host, who presents a monthly radio show on “U.S. Arab Radio” (the first Arab-American radio station broadcasting in the U.S. and Canada).

Dr. Shadi Hamid (Brookings Institution; contributing writer, The Atlantic) and Professor Nadia Oweidat (Kansas State University) give a talk for the Middle East Centre Friday seminar series. Chaired by Dr Usaama al-Azami (St Antony's College). It is often noted that the Arab uprisings of 2011 were not started by Islamists, but that these groups were often their initial beneficiaries given their long-standing grassroots presence and their ability to effectively organise for elections. Yet ten years on from the initial openings, the political landscape has changed almost beyond recognition, with Islamists decidedly on the backfoot alongside the emergence of new secular voices that would like to see religious politics consigned to the history books. Dr. Shadi Hamid (Brookings Institution; contributing writer, The Atlantic) Professor Nadia Oweidat (Kansas State University) Chair: Dr Usaama al-Azami (St Antony's College) Series: Middle East Centre Friday Seminar Series It is often noted that the Arab uprisings of 2011 were not started by Islamists, but that these groups were often their initial beneficiaries given their long-standing grassroots presence and their ability to effectively organise for elections. Yet ten years on from the initial openings, the political landscape has changed almost beyond recognition, with Islamists decidedly on the backfoot alongside the emergence of new secular voices that would like to see religious politics consigned to the history books. Speaker biographies: Dr Shadi Hamid, senior fellow, Brookings Institution; contributing writer, The Atlantic Dr. Shadi Hamid is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a contributing writer at The Atlantic, and founding editor of Wisdom of Crowds. He is the author of Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam is Reshaping the World, which was shortlisted for the 2017 Lionel Gelber Prize for best book on foreign affairs, and co-editor of Rethinking Political Islam. His first book Temptations of Power: Islamists and Illiberal Democracy in a New Middle East was named a Foreign Affairs Best Book of 2014. In 2019, Hamid was named one of the world’s top 50 thinkers by Prospect magazine. He received his B.S. and M.A. from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and his DPhil in politics from Oxford University. Dr. Nadia Oweidat, as Assistant Professor at Kansas State University and Senior Middle East Fellow at New America Foundation My research focuses on the history, culture, and politics of the modern Middle East and North Africa region as well as the intellectual history of Islamic thought. My doctoral research examined obstacles to reforming Islamic thought in the second half of the twentieth century. While I include the arguments of various intellectuals and thinkers, my case study was the Egyptian scholar, Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd (1943-2010). My current book project examines individuals who are attempting to challenge extremist thought and Islamic theology through social media. The rise of the internet and social media has made available information and texts, including historical texts not previously readily available . My book, in detailing these changes through case studies, narratives, and quantitative research, argues that the impact of these technological developments is analogous to that of the Reformation and the printing press in Europe.

Ece Temelkuran, author of How to Lose a Country: the Seven Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship (2019) gives a talk for the Middle East Centre Friday Seminar series. Chaired by Dr Laurent Mignon (St Antony's College, Oxford). A certain political and moral insanity seems to be taking over the world. Both the political and the moral consensuses are under the consistent attack of rightwing populist leaders using authoritarian tools. Although in each country this attack is perceived as an independent chaos specific to the local political and social conditions, it in fact has a pattern repeating exactly the same way regardless of the national differences. Democracies are destroyed through seven political steps to pave the way to the new form of fascism. Unless the peoples of the world agree on the fact that the matter is global, the planet will lose its political triangulation points. Ece Temelkuran is one of Turkey’s best-known novelists and political commentators, and her journalism has appeared in the Guardian, New York Times, New Statesman, Der Spiegel etc. She won PEN Translate Award with Women Who Blow On Knots (2013) and with her political long essay Turkey: The Insane And Melancholy (2016) she received New Ambassador Of Europe Prize from Poland. Her latest book How To Lose A Country: The Seven Steps From Democracy to Dictatorship (2019) was internationally acknowledged. Her new book Together is coming out in May 2021.

Dr Lina Khatib, Director, Middle East and North Africa Programme, Chatham, Jeremy Bowen (Middle East Editor, BBC News) give a talk on Syria and it's current political situation. Chaired by Professor Eugene Rogan (St Antony's College, Oxford). After nine years of civil war, the prospects for regime change in Syria seem more remote than ever. Its society dispersed and its economy shattered, Syria remains a central state in the Middle East. Regional stability cannot be restored while Syria’s conflict rages, yet the gulf separating the warring sides seems unbridgeable so long as Bashar al-Asad remains in power. In this webinar, Dr Lina Khatib, Director of the Middle East and North Africa programme at Chatham House, and Jeremy Bowen, BBC Middle East Editor, will discuss the contemporary struggle for Syria and Assad’s survival Speaker biographies: Jeremy Bowen (Middle East Editor, BBC News) I have been with the BBC since 1984 and have reported extensively from the Middle East since 1990. For the purposes of this session on Syria - I did the last major interview of Bashar al Assad in 2015, the third time I interviewed him. I've done many reporting assignments in Syria before the war and since it started, on both sides of the front line. My reporting of the Syria war won various journalism awards, including interview of the year from the Royal Television Society for the Assad interview - also in the US I received an Emmy and a Peabody award for Syria reporting. Dr Lina Khatib Dr Lina Khatib leads the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House. She was formerly director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut and co-founding Head of the Program on Arab Reform and Democracy at Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law. Her research focuses on the international relations of the Middle East, Islamist groups and security, political transitions and foreign policy, with special attention to the Syrian conflict. She is a research associate at SOAS, was a senior research associate at the Arab Reform Initiative and lectured at Royal Holloway, University of London. She has published seven books and also written widely on public diplomacy, political communication and political participation in the Middle East. She is a frequent commentator on politics and security in the Middle East and North Africa at events around the world and in the media.

Walter Armbrust (St Antony’s College, Oxford), author of Martyrs and Tricksters: An Ethnography of the Egyptian Revolution (2019), gives a talk for the Middle East Centre Friday Seminar Series on 20th November 2020. Chaired by Dr Michael Willis (St Anthony's College, Oxford) Professor Walter Armbrust is a Hourani Fellow and Professor in Modern Middle Eastern Studies. He is a cultural anthropologist, and author of Mass Culture and Modernism in Egypt (1996); Martyrs and Tricksters: An Ethnography of the Egyptian Revolution (2019); and various other works focusing on popular culture, politics and mass media in Egypt. He is editor of Mass Mediations: New Approaches to Popular Culture in the Middle East and Beyond (2000). Abstract: When the Covid-19 pandemic began many people thought that a virus-induced apocalypse, while painful, provided a chance to rethink and fix everything from school funding to global warming. Yet as the initial effervescence of our entry into the liminality of lockdown dragged into a dreary limbo, darker possibilities emerged. The rich grew richer; once laughable conspiracy theories became politically weaponized; the environment became less important than economic recovery; and in this country, Covid-induced economic distress has provided perfect cover for getting the hardest of Brexits done. A crisis, real or perceived, produces real change - just not the sort of change progressive activists may have envisioned, as the Egyptian revolutionaries I wrote about in Martyrs and Tricksters discovered to their dismay. Indeed, crisis provides ideal conditions for the flourishing of tricksters in mainstream politics, and many a trickster politician harbours the kernel of an authoritarian. My talk explores links between crisis and authoritarianism in the Middle East, but also more widely, and not only in the context of Covid (though it provides an excellent point of entry to my topic), but also in longer historical and social contexts. There may well be a “dictatorship syndrome,” as Dr al-Aswany’s book suggests, but the institutionalization of dictators and the habituation of populations to their rule is only part of the story. Dictators are often born from crisis as tricksters. Hitler started as a trickster. Donald Trump is perhaps the clearest instantiation of a trickster politician in history. Some crises are unforeseeable - earthquakes, pandemics, revolutions for example. Others are increasingly structured, economically and by communication technologies. We tend not to think of the economy as intrinsically crisis-prone, though perhaps we should, given the dominance of capitalism and its requirement for constant disruptive change and expansion. The crisis potential of media technologies is easier to imagine when we have so close at hand the wreckage of whiplashing from hopeful “Facebook Revolutions” to propagandistic “Fake News” in the space of a decade. In the end the notion of a dictatorship syndrome in the Middle East perhaps distracts us from the much greater danger of an authoritarian virus spreading throughout the world.

Benjamin Dubrulle (Maison Française d'Oxford), gives a seminar for the MEC Women's Rights Research Seminars. Chaired by Dr Soraya Tremayne (School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford) on 18th November 2020. ‘God Does not Discriminate’: Inclusive Mosques Politics in France and the United Kingdom In the last ten years, mosques welcoming believers regardless of their gender and sexuality have been established in France and the United Kingdom. Known as ‘inclusive mosques’, these spaces are managed by both heterosexual and queer women who aim at practicing Islam outside of patriarchal constraints. Based on recent ethnographic data, this seminar will explore the different forms of pastoral care provided by Muslim women in these spaces for their community. Islamic feminism is a major component of pastoral care in the British context. Through various events -monthly feminist discussion groups, Jumma, conferences- queer Muslim women in the United Kingdom produce and share religious knowledge relevant to their experiences and struggles. Taking into account their specific vulnerability enables them to design relevant emancipatory practices. In France, a new inclusive mosque reclaims the French tradition of laïcité. Staying away from identity politics enables these women to focus on the universal values of justice in Islam. Despite material and spiritual obstacles that will be examined, these women seek to fight existing discriminations within local communities through radical inclusivity. Their theological work based on the Quran aims at promoting gender justice and recognition of sexual diversity. Ultimately, these projects seek to protect the local community against both queer-phobia and islamophobia, and unify the oumma. Bio: Benjamin Dubrulle is currently a PhD candidate in sociology at the EHESS (School of Advanced Studies in Social Sciences) in Paris, under the supervision of Dr. Céline Béraud. He is also a member of the CéSor (Centre for Studies in Social Sciences of Religion) at the CNRS and is currently in residency at the Maison Française d’Oxford. Benjamin Dubrulle is a member of the Jewish-Muslim Research Network. His research is situated at the intersection of social sciences of religion, gender studies and queer studies. It focuses on initiatives designed by Muslim communities to promote gender equality and sexual diversity within an Islamic framework. Dubrulle has a particular interest in democracy and secularism, and the way politics impact lived experiences of Muslim minorities on the ground.

Madawi Al-Rasheed (KCL and LSE), author of Salman’s Legacy: The Dilemmas of a New Era in Saudi Arabia (2018) and Ben Hubbard (The New York Times), author of MBS: The Rise to Power of MBS (2020) give a talk for the Middle East Centre Friday Seminar Series. Chair ed by Dr Usaama Al-Azami (Faculty of Oriental Studies, Oxford) The seminar discusses the simultaneous phenomena of reform and repression in Saudi Arabia under Crown Prince Muhammad ibn Salman. In recent years, Saudi Arabia has seen swift social and economic changes, including women being granted the right to drive and efforts to diversify the economy. The same period has also seen waves of detention, heightened restrictions on free speech and the flight of Saudis abroad. How will these changes interact as Saudi Arabia moves forward?

Dalia Fahmy (Long Island University) editor of Egypt and the Contradictions of Liberalism: Illiberal Intelligentsia and the Future of Egyptian Democracy (2017), gives a talk for the Middle East Centre Friday Seminar Series. This talk will address the dictatorship syndrome specifically through the lens of liberalism in Egypt. It will seek to address why a particular denomination of Egyptian liberalism, despite at face value being wholly opposed to dictatorship, ultimately proved susceptible to the allures of the dictatorship syndrome in the aftermath of the events of 2013 in Egypt. Also on the panel is Daanish Faruqi (Duke), editor of Egypt and the Contradictions of Liberalism: Illiberal Intelligentsia and the Future of Egyptian Democracy (2017) Chaired by Dr Usaama Al-Azami (Faculty of Oriental Studies, Oxford) Dr. Dalia Fahmy Bio: Dr. Dalia Fahmy is Associate Professor of Political Science at Long Island University and Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Global Policy in Washington DC. Dr. Fahmy's books: “The Rise and Fall of The Muslim Brotherhood and the Future of Political Islam” (undercontract), and co-edited volumes “Arab Spring: Modernity, Identity and Change,” “Illiberal Intelligentsia and the Future of Egyptian Democracy,” and “International Relations in a Changing World”, cover her research areas. Daanish Faruqi Bio: Daanish Faruqi is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights (CGHR) at Rutgers University, and a doctoral candidate (ABD) in History at Duke University. A scholar of Middle Eastern and Islamic history, with a particular emphasis on Islamic political thought, he had previously spent several years in the Arab Middle East as a researcher and journalist, which gave rise to two books, most recently Egypt and the Contradictions of Liberalism: Illiberal Intelligentsia and the Future of Egyptian Democracy (co-edited with Dalia F. Fahmy). His work straddles between classical and contemporary Islamic thought, with a particular emphasis on the Maghrib region on the one hand and on the Levant on the other hand. Most recently his work investigates transnational politically activist strands of Sufi mysticism, tracing their diasporic origins in the colonial Maghrib to their ultimate migration to late-Ottoman Syria, to their most recent role in the 2011 Syrian revolution. A recognized subject matter expert, Faruqi has given talks and symposia on his research at the UCLA Law School, Georgetown University, the National Press Club, and other institutions. Additionally, he is a frequent journalist and commentator on the politics of the Middle East, having published in Al Jazeera English, Foreign Policy, CommonDreams.org, USC-Annenberg/Religion Dispatches, among other media outlets.

Part of the Middle East Centre Women's Rights Research Seminars. With Dr Mine Yildirim Chair: Dr Nazila Ghanea (Department for Continuing Education,University of Oxford). The place of women in the religious space of mosques in Turkey has been a long debate- more so recently. The Women in Mosques Movement’s challenge of the quality of space allocated for women in mosques led to strong criticism but also aroused genuine discussion about the deeply held beliefs underlying the place given to women as well as the space women carve out for themselves. The seminar will explore the implications of international human rights law, particularly women’s right to freedom of religion or belief, for the key demands of the Women in Mosques Movement. Bio – Dr. Mine YILDIRIM is the Head of the Norwegian Helsinki Committee’s Freedom of Belief Initiative project and Member of the OSCE/ODIHR Panel of Experts on Freedom of Religion or Belief. She a scholar of human rights law and an expert on international protection of freedom of religion or belief. She is the founder of the Freedom of Belief Initiative, and works with the Norwegian Helsinki Committee on this Initiative monitoring and reporting on freedom of religion or belief in Turkey. Yildirim is a member of the OSCE/ODIHR Panel of Experts on Freedom of Religion or Belief. Her work covers different facets of religious freedom, including the collective dimension of freedom of religion or belief, gender dimension of freedom of religion or belief, religious minorities and freedom of religion or belief in education. She was the co-recipient of the Stefanus Prize in 2016. She received her doctoral degree at AAbo Akademi Institute for Human Rights with her thesis on the collective dimension of freedom of religion or belief. Her doctoral thesis is published as a book entitled The Collective Dimension of Freedom of Religion: A Case Study on Turkey. She is a member of the Editorial Board of the academic journal Religion & Human Rights and has published extensively in academic journals and contributes to Forum 18. She has served as a consultant on numerous international projects.

Maryam Alemzadeh (Princeton) Siavush Randjbar-Daemi (St Andrews), author of The Quest for Authority in Iran: a history of the presidency from revolution to Rouhani (2017), give a talk for the Middle East Centre Friday Seminar Series. Chaired Professor Edmund Herzig (Faculty of Oriental Studies, Oxford) Scholars have shown the dictatorial function of the parallel political system of the Islamic Republic: although the authoritarian office of supreme leadership and the security apparatuses strictly limit the quasi-democratic institutions (i.e. the presidency and the parliament), they avert any criticism of the government’s malfunction to the latter, thereby saving ideological face among dedicated supporters. In this functionalist explanation of the dual system of power, the qualitative difference of the two sides’ working mechanisms goes unnoticed. In this talk I address the organizational dynamics of the nonconventional section of state in Iran, with a special focus on the Islamic Revolutionary Guards. I demonstrate that behind the security apparatus Panopticon and its capillary power lies a “revolutionary” institution—one that tolerates and encourages revolutionary direct action, thereby sustaining a sizable popular base over the years. The popular base is not necessarily brainwashed to serve the state. Rather, I argue, institutions of power keep it committed and interested by authorizing spontaneous, direct action, even though revolutionary times are long passed. Maryam Alemzadeh-Bio Maryam Alemzadeh is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Princeton University's Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies. She earned her PhD in sociology at the University of Chicago in 2018, and has previously worked as the Grinspoon Junior Research Fellow at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis University. Maryam is a historical and cultural sociologist of revolutions, state building, and grassroots militias, specializing on Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Based on detailed historical findings, she writes about cultural practices as a sociologist, and about contemporary US-Middle East politics as an Iran expert. Her work has appeared in the British Journal of Middle East Studies and Foreign Affairs, among other places.

Alaa Al Aswany, author of The Dictatorship Syndrome (2019), gives a talk for the Middle East Centre seminar series. Chaired by Professor Eugene Rogan (St Antony's College, Oxford) Alaa Al Aswany is Egypt’s most celebrated novelist and essayist whose books are runaway bestsellers in Arabic and have been translated into more than 30 languages. His second novel, The Yacoubian Building (2002) established Al Aswany as a global literary figure. This was followed by Chicago (2007), The Automobile Club (2013), and most recently, The So-called Republic (2018). A newspaper columnist until he was banned from publishing by the Egyptian government, Al Aswany has published a number of works of non-fiction treating on current affairs, including On the State of Egypt: What Made the Revolution Inevitable (2011), and Democracy is the Answer: Egypt’s Years of Revolution (2015). His most recent book is The Dictatorship Syndrome (2020), where he considers the conditions, signs, symptoms, and cures for what he terms the malady of dictatorship. The study of dictatorship in the West has acquired an almost exotic dimension. But authoritarian regimes remain a painful reality for billions of people worldwide who still live under them, their freedoms violated and their rights abused. They are subject to arbitrary arrest, torture, corruption, ignorance, and injustice. What is the nature of dictatorship? How does it take hold? In what conditions and circumstances is it permitted to thrive? And how do dictators retain power, even when reviled and mocked by those they govern? In this deeply considered and at times provocative short work, Alaa Al Aswany tells us that, as with any disease, to understand the syndrome of dictatorship we must first consider the circumstances of its emergence, along with the symptoms and complications it causes in both the people and the dictator.

Ambassador Wilks CMG (HM British Ambassador to Iraq), gives a talk for the Middle East Centre seminar series. Jon Wilks has just finished a two year posting as UK Ambassador to Iraq, his third posting to Iraq since he reopened the Embassy in Baghdad in 2003. He has served 30 years in the UK diplomatic service with a Middle East focus, including Ambassadorial postings to Yemen (10-11) and Oman (14-17). He was also UK Syria Envoy 2012-2014. He is a fluent Arabist and was the first UK Arabic Spokesperson based in the region 2007-2009. He will be taking up a new Ambassadorial appointment in the region next year. His deep interest in Middle East Politics and International Relations led him to take a sabbatical to complete an MA in Middle East Politics at Durham University (99/00) and an MPhil in International Relations at St Antony’s (00/02). He is a previous speaker at the Middle East Centre having shared his reflections with us on his posting to Yemen in 2011 and his Syria responsibilities in 2014.

Dr Kamiar Alaei (Co-president, Institute for International Health and Education), gives a talk for the Middle East Studies Centre. Chaired by Dr Nazila Ghanea (Associate Professor in International Human Rights Law, Department for Continuing Education). Dr Kamiar Alaei's academic, medical and international public health project work has all navigated the art of advancing health (and later, also educational) concerns in conservative settings. When patients are condemned for having certain conditions in societies in which they are stigmatised, how can a step-by-step medical and humanitarian approach help in advancing responses and conditions? The record of Kamiar and Arash’s research and practice illustrates dramatic official u-turns in the provision of services for patients living with HIV/AIDS, STIs and IDUs in Iran and beyond. They broke down intransigent resistance in acknowledging the existence of such patients from government authorities, religious authorities and the wider public. This pioneering methodology that they have utilised is one that crafts a pragmatic way forward from the conservative realities on the ground towards internationally agreed human rights standards. As such, its implications go beyond the experience they themselves have gained and documented in Iran, the Middle East and Central Asia, and can be applied in relation to other cultural obstacles to the advancement of health for disadvantaged populations in different contexts. This paper will both outline that record and share academic work in progress regarding the provision of related health services for women in a number of Middle Eastern contexts.

Dr Seth Anziska (Mohamed S. Farsi-Polonsky Lecturer in Jewish-Muslim Relations, University College London), gives a talk for the Middle East Studies Centre. Based on newly declassified international sources, Preventing Palestine charts the emergence of the Middle East peace process, including the establishment of a separate track to deal with the issue of Palestine. At the very start of this process, Anziska argues, Egyptian-Israeli peace came at the expense of the sovereignty of the Palestinians, whose aspirations for a homeland alongside Israel faced crippling challenges. With the introduction of the idea of restrictive autonomy, Israeli settlement expansion, and Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the chances for Palestinian statehood narrowed even further. The first Intifada in 1987 and the end of the Cold War brought new opportunities for a Palestinian state, but many players, refusing to see Palestinians as a nation or a people, continued to steer international diplomacy away from their cause (Princeton University Press).

Dr Naysan Adlparvar (Yale University), gives a talk for the Middle East Studies Centre. Marriage, in Afghanistan, is a highly strategic affair. In most cases, Afghan parents carefully manage who their children marry. This is done to forge alliances and accrue financial benefits. At the same time, marriage also serves to maintain community boundaries - be they familial, religious or ethnic. These boundaries are often stark; with prolonged conflict making interethnic and intersectarian marriage uncommon. Yet, since the US-led intervention in Afghanistan, intergenerational modes of control have begun to falter and marriage patterns have begun to shift. In the Bamyan Valley - deep in the mountainous Central Highlands of the country - 'escape marriage' or elopement has become increasingly common, as has the retaliatory violence it engenders. A series of high-profile elopement cases, between members of two ethnic communities, have captivated the local media. Hazarah men are 'escaping' with Sayid women; which is being met with mounting violence and growing ethnic tensions. Young women and men in Bamyan are caught between familial/ethnic expectations and their personal desire - backed by Human Rights institutions-to marry those they choose. Based on extended ethnographic research in Afghanistan’s Bamyan Valley, this lecture will discuss the emerging phenomenon of 'escape marriage' and the underlying mechanisms that foster it. It will do this by exposing the shifting social landscape in Afghanistan and by drawing linkages between the formation of the new Afghan State, the emergence of educational opportunities for women, the action of Human Rights institutions and, ultimately, the changing nature of marriage and elopement. This lecture will explore how and why young Bamyani men and women navigate the treacherous ground between love and lineage.

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.

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.

Jessica Maya Marglin (University of Southern California) gives a talk for the Middle East Centre on 2nd March 2017. Through the experiences of a single Jewish family, this lecture charts how the law helped Jews to integrate into Muslim society. Drawing on previously untapped documents in Hebrew, Arabic, and European languages, Marglin offers a new perspective on Jewish-Muslim relations in the modern Islamic world.

Lecture given at St Antony's Middle East Centre on Tuesday 17th November 2015 by Roger Hardy (former Middle East and Islamic affairs analyst with the BBC World Service).

This seminar was delivered at the Middle East Centre on Thursday 20 November by Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi, founder of the Barjeel Art Foundation, and was chaired by Professor Eugene Rogan, St Antony’s College. This seminar was delivered at the Middle East Centre on Thursday 20 November by Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi and was chaired by Professor Eugene Rogan, St Antony’s College. Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi is an Emirati columnist and researcher on social, political and cultural affairs in the Arab Gulf States. He is also the founder of the Barjeel Art Foundation, an independent initiative established in 2010 to contribute to the intellectual development of the art scene in the Arab region. He has taught 'Politics of Modern Middle Eastern Art' at New York University, Yale University, Georgetown University, Boston College, The American University of Paris, Brandeis University, Harvard Kennedy School, Columbia University and Bard College Berlin. In 2023, Sultan completed a Fellowship at Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin and in 2024, Sultan was a Research Associate at SOAS Middle East Institute, London. Sultan is currently an Instructor at the American University of Sharjah. The past century has been a time of great turmoil in much of the world. Europe, perhaps, bore the brunt of this turmoil, with millions killed and entire cities, such as Rotterdam, Dresden, and Warsaw largely reduced to rubble along with their museums, and cultural institutions. The Arab World has also suffered its share of conflicts, compounding the adverse impact of colonialism on everyday life and culture. Events such as the Nakba in Palestine, and conflicts such as the Lebanese Civil War and the 2003 American invasion of Iraq have left a string of structural and cultural devastation in addition to the toll on human life. However, the Arab World has also seen attempts to rebuild, both in lives and livelihoods, some more successful than others. These fragile steps forward can be derailed as conflicts arise such as in Gaza. Even in such dark cases there are some triumphs of humanity. This talk will attempt to shed light on these sparks of inspiration that reflect the vitality of the Arab World. The presentation slides for this episode can be downloaded here: https://media.podcasts.ox.ac.uk/sant/middle_east_studies/2025-11-25-sant-mec-alqassemi-slides.pdf

This MENA Politics Series Seminar was delivered on Tuesday 18 November in the MEC’s Boardroom by Dr May Darwich (University of Birmingham) and was chaired by Professor Neil Ketchley (St Antony’s College). This paper explains Egypt’s foreign policy stagnation, with a novel argument building on role and identity theories. Egypt’s foreign policy exhibits a case where its regional leadership role has changed (and declined), but its identity emphasising Egyptian leadership persists, thus leading to foreign policy that is widely seen as ineffective. This paper examines the theoretical link — and distinction — between national roles and identities. Drawing on previous role research, we argue that, compared to identities, roles are more behaviourally prescriptive, necessarily relational, and are dependent on others’ expectations and acceptance of them. We also discuss the distinct sources of role change and identity change, setting up the possibility that one may change while the other remains stable. We examine the implications of when roles and identities become out of sync with the case of Egypt’s role decay. While Egypt’s leadership role at the regional role has retreated, the leadership identity persists. For Egyptians, Egypt is a ‘natural’ leader of the Arab world and a pivotal state in regional affairs. Herein, we argue, lays the explanations for why Egypt’s foreign policy has suffered from contradictions and ineffectiveness. Empirically, this paper draws upon historical evidence, official statements, memoirs of Egyptian foreign policy makers, and observation of public debates in Egypt’s public sphere.

This seminar was delivered on Thursday 13 November in the MEC’s Investcorp Lecture Theatre by Mustapha El Khalfi (Former Minister of Communications, Morocco) and was chaired by Professor Michael Willis (St Antony’s College).

This seminar was delivered on 28 May 2025 by St Antony’s George Antonius Birzeit Visiting Fellow, Dr Amal Nazzal, and Palestinian political and feminist organizer at Rawa, Soheir Asaad. This seminar was delivered at the Middle East Centre on 28 May 2025 by St Antony’s George Antonius Birzeit, Visiting Fellow, Dr Amal Nazzal, and Palestinian political and feminist organizer at Rawa, Soheir Asaad. Rawa is a community-participatory fund advancing trust- and solidarity-based approaches that return power to communities. The panel was chaired by Dr Maryam Alemzadeh, Fellow at the Middle East Centre. Drawing on lived experience, scholarly critiques, and community narratives, the speakers examined how the donor-driven NGO turn after Oslo reshaped Palestinian civil society—often depoliticizing grassroots activism, fragmenting collective struggle, and entrenching dependency on external funding under long-standing Israeli occupation and genocide in Gaza. The discussion then mapped community-based alternatives rooted in self-determination, mutual aid, and indigenous knowledge, and explored how to reclaim autonomous spaces for organizing that resist co-optation and sustain liberatory practice. By weaving praxis and theory, the event charted actionable pathways beyond NGO-centric models toward moresustainable, rooted, and emancipatory civil society structures in Palestine.

The MEC’s opening Thursday seminar of the 2025-26 academic year was delivered by the former Prime Minister of Türkiye, Ahmet Davutoğlu, and chaired by Professor Eugene Rogan The MEC’s opening Thursday seminar of the 2025-26 academic year was delivered by Ahmet Davutoğlu, former Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Türkiye. Davutoğlu has authored a number of books on foreign policy, including ‘Systemic Earthquake’ and ‘Alternative Paradigms’, which have been translated into several languages. The seminar was chaired by Professor Eugene Rogan, Director of the Middle East Centre.

This seminar was delivered at the Middle East Centre on 30 May 2025 by Dr Samer Abdelnour, University of Edinburgh Business School, and Chaired by St Antony’s George Antonius Birzeit Visiting Fellow, Dr Amal Nazzal. This seminar was delivered at the Middle East Centre on 30 May 2025. Dr Samer Abdelnour, University of Edinburgh Business School, addressed the topic of ‘Big Tech and the Automation of Genocide in Gaza’. It was chaired by St Antony’s George Antonius Birzeit Visiting Fellow, Dr Amal Nazzal.

The Middle East Centre was honoured to host the 2025 Devaki Jain Lecture. This year’s lecture was delivered by Rana Husseini, Jordanian activist, journalist and author. The Middle East Centre was honoured to host the 2025 Devaki Jain Lecture. This year’s lecture was delivered by Rana Husseini, Jordanian activist, journalist and author. The Devaki Jain lecture series, established in 2015 by Devaki Jain, welcomes esteemed women speakers from the South. Past speakers have included Dr Graça Machel, Professor Eudine Barriteau, and Dr Noeleen Heyzer. Rana Husseini is an internationally recognized human rights activist, gender trainer and a senior journalist with more than 25 years’ experience in the Middle East and North Africa. She has published two books, ‘Murder in the Name of Honour’ and ‘Years of Struggle – The Women’s Movement in Jordan’. This lecture was chaired by Professor Eugene Rogan.

A paper delivered by Rev. Dr Mitri Alraheb at the Palestine Research Centre symposium held at the MEC on Friday 9 May 2025. This paper was part of a panel chaired by Professor Eugene Rogan. A paper delivered by Rev. Dr Mitri Alraheb at the Palestine Research Centre symposium held at the Middle East Centre on Friday 9 May 2025. The symposium was entitled ‘Toward an Inclusive Archaeological and Historical Narrative of Palestine: The Archaeology and History of Palestine’. This paper was part of a panel chaired by Professor Eugene Rogan.

A paper delivered by Dr Hamdan Taha at the Palestine Research Centre symposium held at the MEC on Friday 9 May 2025. This paper was part of a panel chaired by Professor Eugene Rogan. A paper delivered by Dr Hamdan Taha at the Palestine Research Centre symposium held at the Middle East Centre on Friday 9 May 2025. The symposium was entitled ‘Toward an Inclusive Archaeological and Historical Narrative of Palestine: The Archaeology and History of Palestine’. This paper was part of a panel chaired by Professor Eugene Rogan.

In this talk anthropologist Munira Khayyat revisits the South Lebanon borderland, where she has conducted long term fieldwork in the wake of its almost total destruction after the latest season of war there. In this talk anthropologist Munira Khayyat revisits the South Lebanon borderland, where she has conducted long term fieldwork in the wake of its almost total destruction after the latest season of war there. This talk reflects on ecologies of resistance and survival through storms of war and the steadfastness of life after the end of the world. Munira Khayyat is Clinical Associate Professor at NYU Abu Dhabi and currently also Visiting Professor at NYU New York. Chaired by Pascal Menoret, Khalid bin Abdullah Al Saud Professor in the Study of the Contemporary Arab World and Professorial Fellow at Magdalen College.

A paper delivered by Dr Iman Saca at the Palestine Research Centre symposium held at the MEC on Friday 9 May 2025. This paper was part of a panel chaired by Professor Eugene Rogan. A paper delivered by Dr Iman Saca at the Palestine Research Centre symposium held at the Middle East Centre on Friday 9 May 2025. The symposium was entitled ‘Toward an Inclusive Archaeological and Historical Narrative of Palestine: The Archaeology and History of Palestine’. This paper was part of a panel chaired by Professor Eugene Rogan.

A paper delivered by Dr Issam Nassar at the Palestine Research Centre symposium held at the MEC on Friday 9 May 2025. This paper was part of a panel chaired by Professor Eugene Rogan. A paper delivered by Dr Issam Nassar at the Palestine Research Centre symposium held at the Middle East Centre on Friday 9 May 2025. The symposium was entitled ‘Toward an Inclusive Archaeological and Historical Narrative of Palestine: The Archaeology and History of Palestine’. This paper was part of a panel chaired by Professor Eugene Rogan.

A paper delivered by Dr Mahmoud Hawari at the Palestine Research Centre symposium held at the MEC on Friday 9 May 2025. This paper was part of a panel chaired by Professor Eugene Rogan. A paper delivered by Dr Mahmoud Hawari at the Palestine Research Centre symposium held at the Middle East Centre on Friday 9 May 2025. The symposium was entitled ‘Toward an Inclusive Archaeological and Historical Narrative of Palestine: The Archaeology and History of Palestine’. This paper was part of a panel chaired by Professor Eugene Rogan.

Speech delivered by H.E. Dr Mohammad Shtayyeh, Chairman of the Palestine Research Centre and former Palestinian Prime Minister, at a symposium held at the MEC on Friday 9 May 2025. Speech delivered by H.E. Dr Mohammad Shtayyeh, Chairman of the Palestine Research Centre and former Palestinian Prime Minister, at a symposium held at the MEC on Friday 9 May 2025.The symposium was entitled ‘Toward an Inclusive Archaeological and Historical Narrative of Palestine: The Archaeology and History of Palestine’.

A paper delivered by Dr Ghattas Sayej at the Palestine Research Centre symposium held at the MEC on Friday 9 May 2025. This paper was part of a panel chaired by Professor Eugene Rogan. A paper delivered by Dr Ghattas Sayej at the Palestine Research Centre symposium held at the Middle East Centre on Friday 9 May 2025. The symposium was entitled ‘Toward an Inclusive Archaeological and Historical Narrative of Palestine: The Archaeology and History of Palestine’. This paper was part of a panel chaired by Professor Eugene Rogan.

Former head of design for Dame Zaha Hadid, Philip Michael Wolfson, reflects on her work and career in the first of two lectures marking the 10-year anniversary of the Investcorp Building. Former head of design for Dame Zaha Hadid, Philip Michael Wolfson, reflects on her work and career in the first of two lectures marking the 10-year anniversary of the Investcorp Building. The iconic building, opened by Dame Zaha Hadid in May 2015, is at the heart of the Middle East Centre today. It was the last of her buildings for which she attended the opening ceremony before her tragic death in 2016.

On Friday 21 February 2025, Professor Johannes Waardenburg gave the Middle East Centre’s Friday seminar Biography: Professor JST Waardenburg teaches the general history of the Arab world at the IULM in Milan. As a historian, he specialises in the period of the Ba‘th party in power in 20th century Syria. In 2021 he published two volumes with the Nallino Institut in Rome, ‘La Siria contemporanea : ridisegnando la carta del Vicino Oriente’, in which he describes the transformations of the state economy in Syria and the diverse international backing the As‘ad family has enjoyed. Abstract: With the fall of the al-Asad dynasty in Syria in the early hours of Sunday 8th December 2024, nearly fourteen years after the start of the Arab Spring, a question arises: Has the warning given by Bashshar al-Asad in his speech at Damascus University in the autumn of 2005 come true? Have his departure and the breakdown of al-muqāwamah wa-l-ṣumūd – identified commonly as the strategy of resistance – really brought chaos to the region? If that is not the case, why did the decisive actors keep him in power in Syria for approximatively another 20 years after he made that presentation? Imagining al-Asad bluffed while he felt the whole international community was after him in the 2005 follow-up to the murder of Rafīq al-Ḥarīrī, the Prime Minister who oversaw Lebanon’s reconstruction*, why did no one at the time call his bluff out? Rather, looking at the remarkably rapid reintroduction of Bashshar al-Asad to the international scene after 2005, this presentation will try to assess critically what the chaos was that everyone was afraid of in the event of the al-Asads falling then. Why does this same chaos seem manageable now? Have Western actors together with Turkey and the Gulf countries simply studied the regional setup better, or might the incidence of Israel’s forever war strategy have been a decisive factor for others to make a shift unthinkable until recently, for the sake of the future of the region. *To clarify: at 23:03 & 24:08 in the recording, the specification of Rafīq al-Ḥarīrī's title (of Prime Minister) should not be understood as referring to his institutional role at the time of his assassination on 14th February 2005. As he didn't occupy that office anymore back then. al-Ḥarīrī had resigned on 20th October 2004 and a government led by ʿUmar Karāmī had been set up less than a week later on 26th of October.

Political strategist and public opinion researcher, Dr Dahlia Scheindlin, shares her analysis of public opinion surveys before and during the war in Gaza. Israelis have shown increasingly hardline, right-wing, nationalist trends in public opinion surveys in recent years, leading to lower support for peace, or faith that any democratic-oriented solution to the conflict is possible. Have October 7 and the war in Gaza changed attitudes? Which trends have displayed continuity, which public attitudes are new, and what kind of future do Israelis support? An analysis of surveys before and during the war shows that Israelis continue to hold hardline attitudes, but they are deeply divided by identity, religion, age and ideology, and angry at their government. They are also responsive to changes in circumstances, and there are still opportunities to re-build support for peace.

A panel with Kamran Matin (University of Sussex), Yasmeen al-Eryani (Tampere Peace Research Institute) and Neil Ketchley (University of Oxford). Chaired by Raihan Ismail (University of Oxford).

A talk from Dr Richard Barltrop, Visiting Senior Fellow at the LSE Middle East Centre, reflecting on the current war in Sudan and exploring lessons from the longer history of peacemaking in Sudan and other recent civil wars. Bio: Richard is a Visiting Senior Fellow at the LSE Middle East Centre. His research is on contemporary international approaches to peacemaking, and why peace processes fail or succeed, with a particular focus on Yemen, Sudan and South Sudan, and considering other examples. Richard specialises in work on mediation, peace processes and peacebuilding, and international approaches to conflict, development and peace, focusing on the Middle East and Africa. Since 2001 he has worked for the UN Development Programme in Iraq, Libya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Yemen and regionally, and for the UN peacekeeping mission in South Sudan and the UN political mission in Yemen. He is the author of Darfur and the International Community: The Challenges of Conflict Resolution in Sudan (IB Tauris/Bloomsbury, 2011/2015) and was a visiting fellow at Durham University in 2015. He has a DPhil in International Relations from the University of Oxford. Abstract: In April Sudan will enter the third year of a war that has caused enormous harm to lives, has been ruinous for the country, and shows no sign of ending. The war was unexpected; it is different from previous wars in Sudan’s conflict-ridden modern history; and it is occurring at a time when international politics is not favourable for concerted external and multilateral action to bring about and support peace. For Sudanese and outsiders, an immediate priority is how can lives be protected and suffering minimised. Beyond this, a fundamental question is peace: how can the war be ended and a lasting peace be established? This seminar explores what lessons should be drawn from the longer history of peacemaking in Sudan and from the experience and outcomes of peacemaking efforts in other civil wars in recent times. From this, three main recommendations emerge for Sudanese and external actors. The recommendations concern: (i) the need in the immediate and near term for external actors to push for a ceasefire and to accept the relative benefit of the Sudanese Armed Forces having some ascendancy in the war; (ii) the need to take a long-term approach to peace process and peacebuilding; and (iii) the need to prioritise and support the development of Sudanese vision for and ownership of a peace process for Sudan.

A talk from Joseph Bahout, Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs (IFI) at the American University of Beirut (AUB) and Associate Professor of Practice in Political Studies. In this talk, Joseph Bahout, Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs (IFI) at the American University of Beirut (AUB) and Associate Professor of Practice in Political Studies, shares his analysis of the current political situation in Lebanon and Syria.

In this talk, Dr Klug and Professor Lavi explore the following questions, among others: What useful role can definitions play in this controversy? Can the IHRA definition perform this role? Does the JDA give better guidance? Since October 7 2023, the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza has led to public protests against Israel and demands for an immediate ceasefire. In this connection, controversy over antisemitism on campuses across the globe, including Oxford, has intensified. At the heart of the controversy is the definition of antisemitism published by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). The definition has been adopted by numerous states and institutions, including Oxford University. The seminar will raise the following issues, among others: What useful role can definitions play in this controversy? Can the IHRA definition perform this role? Is it, in practice, used in a partisan way? Does the Jerusalem Declaration on Antisemitism (JDA) give better guidance? More fundamentally, can a clear line be drawn between antisemitic and non-antisemitic critique of Israel, or is there a deep ambiguity in the phenomenon itself?

Mouin Rabbani and Hasmik Egian discuss the impact the crisis in Gaza has had on the Arab world, with a particular focus on the UN Security Council. Mouin Rabbani, Co-Editor of Jadaliyya, examines the extent to which regional dynamics played a role in the 7 October 2023 attacks, the position of Hamas within the coalition known as the Axis of Resistance, and how the Gaza crisis has influenced the region’s politics during the past year. Hasmik Egian, former Director of the UN Security Council Affairs Division, explores the role played by Arab States on the UN Security Council during their terms as non-permanent Council members, and what impact they may have had on issues related to the Middle East.

Professor Naghmeh Sohrabi, Charles (Corky) Goodman Professor of Middle East History and Director for Research at the Crown Center for Middle East Studies, Brandeis University, describes the role of the family in the 1979 Revolution in Iran.

Professor Amaney A. Jamal discusses findings from surveys in Gaza and the West Bank, as the 46th Annual George Antonius Memorial Lecture. Guest Speaker: Professor Amaney A. Jamal (Dean of Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, University of Princeton) Chair: Professor Eugene Rogan (University of Oxford)

MEC Women's Rights Research Seminar delivered by Dr Heba El-Shazli (George Mason University) Chaired by Dr Maryam Alemzadeh (St Antony's College) The seminar was delivered on Tuesday 7th May

This talk delves into the multifaceted challenges Palestinian women activists face, revealing how intersecting oppressions within a settler-colonized society shape their organizing efforts and experiences, challenging singular analyses of patriarchy. How can we understand the multiple, intersecting webs of oppression that Palestinian women activists face in their everyday organizing? The talk is going to illuminates the context and complexity of the lived experiences of women activists in Palestine, aiming to contribute to feminist perspectives on organizing and how activists’ daily practices and interactions ‘inhabit’ institutions, creating, maintaining and transforming them. The analysis exposes a ‘simultaneity of oppressions’ which highlights the challenges faced by Palestinian women attempting to organize to challenge the social structure, within their quasi-state, settler-colonized context. The talk aims to uncover multiple intersecting inequalities produced by dominant institutional and societal structures, yet experienced differently by women activists, in an oppressed, colonized setting. This distinctive political context, aligned with the collaborative security setting with the occupier, elucidates how violations of the quasi-state, colonizer and other social structures like patriarchy and family manifest and intersect institutionally to violate and undermine women. Dr. Nazzal challenges the singular monolithic analysis of patriarchy, revealing how different patriarchal positions towards women expose different modes of oppression, while serving at times as a protective, supportive system.

This lecture explores how parliamentary activity affects the candidacy list placements of MPs in closed-list PR systems, particularly focusing on the interaction between gender and candidacy list decisions. While it is generally argued that the parliamentary activities of the MPs will increase their chances for re-election, this link is not straightforward in closed-list PR systems, where the party leaderships dominate the candidate selection processes. The determinants of the centralized candidate selection processes are highly ambiguous, making it hard to understand how accountability works for MPs in such settings. Furthermore, existing research pays little attention to how politicians' gender interacts with these processes. This article aims to answer these questions by analyzing the determinants of candidacy list placements using a novel dataset containing over 200,000 parliamentary speeches in Turkey. We present evidence that (1) parliamentary activity has a statistically significant positive effect on the candidacy list placement decisions of the party elites, and yet, (2) this effect is conditional upon politicians' gender. We found that speech is associated with higher candidacy list placements in the next election for women politicians while no such effect exists for men. We suggest that this heterogeneity is driven by intra-party competition and the perception that women MPs would be less threatening for existing party leadership positions compared to men MPs. Dr Tugba Bozcaga joined EIS as a lecturer in politics with a specialisation in political methodology. She earned a PhD in political science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2020. Before coming to King's, she was a postdoctoral research fellow at the Middle East Initiative at Harvard University. She is also a faculty fellow at the Association for Analytic Learning about Islam and Muslim Societies (AALIMS). Her research focuses on political economy of development, with a substantive focus on local governance, bureaucracy and state capacity, distributive politics, social welfare, and migration. Her work has been awarded Mancur Olson Best Dissertation Prize in Political Economy (Honorable Mention) from American Political Science Association (APSA). She also received the Best Comparative Policy Paper Award from APSA Public Policy Section, APSA MENA Politics Section Best Paper Award, and APSA Religion and Politics Section Best Paper Award.

In this podcast, Oxford Emeritus Professor Avi Shlaim compares notes with Exeter University Professor Ilan Pappé on the prospects for a binational state in the aftermath of the events of 7 October and the Gaza War.

A discussion of European initiatives to recognize the State of Palestine to advance the prospects for a two-state solution. In this episode, former Israeli Ambassador and Director General of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs Alon Liel speaks with Haizam Amirah-Fernández, Senior Analyst for Mediterranean and Middle Eastern affairs at the Elcano Institute in Madrid, and Chris Doyle, Director of CAABU, the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding, to consider European initiatives to recognize the State of Palestine to advance the prospects for a two-state solution. The Middle East Centre convenes its Hilary Term 2024 seminar each Monday night in term around the theme of 'Political Options Following the Gaza War.' The aim is to bring primarily Palestinian and Israeli speakers each week to discuss the different options facing policy makers in the aftermath of the 7 October 2023 attacks in Israel and the 2023-2024 War in Gaza. While some in the Israeli government call for continued security control over all Palestinian territories, many in the international community believe Palestinian statehood and the end of occupation the only sustainable course of action. In one session, speakers from Britain, Spain, and Israel will consider European proposals for recognizing Palestinian statehood. However, Palestinian independence is not the only option. Others continue to argue that a binational state, in which Palestinians and Israelis would enjoy citizenship, is the most feasible option, given the fragmentation of the West Bank by Israeli settlements. Yet all recognize that the political environment for substantive change has become far more difficult as a result of the 7 October attack and the Gaza War.

Prof Noura Erakat explores the significance of South Africa's application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip before the International Court of Justice, and the Court's decision to hear the case. The Middle East Centre convenes its Hilary Term 2024 seminar each Monday night in term around the theme of 'Political Options Following the Gaza War.' The aim is to bring primarily Palestinian and Israeli speakers each week to discuss the different options facing policy makers in the aftermath of the 7 October 2023 attacks in Israel and the 2023-2024 War in Gaza. While some in the Israeli government call for continued security control over all Palestinian territories, many in the international community believe Palestinian statehood and the end of occupation the only sustainable course of action. In one session, speakers from Britain, Spain, and Israel will consider European proposals for recognizing Palestinian statehood. However, Palestinian independence is not the only option. Others continue to argue that a binational state, in which Palestinians and Israelis would enjoy citizenship, is the most feasible option, given the fragmentation of the West Bank by Israeli settlements. Yet all recognize that the political environment for substantive change has become far more difficult as a result of the 7 October attack and the Gaza War.

Dr Hagar Kotef from SOAS examines the current situation of Israeli settlers both in the West Bank and in the Cabinet to assess the impact of the settler movement in political options following the Gaza War. The Middle East Centre convenes its Hilary Term 2024 seminar each Monday night in term around the theme of ‘Political Options Following the Gaza War.’ The aim is to bring primarily Palestinian and Israeli speakers each week to discuss the different options facing policy makers in the aftermath of the 7 October 2023 attacks in Israel and the 2023-2024 War in Gaza. While some in the Israeli government call for continued security control over all Palestinian territories, many in the international community believe Palestinian statehood and the end of occupation the only sustainable course of action. In one session, speakers from Britain, Spain, and Israel will consider European proposals for recognizing Palestinian statehood. However, Palestinian independence is not the only option. Others continue to argue that a binational state, in which Palestinians and Israelis would enjoy citizenship, is the most feasible option, given the fragmentation of the West Bank by Israeli settlements. Yet all recognize that the political environment for substantive change has become far more difficult as a result of the 7 October attack and the Gaza War.

In the opening meeting of the Middle East Centre’s Hilary Term seminar series, the Fellows of the Centre led a panel discussion to set out the agenda for the series examining the political options following the Gaza War. The Middle East Centre convenes its Hilary Term 2024 seminar each Monday night in term around the theme of ‘Political Options Following the Gaza War.’ The aim is to bring primarily Palestinian and Israeli speakers each week to discuss the different options facing policy makers in the aftermath of the 7 October 2023 attacks in Israel and the 2023-2024 War in Gaza. While some in the Israeli government call for continued security control over all Palestinian territories, many in the international community believe Palestinian statehood and the end of occupation the only sustainable course of action. In one session, speakers from Britain, Spain, and Israel will consider European proposals for recognizing Palestinian statehood. However, Palestinian independence is not the only option. Others continue to argue that a binational state, in which Palestinians and Israelis would enjoy citizenship, is the most feasible option, given the fragmentation of the West Bank by Israeli settlements. Yet all recognize that the political environment for substantive change has become far more difficult as a result of the 7 October attack and the Gaza War. With presentations by Eugene Rogan, Raihan Ismail, Maryam Alemzadeh and Walter Armbrust, the opening panel set the stage for the next seven sessions to follow. The session attracted an overflow audience that filled the lecture theatre to capacity.

Professor Yuli Tamir considers Israeli public opinion following the 7 October 2023 attack and the constraints that public opinion imposes on the political options moving forward. The Middle East Centre convenes its Hilary Term 2024 seminar each Monday night in term around the theme of ‘Political Options Following the Gaza War.’ The aim is to bring primarily Palestinian and Israeli speakers each week to discuss the different options facing policy makers in the aftermath of the 7 October 2023 attacks in Israel and the 2023-2024 War in Gaza. While some in the Israeli government call for continued security control over all Palestinian territories, many in the international community believe Palestinian statehood and the end of occupation the only sustainable course of action. In one session, speakers from Britain, Spain, and Israel will consider European proposals for recognizing Palestinian statehood. However, Palestinian independence is not the only option. Others continue to argue that a binational state, in which Palestinians and Israelis would enjoy citizenship, is the most feasible option, given the fragmentation of the West Bank by Israeli settlements. Yet all recognize that the political environment for substantive change has become far more difficult as a result of the 7 October attack and the Gaza War. In the second seminar in the Hilary Term series, ‘Political Options Following the Gaza War,’ the Centre welcomed Professor Yael (Yuli) Tamir, President of Beit Berl College, former Member of the Knesset, and former Cabinet Minister, to consider Israeli public opinion following the 7 October 2023 attack and the constraints that public opinion imposes on the political options moving forward. Once again, the lecture theatre was filled to overflow and generated extensive exchange between the audience and the speaker.

Join Professor Ghassan Salamé for his Lecture on 'Lessons from 2003 Iraq: Twenty Years Later.' Jointly organised by Invisible East and St Antony's College, University of Oxford, with the generous support of the Middle East Centre, the Reza Hosseini Memorial Lecture Series connects individual stories to larger questions on the history and contemporary issues of the Middle East. The series aims to recognise and promote, in particular, micro-histories, oral and documentary history, and fieldwork analysis. The series honours the life and work of Reza Hosseini (1960-2003) who last served as Humanitarian Officer in Iraq. The series is launched on the 20th anniversary of the attack on the United Nations Headquarters in Baghdad on 19 August 2003 which killed Reza and 21 colleagues. Guest Speaker: Ghassan Salamé (Professor of International Relations at Sciences-Po)

Adam Mestyan argues that post-Ottoman Arab political orders were not, as many historians believe, products of European colonialism but of the process of "recycling empire." Adam Mestyan is Associate Professor of History at Duke University. His works include Modern Arab Kingship - Remaking the Ottoman Political Order in the Interwar Middle East (Princeton University Press, 2023), Primordial History, Print Capitalism, and Egyptology in Nineteenth-Century Cairo (Ifao, 2021); and Arab Patriotism: The Ideology and Culture of Power in Late Ottoman Egypt (Princeton University Press, 2017). He is the PI of the collaborative Islamic digital humanities project, Digital Cairo - Studying Urban Transformation through a TEI XML Database, 1828-1914, supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and L'Institut français d'archéologie orientale du Caire (Ifao). In this groundbreaking book, Adam Mestyan argues that post-Ottoman Arab political orders were not, as many historians believe, products of European colonialism but of the process of "recycling empire." Mestyan shows that in the post-World War I Middle East, Allied Powers officials and ex-Ottoman patricians collaborated to remake imperial institutions, recycling earlier Ottoman uses of genealogy and religion in the creation of new polities, with the exception of colonized Palestine. These polities, he contends, should be understood not in terms of colonies and nation-states but as subordinated sovereign local states-localized regimes of religious, ethnic, and dynastic sources of imperial authority. Meanwhile, governance without sovereignty became the new form of Western domination.

Professor Yoav di Capua offers a comprehensive empirical, theoretical, and methodological reassessment of the Arab 60s as a global pursuit with lessons that transcend the geography of the Middle East - the fruit of a decade of research on Arab thought. A common understanding of the 1960s is that of an integrated global era marked by a revolutionary quest for self-liberation, transnational solidarity, sexual revolution, radical self-fashioning, anti-imperialism, a renewed understanding of gender and race relationships as well as an intellectual drive to articulate universal ethics of emancipation. But in the Arab world, with few exceptions, most narratives portray a radically different image: one of a failed revolutionary project marked by ideological bigotry, political messianism, personality cults, ethnocentric particularism, economic ruin, and an overall sense of a cultural defeat. Are these two images reconcilable?

Professor Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab offers some reflections on the challenges that a post-2011 Arab critique might be facing. What have the Arab Uprisings done to "Contemporary Arab Thought"? It is an undisputable fact that the Arab uprisings since 2011 have been a most dramatic turn in the Arab region since the founding of the modern Arab states: an unexpected and explainable event that continues to impact Arab life on all levels, including the intellectual. In my talk I look at the new light that that event might have shed on was/is known as "contemporary Arab thought," the aspects of continuity and discontinuity that it might have revealed about that thought? I ask to what extent we, inhabitants of that region, are still contemporaries of that thought? And to what extent that "contemporary Arab thought" was contemporaneous to the societies it came from? Guest Speaker: Professor Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab (Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, Qatar)

Professor Avi Shlaim gives the George Antonius Memorial Lecture 2023, examining the Jewish exodus from Iraq in the aftermath of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, and arguing the Zionist movement played an active part in the uprooting of Iraqi Jews. This annual lecture is also a launch for Avi Shlaim’s new book, 'Three Worlds: Memoir of an Arab-Jew' which will be published by Oneworld on 8 June. The three worlds of the title are Baghdad to the age of 5, Ramat Gan, Israel, 10 to 15, and school in London, 15 to 18. The book uses a family history to tell the bigger story of the Jewish community in Iraq, its rich culture, its integration into Iraqi society, and its contribution to nation-building at various levels. The lecture revolves round the central concept of the Arab-Jew. It examines the circumstances surrounding the Jewish exodus from Iraq in the aftermath of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. It challenges the Zionist narrative which claims that antisemitism was the main driver of the exodus. It argues that the Zionist movement played an active part in the uprooting of Iraqi Jews, and it presents new evidence to support this argument. Avi Shlaim is an Emeritus Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of the British Academy. His books include Collusion across the Jordan: King Abdullah, the Zionist Movement, and the Partition of Palestine (1988); War and Peace in the Middle East: A Concise History (1995); The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (2000, updated edition 2014); Lion of Jordan: The Life of King Hussein in War and Peace (2007); and Israel and Palestine: Reappraisals, Revisions, Refutations (2009). Speakers: Emeritus Professor Avi Shlaim, FBA (University of Oxford) Chair: Professor Eugene Rogan (St Antony's College) Recorded Thursday, 15 June 2023

The Director and Fellows of the Middle East Centre, St Antony’s College convened a memorial in honour of Derek Hopwood OBE, Emeritus Fellow in Middle Eastern Studies (1933-2020) and Celia Kerslake, Emeritus Fellow in Turkish (1946-2023). Guest Speakers and times: 0:00 - 4:17 Eugene Rogan, Middle East Centre Director (moderator and opening remarks) 4:17 - 15:30 Roger Goodman, Warden of St Antony's College 15:30 - 21:40 Rosie MacGregor, sister of Celia Kerslake 21:40 - 32.33 Michael Willis, Muhammad VI Fellow in Moroccan and Mediterranean Studies, tribute to Derek Hopwood 32:33 - 42:29 Laurent Mignon, Professor of Turkish, tribute to Celia Kerslake 42:29 - 55:20 Linda Schilcher ('69 Antonian), tribute to Derek Hopwood 55.20 - 1:12:18 Ahmed Al-Shahi ('65 Antonian), tribute to Derek and Celia 1:12:18 - 1:21:43 Dimitris Antoniou ('03 Antonian), student of Celia Kerslake 1:21:43 - 1:29:44 Gina Rowland ('85 Antonian), student of Derek Hopwood Closing remarks by Eugene Rogan

Women's Rights Research Seminar where guest speaker, Dr Roel Meijer (Guest Lecturer in Islam Studies, Radboud Universiteit) presents on Women’s movements and citizenship in the Middle East. Citizenship is not often mentioned in relation to women in the Middle East. Mostly women’s movements are analyzed in relation to nationalism, Islamism, law, and civil society. Citizenship, however, predates nationalism and Islamism. Moreover it is broader than law and more fundamental than political or religious ideologies, especially when it comes women’s movements and the sense of rights. Although I will concentrate on Egypt, I want to demonstrate in this talk how concepts of citizenship can help to analyze historical and present women’s movements in the Middle East. Biography: Roel Meijer was previously Associate Professor at Radboud University, Nijmegen) and has co-edited three volumes on citizenship in the Middle East and North Africa and is currently working on a Dutch history of the Middle East and North Africa.

Dr Haytham Alhamwi draws on his personal experiences to explain the story of the conflict in Syria. Through his personal story as a previous political prisoner, he starts by describing the situation in Syria before the Arab Spring in 2011, followed by how the Syrian uprising began, and his personal involvement in the non-violent movement. The presentation will cover how Assad’s regime reacted with lethal force to organised movements asking for change. The uprising escalated to a military conflict causing the death of approximately half a million people and the displacement of over half of the population. The presentation will highlight the involvement of different rebel factions (including perceived Jihadists and other terrorist groups) in the Syrian conflict, the heavy military-cum-financial support of the Syrian regime’s allies including Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, and the inadequate action of regional and international actors to support the Syrian uprising and the aspiration of the Syrian people. Finally, there will be an explanation of the current de facto partitions of Syria and a discussion on possible avenues for reaching a political solution in the near future. Dr Haytham Alhamwi graduated from the University of Damascus' Medical School in 1999. He was detained in Syria as a political prisoner from 2003 to 2005 for his civic activism in his hometown Daraya. He came to Manchester in 2007 to do his PhD, and upon graduation in 2012 he helped to establish Rethink Rebuild Society, a Manchester-based charity supporting Syrian refugees and asylum seekers. In 2019 he co-founded the Syrian British Consortium, a political body amplifying the voices of Syrians in the UK and advocating for an inclusive and democratic Syria. Dr Haytham Alhamwi is the Chairman of the Syrian British Consortium, a London-based advocacy body for British Syrians. He is also a co-founder and the manager of Rethink Rebuild Society, a charity established in Manchester in 2013 to support Syrian refugees and asylum seekers in the UK.

This lecture examines the resilience of the Iraqi state and nation before and after the 2003 invasion. Since 1980, Iraq weathered the longest conventional war of the 20th century, the Iran-Iraq War, followed by one of the shortest, the 1991 Gulf War, and the subsequent uprisings that swept through 15 of its 18 provinces, and a decade of sanctions. Since the 2003 war, Iraq has witnessed an occupation, the collapse of its national military, an insurgency, a civil war, the ensuing terrorist statelet of ISIS, which led to genocide against the Yezidi population, an aborted bid for Kurdish independence, a sustained protest movement, a pandemic, and a proxy war between the US and Iran that continues to this day. Iraq has endured despite numerous forecasts of its imminent collapse into three states. Nevertheless, Iraq’s future during the Anthropocene still looks uncertain, and climate change will have uneven effects on the nation from a geographic, generational, and gendered perspective. Biography Ibrahim Al-Marashi is Associate Professor of Middle East history at California State University San Marcos and visiting professor at the IE University School of Global and Public Affairs in Madrid, Spain, and formerly at Ivan Franko University in Lviv, Ukraine. He obtained his doctorate in Modern History at University of Oxford, completing a thesis on the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, part of which was plagiarized by the British government prior to the 2003 Iraq War, otherwise known as the “Dodgy Dossier.” His research focuses on 20th century Iraqi history, and currently is focusing on the effects of climate change on the nation. He is co-author of Iraq’s Armed Forces: An Analytical History (Routledge, 2008), The Modern History of Iraq (Routledge 2017), and A Concise History of the Middle East (Routledge, 2018).

The Rt Hon Sir Peter Gross (Formerly, Lead Judge for International Relations) shares his insight into the Judicial and Rule of Law developments in Iraq. Abstract: IRAQ 2018-2019: The Rule of Law: a perspective At the invitation of the President of the Supreme Judicial Council of Iraq, Chief Justice Dr Faiq Zidan, and supported by the FCDO, I visited Iraq in early 2018 and again in 2019, on each occasion to attend the Iraqi Judiciary Day. The visits embodied the success of peer-to-peer Judicial Engagement. Short stays can only present snapshots, but these timely visits (as Iraq was emerging from its Ba’thist past under Saddam) symbolised a wider and enduring yearning for the Rule of Law, together with the good governance it underpins. For my part, it entailed a combination of both pride and humility in the honour the visits accorded to the UK Judiciary. The visits generated mutual benefits. They affirmed the UK as the Iraqi Judiciary’s international partner of choice. On the Iraqi side, they assisted in boosting the position of the Judiciary in Iraqi society, also facilitating increased standing for the Iraqi Judiciary in the region and the integration of the Iraqi Judiciary into the international Judicial community, notably, in SIFoCC (the Standing International Forum of Commercial Courts). Furthermore, the visits enhanced the focus on women in the Iraqi Judiciary, benefited the relationship between Bench and Bar in Iraq and promoted improved relations between Judges in Baghdad and Erbil. Perspective is essential. The Judicial system in Iraq (as elsewhere) faces continued challenges in dealing with terrorism, human rights and corruption. This is a work in progress. The visits prompt a focus on Judicial and Rule of Law developments and reforms in the region. In a broader context, the principal need is to institutionalise arrangements for Judicial Engagement of this nature, so that they do not hinge on the individuals in post or office at the time and, on a continuing basis, harness the UK’s world-class reputation in the Rule of Law sphere. Biography: Practised in commercial chambers at 3 Essex Court (now Twenty Essex). Queen’s Counsel 1992. Appointed Judge of the Queen’s Bench Division 2001, Presiding Judge of the South-Eastern Circuit 2005-2008, Judge in Charge of Commercial Court 2009-2010. Appointed to the Court of Appeal in 2010. Senior Presiding Judge for England and Wales 2013-2015. Lead Judge for International Relations 2018-2019. Worked extensively internationally, including in the Middle East, on international Judicial relations. On retirement from the Court of Appeal, appointed President of the Slynn Foundation in November 2019, dedicated to advancing the Rule of Law internationally. In 2020, appointed by the Lord Chancellor to chair the Independent Human Rights Act Review (IHRAR) examining whether the Human Rights Act 1998 is working effectively. Judicial Commissioner of IPCO. Sir Peter practises as an Arbitrator and is a Judge of the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC) Courts. Treasurer of Gray’s Inn 2022.

Why did Iraq fail to prove its WMD absence before the 2003 invasion? This seminar examines new evidence from Iraq and United Nations sources to shed light on the internal debates leading up to the 2003 war. Why did the Iraqi regime fail to demonstrate it no longer had WMD prior to the 2003 invasion? For the past twenty years, there has been surprisingly little debate about this key question. In this seminar I draw on primary sources that I have collected from Iraqi sources and the United Nations inspectors investigating Iraqi WMD disarmament between the 1991 Gulf War and the 2003 invasion. Drawing on this new evidence, I argue that two factors were vital in shaping Iraqi WMD disclosures during the 2002-2003 period. First, a crucial strategic dilemma was that new admissions of past deception would bolster the case for war. Second, the Iraqi regime faced far greater difficulties in ensuring that its subordinates cooperated with the United Nations inspectors, despite the growing threat of war, than was recognized at the time. Drawing on these rich new primary sources, I highlight the debates and disagreements about what to disclose and to deny that unfolded inside the Iraqi state apparatus during these fateful months. Biography: Målfrid Braut-Hegghammer is Professor of Political Science at the University of Oslo, and heads the Oslo Nuclear Project. She has previously been a Junior Faculty Fellow at CISAC, Stanford University (2012-13), and a pre- and post-doctoral fellow at the Belfer Center, Harvard University (2008-10). She received her doctoral degree from London School of Economics in 2010, which received the Michael Nicholson Thesis Prize from BISA the following year. She published Unclear Physics: Why Iraq and Libya Failed to Build Nuclear Weapons (Cornell University Press, 2016) based on her dissertation research. Her work has been published in numerous outlets including International Security, The Middle East Journal, the New York Times (online), International Herald Tribune, Monkey Cage and War on the Rocks.

This talk examines the Shi‘ite political parties linked to Iraq's Popular Mobilisation Units (PMU) and their influence over the state, exploring their strategies for legitimacy in politics, religion, and society. Despite their modest performance at the ballot box in comparison to the 2018 parliamentary elections, the Shi‘ite political parties associated with Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Units (PMU) have remained important brokers with sufficient power to steer the government’s decision-making. Having been recognised as a state-sanctioned paramilitary umbrella since November 2016, the PMU regard themselves as entitled to co-shaping not only the political process, but also the very nature of Iraqi statehood. Their continued leverage over the contested Iraqi state and its institutions raises the question of how such an array of hybrid auxiliary forces has managed to consolidate its position and reap the benefits of its alliance with the country’s ruling elites. To provide an answer, Rudolf will present her analysis of how the PMU and their affiliates have sought to attain legitimacy within the political, religious, and civic fields – the main arenas of competition underlying the power dynamics within the fragmented Iraqi state. Biography: Dr. Inna Rudolf is a Senior Research Fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) and a postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Divided Societies. Within the XCEPT consortium, she is analysing the implications of identity politics and the mobilisation of violent memories in conflict-affected borderlands. As part of her PhD thesis at the War Studies Department of King’s College London, Rudolf focused the hybridization of security sector governance, examining Iraq’s paramilitary umbrella – the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) – and their quest for legitimacy within the state. She received her master’s degree in political science and Islamic studies in 2012 at the University of Heidelberg, specialising in Conflict Resolution, Peace Building and Political Islam. In addition to her field work in Iraq, she lived in Libya, Yemen, Egypt, Tunisia and Palestine for several years. Prior to joining the research team at ICSR, she represented the BMW Foundation in the Middle East and North Africa region. She is also a partner at the Candid Foundation – an independent Berlin based think tank working on political, social and cultural challenges facing Muslim communities in the Middle East, the Mediterranean, and further beyond.

The evolution of religion-civil society relations in post-2003 Iraq. The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 created a seismic shift in clerical-state relations. For decades, the Shia religious establishment had a contentious relationship with the Iraqi state, who feared their mobilization capacity and persecuted them as a result. After 2003, the Shia religious leadership played a powerful role in political affairs, guiding the country towards a constitutional referendum, earlier-than-planned elections, and intervening in critical moments to stem the flow of violence and to uphold order and stability. An onslaught of Shia Islamist parties seized control of the country through popular elections where the majority Shia population rewarded them for their opposition against Saddam Hussein. As the years drew on, however, these Islamist parties lost the public’s trust and Iraq’s population, and burgeoning civil society began to protest perceived religious control of the state. As the Islamist Parties were punished by civil society, so too were the clerical classes, who rushed to distance themselves from politics to salvage their reputation. How have clerics navigated their position amidst popular protests and an increasingly vocal civil society? Biography Marsin Alshamary is a research fellow at the Middle East Initiative at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs with the Harvard Kennedy School. She is also a non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. She is an incoming assistant professor of political science at Boston College. Her research examines the intersection of religion and politics in the Middle East, looking particularly at how the Shi'a religious establishment in Iraq has intervened in formal politics, in protest, and in peacebuilding. She holds a PhD in Political Science from MIT and a BA from Wellesley College.

Katerina Dalacoura will presents her research project entitled ‘The International Thought of Turkish Islamists’, funded by a Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship. The project engages with the idea of a ‘global International Relations’ by exploring Turkish Islamist thought in the Republican period. Drawing on insights from global intellectual history, it shows that Turkish Islamism evolved in conversation with philosophical and political debates and trends in both Western and Muslim settings. The study examines texts written by iconic and minor Islamist intellectuals, and the ideologies of religious associations and political organisations in Turkey that underpin them, to investigate three overlapping themes about ‘the international’: history and historiography; civilisation and culture; nation and state. Biography: Dr Katerina Dalacoura is Associate Professor in International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She has been awarded a Major Research Fellowship by the Leverhulme Trust for three years starting September 2021. Her project, entitled ‘The International Thought of Turkish Islamists: History, Civilisation and Nation’ will be a work of intellectual history that engages with the concept of a ‘global IR’. In 2015-16, she was British Academy Mid-Career Fellow and in 2016-19 she participated in a project on the ‘Middle East and North Africa Regional Architecture’, sponsored by the European Commission under the auspices of Horizon 2020 (2016-19). She previously worked at the University of Essex and at the International Institute of Strategic Studies. Dr Dalacoura’s work has centered on the intersection of Islamism and international human rights norms. She has worked on human rights, democracy and democracy promotion, in the Middle East, particularly in the context of Western policies in the region. Her latest research focuses on the role of culture and civilization in International Relations with special reference to Turkey. She has a continuing interest in questions of secularity and secularization in the Middle East. She is author of Islam, Liberalism and Human Rights: Implications for International Relations (I. B. Tauris, 2007), Islamist Terrorism and Democracy in the Middle East (Cambridge University Press, 2011) and of a number of chapters and articles in peer-reviewed journals. Dr Dalacoura teaches a third year undergraduate course on the Middle East and International Relation theory and a course on the international politics of culture and religion at MSc level; as well as undergraduate and post-graduate courses on international relations theory.

A Middle East Centre Seminar on Salafism. Salafism was the religious idiom that dominated Egypt's aborted political transition in the wake of the 2011 revolution and up to the 2013 military coup. The leading political actors of the moment all mobilized strands of Salafism in a fight for religious legitimacy against each other: the Salafi Call and its political party al-Nour (itself internally divided), Hazim Abu Isma'il and his movement of revolutionary Salafis, and even the Muslim Brotherhood, which now openly borrowed from Salafi references and relied on Salafi religious figures, despite the movement’s distinctive political-religious history. That reality stood in staunch contrast with the aspirations of Egypt’s more secular-leaning youth protest movements, which had played a key role in the initial uprising. How did this hegemonization of Salafi discourse in the Egyptian religious sphere come to be? And how do the resulting dynamics explain some of the Egyptian political transition's eventual shortcomings? Biography: Stéphane Lacroix is an associate professor of political science at Sciences Po, a senior researcher at Sciences Po’s Centre de Recherches Internationales (CERI) and the co-director of Sciences Po's Chair on religion. His work deals with religion and politics, with a focus on the Gulf and Egypt. He is the author of "Awakening Islam: The Politics of Religious Dissent in Contemporary Saudi Arabia" (Harvard University Press, 2011), "Saudi Arabia in Transition: Insights on Social, Political, Economic and Religious Change" (Cambridge University Press, 2015, with Bernard Haykel and Thomas Hegghammer), "Egypt's Revolutions: Politics, Religion, Social Movements" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016, with Bernard Rougier) and "Revisiting the Arab Uprisings: The Politics of a Revolutionary Moment" (Oxford University Press, 2018, with Jean-Pierre Filiu).

A talk with a focus on the contemporary militant group referred to by the acronym ISIS (or ISIL) and its views on the “caliphate.” As this group sees it, its so-called Islamic State represents the resurrection of the historical office of the caliph after its abrogation in 1923. ISIS anchors this position in the concept of “the creed of Abraham” (millat Ibrahim) mentioned in Qur’an 2:124 in order to derive a scriptural and theological mandate for their project. The lecture analyzes how credible this position is by resorting to a survey of the views of several influential Muslim exegetes on the concept of millat Ibrahim and explore whether their views align with those of ISIS. It concludes by reflecting on what the larger implications of this survey are for the contemporary period. Biography: Asma Afsaruddin is Professor of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures and Class of 1950 Herman B. Wells Endowed Professor in the Hamilton Lugar School of Global and International Studies at Indiana University, Bloomington, USA. She received her PhD in Arabic and Islamic Studies from Johns Hopkins University and previously taught at Harvard and Notre Dame universities. Her research interests include Islamic religious and political thought (both modern and pre-modern); Islamic intellectual history; Qur’an and hadith; and gender in Islam. She is the author and editor of eight books, including Jihad: What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press, 2021); Contemporary Issues in Islam (Edinburgh University Press, 2015); Striving in the Path of God: Jihad and Martyrdom in Islamic Thought (Oxford University Press, 2013), recently translated into Indonesian, which won the World Book Award in Islamic Studies from the Iranian government (2015) and was a runner-up for the British-Kuwaiti Friendship Society Book award (2014); and The First Muslims: History and Memory (OneWorld Publications 2008), which has been translated into Turkish and Malay. She has also written over fifty research articles and book chapters on topics as diverse as Qur’anic hermeneutics, hadith criticism, pluralism in Islamic thought, inter-faith relations, war and peace in the Islamic tradition; Islamic feminisms, and modern reform movements in Muslim-majority societies. Professor Afsaruddin is currently a member of the academic council of the Prince al-Waleed Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University and is a past member of the Board of Directors of the American Academy of Religion. She was previously the Kraemer Middle East Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at the College of William and Mary (2012) and a visiting scholar at the Centre for Islamic Studies at the London School of Oriental and African Studies (2003). She has also been a fellow with the American Research Center in Egypt (ARCE) based in Cairo and the American Research Institute of Turkey (ARIT) based in Istanbul. Afsaruddin lectures widely on various aspects of Islamic thought in the US, Europe, and the Middle East and has served as a consultant for the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, the US Institute of Peace, and other governmental and non-governmental agencies. Her research has been funded by the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York, which named her a Carnegie Scholar in 2005. In 2019 she was inducted into the Johns Hopkins Society of Scholars in recognition of the scholarly and professional distinction she has achieved in her field.

Professor Mohammad Khalil scrutinises the claim by New Atheists like Richard Dawkins that Islam is a fundamentally violent religion Is Islam fundamentally violent? For influential New Atheists such as Sam Harris, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and Richard Dawkins, the answer is an emphatic yes, largely because of the Islamic doctrine of jihad. According to this view, when al-Qaeda plotted 9/11 or ISIS planned any one of its recent terrorist attacks, they were acting in accord with Islamic scripture. In this presentation, Mohammad Hassan Khalil will scrutinize this claim by comparing the conflicting interpretations of jihad offered by mainstream Muslim scholars, violent Muslim radicals, and New Atheists. Mohammad Hassan Khalil is a Professor of Religious Studies, an adjunct Professor of Law, and the Director of the Muslim Studies Program at Michigan State University. Before returning to his hometown of East Lansing, Michigan, he was an Assistant Professor of Religion and visiting professor of Law at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He specializes in Islamic thought and is author of Islam and the Fate of Others: The Salvation Question (Oxford University Press, 2012; Indonesian translation published in 2016) and Jihad, Radicalism, and the New Atheism (Cambridge University Press, 2017); editor of Between Heaven and Hell: Islam, Salvation, and the Fate of Others (Oxford University Press, 2013) and Muslims and US Politics Today: A Defining Moment (ILEX and Harvard University Press, 2019); and lead investigator of the Muslims of the Midwest digital archive (muslimsofthemidwest.org). He has presented papers at various national and international conferences and has published peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters on various topics, from early Islamic historiography to bioethics. Speaker: Professor Mohammad Khalil (Michigan State University, USA) Chair: Professor Eugene Rogan (University of Oxford) Recorded Friday, 14 October 2022, Investcorp Lecture Theatre, St Antony's College

How historians can gain new insights from global history, and how historians and histories of Iran can contribute Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Annual Lecture - Centres, Peripheries and New Histories of the Left in Iran What can historians working on Iran gain from new insights generated in sprawling fields associated with global history such as global urban history and global intellectual history; and what can historians and histories of Iran contribute to these fields? With examples from recent and ongoing work on the history of the Iranian Left, and in particular, the revolutionary organization Sazman-e Charik-ha-ye Fada’i-ye Khalq or Fadais, Rasmus Elling will present examples of such dialogues between global fields and Area Studies. In particular, Elling will discuss two cases from his research to show how theoretical and methodological prisms such as 'urban/rural' and 'center/periphery’ can illuminate understudied aspects of Iran’s modern social, political and ideological history. These cases raise two overall questions: What was ‘urban’ about a quintessential urban guerrilla movement of the 1970s such as the Fadais? And where did minorities on Iran’s geographical periphery fit into the Third-Worldist views of a movement such as the Fadais? Tuesday, 29 November 2022 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm Venue: Investcorp Lecture Theatre, St Antony's College Speaker(s): Rasmus Christian Elling (University of Copenhagen) Chair: Dr Stephanie Cronin (Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies) Biography: Rasmus Elling is Associate Professor and Unit Coordinator of Middle East Studies at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, where he teaches Iranian and Middle Eastern history as well as Cross-Cultural Studies. He is a social historian studying modern Iran through four attention points: urbanism, ethnicity, political movements and ideology. Elling has worked with Iranian society, culture and politics for more than 20 years and written extensively on minorities, nationalism, student movements, urban violence and the Iranian revolution.

Prof. Esther Hertzog gives a talk on the vulnerable situation of motherhood in the Israeli welfare state. This talk will examine the role of state authorities, especially the welfare system and the courts, in undermining disadvantaged women's motherhood. State authorities undermine mothers' custodial rights over their offspring, especially through the discourse on 'child's wellbeing' and 'parental capability', blaming mothers for physically endangering and neglecting their children. It will be argued that while the formal discourse emphasizes the value of biological motherhood, yet in practice underprivileged mothers' custody over their offspring can be easily expropriated. Single parent mothers are a susceptible group from which babies can be taken away to adoption and their children taken to welfare institutions. The research on 'single parent mothers' ignores the phenomenon of expropriating disadvantaged mothers' parenthood by State authorities as well as the coercive means that are employed in the process. This talk will propose a critical analysis of the connection between "children at risk" discourse and disadvantaged women's motherhood.

Helen Lackner speaks about Yemen’s enduring crisis. Helen Lackner updates the seminar on the Yemeni war, providing a brief analysis of the origins of the conflict and addressing the main constraints and perspectives for the future. While focusing on the domestic aspects of the situation, she puts them in the regional context and also address the role of the international allies of the major parties involved.

Professor Joseph Sassoon in conversation with Dr Michael Willis about his recent book, The Global Merchants: The Enterprise and Extravagance of the Sassoon Dynasty (Allen Lane, Penguin Group, 2022). Emeritus Professor Avi Shlaim joins them. Abstract: The influential merchants of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries shaped the globalization of today. The Sassoons, a Baghdadi-Jewish trading family, built a global trading enterprise by taking advantage of major historical developments during the nineteenth century. Their story is not just one of an Arab Jewish family that settled in India, traded in China, and aspired to be British. It also presents an extraordinary vista into the world in which they lived and prospered economically, politically, and socially. The Global Merchants is not only about their rise, but also about their decline: why it happened, how political and economic changes after the First World War adversely affected them, and finally, how realizing their aspirations to reach the upper echelons of British society led to their disengagement from business and prevented them from adapting to the new economic and political world order. Professor Joseph Sassoon is Director of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies and Professor of History and Political Economy at Georgetown University. He holds the al-Sabah Chair in Politics and Political Economy of the Arab World. He is also a Senior Associate Member at St Antony’s College, Oxford. In 2013, his book Saddam Hussein’s Ba‘th Party: Inside an Authoritarian Regime (Cambridge University Press, 2012) won the prestigious British-Kuwait Prize for the best book on the Middle East. Professor Sassoon completed his Ph.D at St Antony’s College, Oxford. He has published extensively on Iraq and its economy and on the Middle East. The Global Merchants is his fifth book. Professor Avi Shlaim is Emeritus Fellow of St Antony's College and a former Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford. He was elected Fellow of the British Academy in 2006. His main research interest is the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is author of Collusion across the Jordan: King Abdullah, the Zionist Movement, and the Partition of Palestine (1988); The Politics of Partition (1990 and 1998); War and Peace in the Middle East: A Concise History (1995); The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (2000, second edition 2014); Lion of Jordan: King Hussein’s Life in War and Peace (2007); and Israel and Palestine: Reappraisals, Revisions, Refutations (2009). He is co-editor of The Cold War and the Middle East (1997); The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948 (2001, second edition 2007); and The 1967 Arab-Israeli War: Origins and Consequences (2012). Professor Shlaim is a frequent contributor to the newspapers and commentator on radio and television on Middle Eastern affairs. Dr Michael Willis is Director of the Middle East Centre at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford and King Mohammed VI Fellow in Moroccan and Mediterranean Studies. His research interests focus on the politics, modern history and international relations of the central Maghreb states (Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco). He is the author of Politics and Power in the Maghreb: Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco from Independence to the Arab Spring (Hurst and Oxford University Press, 2012) and The Islamist Challenge in Algeria: A Political History (Ithaca and New York University Press, 1997) and co-editor of Civil Resistance in the Arab Spring: Triumphs and Disasters (Oxford University Press, 2015).

Dr Raphaël Lefèvre in conversation with Dr Neil Ketchley about his recent book, 'Jihad in the City: Militant Islamism and Contentious Politics in Tripoli' (Cambridge University Press, 2021). Militant Islamists are often assumed to be driven by global goals and transnational networks. But this narrative misses a crucial point: from Tawhid during the Lebanese civil war to Tahrir al-Sham in the current Syrian conflict, Islamist armed groups often seek to recruit and mobilize local communities not appealed by their religious ideology - certain tribes, social classes, and neighbourhoods. Why? How do they go about it? And to what extent, then, is all Islamist politics local? Dr Raphaël Lefèvre is a Senior Fellow at the University of Oxford and Research Associate at the University of Aarhus. He investigates Islamist armed groups in the Middle East. His latest book is Jihad in the City: Militant Islamism and Contentious Politics in Tripoli (Cambridge University Press, 2021). He is also the author of Ashes of Hama, the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria (Oxford University Press, 2013). His PhD thesis which he did at the University of Cambridge was awarded the Bill Gates Sr Prize by the Gates Cambridge Trust and the Syrian Studies Association Prize. Dr Neil Ketchley is Associate Professor in Politics in the Department of Politics and International Relations, the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies, and a Fellow of St Antony's College. He is a political scientist of the Arabic-speaking Middle East and North Africa working at the intersections of political sociology and comparative politics. Neil's book, Egypt in a Time of Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2017), won the Charles Tilly Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Award. His current research interests include episodes of mass protest in the MENA, the rise of political Islam in interwar Egypt, and the changing profiles of regional political elites. Join us for our MEC live webinars – registration essential; details available from Middle East Centre Events, St Antony's College or subscribe to our weekly e-mailing newsletter by emailing mec@sant.ox.ac.uk and follow us on Twitter @OxfordMEC Middle East Centre, St Antony's College, University of Oxford Middle East Centre | St Antony's College (ox.ac.uk) https://www.sant.ox.ac.uk/research-centres/middle-east-centre

Marilyn Booth speaking on her new book. This book is an intellectual biography of early Arabic feminist Zaynab Fawwaz (c.1850-1914) and a study of her life in Ottoman Syria and Egypt, in the context of Arabophone debates on gender, modernity and the good society, 1890s-1910. Chapters take up her writing and debates in which she participated, concerning social justice, girls’ education, marriage, divorce and polygyny, the question of ‘Nature’ and Darwinist notions of male/female, and intersections of nationalism, anti-imperialism, and feminism. Fawwaz’s two novels and play are analysed in the context of fiction rewriting history, and on theatre as a reformist tool of public education. The book also comprises a study of some important periodical venues for public debate in Egypt in this period, particularly the nationalist press and one early women’s journal, and it highlights the writings of lesser-studied journalists and other intellectuals, within the context of the Arab/ic Nahda or intellectual revival. The talk will focus particularly on a central argument: that Fawwaz’s feminism, based on an Islamic ethical worldview, was distinct from prevailing ‘modernist’ views in posing a non-essentialist, open-ended notion of gender that did not (for instance) highlight maternalist discourses and that rejected fixed notions of sex-gender identity. Fawwaz’s background was Shi’i, an element that is quietly present in her work. Biography: Marilyn Booth is Khalid bin Abdallah Al Saud Professor for the Study of the Contemporary Arab World, University of Oxford. Her most recent monograph, The Career and Communities of Zaynab Fawwaz: Feminist Thinking in Fin-de-siècle Egypt (2021), is amongst numerous publications on early feminism, translation, and Arabophone women’s writing in Egypt and Ottoman Syria. Translator of eighteen works of fiction and memoir from the Arabic, she was co-winner of the 2019 Man Booker International Prize for her translation of Jokha Alharthi’s Celestial Bodies.

Dr Neil Ketchley in conversation with Professor Walter Armbrust about his current research. The post-WWII era saw coups and “revolutions from above” break out across the Middle East and North Africa. How did these events transform colonial-era state elites? We theorize that post-colonial regimes had to choose between purging perceived opponents and delivering key state functions, leading to important variation in individual turnover and survival. To illustrate our argument, we trace the careers of 674 colonial-era ministers and civil servants in Egypt following the 1952 Revolution. Our analysis shows that individuals connected to Egypt's deposed monarch, very senior officials, and those with military backgrounds were more likely to be purged. Experienced officials and those with advanced university degrees were more likely to be retained. Residual workplace effects suggest that the logics of purging threats and retaining experienced officials also operated at the institutional level. The findings point to important instances of elite-level continuity during episodes of radical political change. Dr Neil Ketchley is Associate Professor in Politics in the Department of Politics and International Relations, the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies, and a Fellow of St Antony's College. He is a political scientist of the Arabic-speaking Middle East and North Africa working at the intersections of political sociology and comparative politics. Neil's book, Egypt in a Time of Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2017), won the Charles Tilly Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Award. His current research interests include episodes of mass protest in the MENA, the rise of political Islam in interwar Egypt, and the changing profiles of regional political elites. Professor Walter Armbrust is a Hourani Fellow and Professor in Modern Middle Eastern Studies. He is a cultural anthropologist, and author of Mass Culture and Modernism in Egypt (1996); Martyrs and Tricksters: An Ethnography of the Egyptian Revolution (2019); and various other works focusing on popular culture, politics and mass media in Egypt. He is editor of Mass Mediations: New Approaches to Popular Culture in the Middle East and Beyond (2000). Additional contributor, Mr Gilad Wenig, PhD student, UCLA.

Join us as we listen to Dr Usaama al-Azami (Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford) in conversation about his new book, 'Islam and the Arab Revolutions, the Ulama between Democracy and Autocracy'. Dr Michael Willis (St Antony’s College) is chairing the webinar. The live webinar took place on 21st January 2022 as part of the Middle East Centre webinar series. The book is available for purchase in the UK from Hurst Publishers, quote the discount code ISLAMARAB35 at check-out for 35% discount; and to purchase outside the UK, from Oxford University Press, quote ADISTA5 for your discount. This video is also available with accessibility features as a podcast at http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/series/middle-east-centre The Arab revolutions of 2011 were a transformative moment in the modern history of the Middle East, as people rose up against long-standing autocrats throughout the region to call for ‘bread, freedom and dignity’. With the passage of time, results have been decidedly mixed, with abortive success stories like Tunisia contrasting with the emergence of even more repressive dictatorships in places like Egypt, with the backing of several Gulf states. Focusing primarily on Egypt, this book considers a relatively understudied dimension of these revolutions: the role of prominent religious scholars. While pro-revolutionary ulama have justified activism against authoritarian regimes, counter-revolutionary scholars have provided religious backing for repression, and in some cases the mass murder of unarmed protestors. Usaama al-Azami traces the public engagements and religious pronouncements of several prominent ulama in the region, including Yusuf al-Qaradawi, Ali Gomaa and Abdallah bin Bayyah, to explore their role in either championing the Arab revolutions or supporting their repression. He concludes that while a minority of noted scholars have enthusiastically endorsed the counter-revolutions, their approach is attributable less to premodern theology and more to their distinctly modern commitment to the authoritarian state. Biographies Dr Usaama al-Azami read his BA in Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford, and his MA and PhD in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. Alongside his university career, he also pursued Islamic studies in seminarial settings in which he has also subsequently taught. He has travelled extensively throughout the Middle East, living for five years in the region. He is also an enthusiastic teacher who is very eager to support the formation of research scholars, and always welcomes students with such aspirations to get in touch with him. Usaama al-Azami is primarily interested in the interaction between Islam and modernity with a special interest in modern developments in Islamic political philosophy. His first book, Islam and the Arab Revolutions looks at the way in which influential Islamic scholars responded to the Arab uprisings of 2011 through 2013. His PhD, which is a separate project which he hopes to develop into a monograph in the near future, is entitled "Modern Islamic Political Thought: Islamism in the Arab World from the Late Twentieth to the Early Twenty-first Centuries". In it, he explores how Arab ulama of a mainstream "Islamist" orientation have engaged Western political concepts such as democracy, secularism and the nation-state, selectively adapting and assimilating aspects of these ideas into their understanding of Islam. His broader interests extend to a range of disciplines from the Islamic scholarly tradition from the earliest period of Islam down to the present. Dr Michael J. Willis is Director of the Middle East Centre at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford and King Mohammed VI Fellow in Moroccan and Mediterranean Studies. His research interests focus on the politics, modern history and international relations of the central Maghreb states (Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco). He is the author of Politics and Power in the Maghreb: Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco from Independence to the Arab Spring (Hurst and Oxford University Press, 2012) and The Islamist Challenge in Algeria: A Political History (Ithaca and New York University Press, 1997) and co-editor of Civil Resistance in the Arab Spring: Triumphs and Disasters (Oxford University Press, 2015). Join us for the live webinar next time – registration essential; details available from Middle East Centre Events | St Antony's College (ox.ac.uk) (https://www.sant.ox.ac.uk/research-centres/middle-east-centre/events) or subscribe to our weekly e-mailing newsletter by emailing mec@sant.ox.ac.uk or follow us on Twitter @OxfordMEC Middle East Centre, St Antony's College, University of Oxford Middle East Centre | St Antony's College (ox.ac.uk) https://www.sant.ox.ac.uk/research-centres/middle-east-centre

This is a recording of a live webinar held on Friday 3rd December 2021 for the Middle East Centre Like many parts of the world, the environment in the Middle East is in crisis. Climate change, biodiversity loss and unsustainable material extraction will have the same detrimental consequences for life as elsewhere on the planet. In recent years, however, the state of the environment in the Middle East has been framed in a sensationalistic manner; with little evidence, it is blamed for conflict and migration and is predicted to lead to societal collapse. Using a lens of political ecology, this talk will illustrate how these assumptions are problematic; they are rooted in a Western perception of the environment in the Middle East that is determined by cultural and political imaginaries. Political ecology also tells us that the current policies enacted by regional states to address sustainability will probably fail, on the basis that they are technopolitical. But it also tells us that there is a potential for an alternative that offers a more optimistic future, albeit one that requires radical change and a departure from the current system. Christian Henderson is assistant professor at Leiden Institute for Area Studies at Leiden University, Netherlands. His research focusses on the agrarian political economy and the political ecology of the Middle East and North Africa. His work has previously been published in the Journal of Peasant Studies, Environment and Planning A, Review of African Political Economy and the Journal of Arabian Studies.

This is a recording of a live webinar held on Thursday 25th November 2021 for the Middle East centre. Dr Ibrahim al-Marashi (Associate Professor of Middle East history at California State University San Marcos and Visiting Professor at the IE University School of Global and Public Affairs in Madrid, Spain) and Kate Clark (Co-Director and Senior Analyst, Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN), https://www.afghanistan-analysts.org ) present ‘Afghanistan and the Middle East’. Dr Michael Willis (St Antony’s College, Oxford) chairs this webinar. Ibrahim Al-Marashi - Contesting the "Graveyard of Empires" Trope: Situating Afghanistan within Middle East History". First, this talk will examine the relevance of history, particularly Middle Eastern history for understanding the current crisis in Afghanistan, from antiquity to the Soviet invasion of the nation. This talk will examine the relevance of history, particularly Middle Eastern history for understanding the current crisis in Afghanistan. The fall of Kabul has been compared to the 1975 fall of Saigon or the British and Soviet defeats, hence the epitaph of the "Graveyard of Empires." While historical context is crucial, the aforementioned historical tropes are misleading, denying agency to Afghanistan as a nation and people Kate Clark - Killing the Goose that Laid the Golden Egg: How overnight Afghanistan became a rentier state with no rent. The capture of the Afghan state by the Taliban was an economic calamity. The foreign assistance which had made up 43 per cent of GDP was cut. UN and US sanctions applied to the Taliban as an armed group suddenly applied to the whole country. Afghanistan’s foreign reserves and World Bank funds were frozen and the banking sector was paralysed. The repercussions are already catastrophic: only one in 20 households now have enough to eat. With such shaky economic foundations, will the Taliban’s new Islamic Emirate prove any more sustainable than the old post-2001 Islamic Republic? Biographies: Kate Clark has worked for AAN, a policy research NGO based in Kabul, since 2010. Her research and publications have focussed on the conflict, including militia formation and investigations into breaches of the Laws of War, detentions and the use of torture. She has written extensively on Afghanistan’s political economy, as well as its wildlife and the environment. Kate experienced both of the most recent falls of Kabul, in 2021, and in 2001, when she was the BBC correspondent (1999-2002). During the last years of the first Taleban emirate, she was the only western journalist based in Afghanistan. Kate has also worked at the BBC Arabic Service, on Radio 4 news and current affairs programmes, and has made radio and television documentaries about Afghanistan, including on the insurgency, weapons smuggling, corruption, the opium economy and war crimes. Kate has an MA in Middle Eastern Politics from Exeter University in Britain and has also lived, studied and worked in the Middle East. Ibrahim Al-Marashi obtained his doctorate in Modern History at St Antony's College, University of Oxford, completing a thesis on the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. His research focuses on 20th century Iraqi history. He is co-author of Iraq’s Armed Forces: An Analytical History (Routledge, 2008), and The Modern History of Iraq, with Phebe Marr (Routledge 2017), and A Concise History of the Middle East (Routledge, 2018). If you would like to join the live audience during this term’s webinar series, you can sign up to receive our MEC weekly newsletter or browse the MEC webpages. The newsletter includes registration details for each week's webinar. Please contact mec@sant.ox.ac.uk to register for the newsletter or follow us on Twitter @OxfordMEC. Accessibility features of this video playlist are available through the University of Oxford Middle East Centre podcast series: http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/series/middle-east-centre

This is a recording of a live webinar held on Friday 19th November 2021 for the MEC. Dr Michael Mason, Director of the Middle East Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science presents “Failing Flows: The Politics of Water Management in Southern Iraq”. Dr Michael Willis (St Antony’s College, Oxford) chairs this webinar. In July 2018 massive protests erupted in Basra city as residents demanded improvements in public services. Failings in water management were at the heart of local grievances: an outbreak of water-related illnesses was triggered by the increased use of polluted water from the Shatt al-Arab, Basra’s principal source of water. However, the deterioration of public water infrastructure has its roots in decades of armed conflict and international sanctions. Tap water has been undrinkable since the 1990s, forcing most households to rely on private water vendors. Water infrastructure upgrading was a priority for state-rebuilding after 2003 but receded under the sectarian civil war. Governmental and donor plans for mega-infrastructure water projects have stalled in the face of political stasis and systemic corruption. Compact water treatment units are the dominant purification technology, supplying 83% of treatment capacity across Basra governorate and 92% in Basra city. The effectiveness of this water treatment technology is reduced by irregular supplies of freshwater from the Bada’a Canal - flows negatively impacted by upstream dam construction, climatic variability and illegal water tapping. There is a pressing need to diversify water sources for Basra and improve the efficiencies of treatment technologies and distribution networks. The LSE report that Dr Michael Mason refers to in his presentation is available from the LSE website: Failing_Flows_003_.pdf (lse.ac.uk) Artworked credit: Azhar Al-Rubaie, 2021 Dr Michael Mason is Director of the Middle East Centre and Associate Professor in Environmental Geography at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is interested in ecological politics and governance as applied to questions of accountability, security and sovereignty. His research addresses both global environmental politics and environmental change in Western Asia/the Middle East. He has a particular interest in environmental issues within conflict-affected areas and occupied territories, including Iraq, northern Cyprus, and the occupied Golan Heights. Alongside articles in a wide range of journals and chapter contributions, he is the author or editor of five books, of which the most recent is the forthcoming co-edited volume, The Untold Story of the Golan Heights (2022). Dr Michael J. Willis is Director of the Middle East Centre at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford and King Mohammed VI Fellow in Moroccan and Mediterranean Studies. His research interests focus on the politics, modern history and international relations of the central Maghreb states (Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco). He is the author of Politics and Power in the Maghreb: Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco from Independence to the Arab Spring (Hurst and Oxford University Press, 2012) and The Islamist Challenge in Algeria: A Political History (Ithaca and New York University Press, 1997) and co-editor of Civil Resistance in the Arab Spring: Triumphs and Disasters (Oxford University Press, 2015). If you would like to join the live audience during this term’s webinar series, you can sign up to receive our MEC weekly newsletter or browse the MEC webpages. The newsletter includes registration details for each week's webinar. Please contact mec@sant.ox.ac.uk to register for the newsletter or follow us on Twitter @OxfordMEC.

This is a recording of a live webinar held on Friday 12th November 2021 for the MEC. Dr Mattin Biglari (SOAS, University of London) presents “Air Pollution, Toxicity, and Environmental Politics in the History of Iranian Oil Nationalisation”. Dr Stephanie Cronin (Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford) chairs this webinar. As we witness the increasingly visible effects of the global climate emergency, it is paramount that the study of the environment is better integrated into the social sciences and humanities. This is especially so in the case of Iran, where the recent drying up of rivers in the province of Khuzestan has caused water scarcity for the local population and led to subsequent political mobilisation. Yet it is also vital to consider less spectacular forms of environmental degradation that equally afflict the country today, particularly air pollution, which presents one of the world’s greatest health challenges and each year contributes to over 8 million deaths globally. This talk will turn attention to the toxicity of air pollution to illuminate its relationship to embodied subjectivity, (in)visibility, temporality and infrastructure, especially with reference to the politics of Iran’s oil nationalisation in 1951. By focusing on subaltern experiences in the oil refinery town of Abadan, it will offer an alternative account to challenge dominant nationalist narratives of this important episode in the country’s history. In doing so, it connects the modern history of Iran to a burgeoning body of work in the environmental and energy humanities that highlights the relationship between global pollution and imperialism in the Middle East and wider Global South. Dr Mattin Biglari is a Research Associate and Teaching Fellow at SOAS. His research focuses on the intersection of energy, environment, infrastructure and labour, especially in the history of Iran and the Middle East. His doctoral thesis, which was awarded the 2021 BRISMES Leigh Douglas Memorial Prize for best PhD dissertation, examines the technopolitics of Iranian oil nationalisation, especially focusing on expertise, labour and anti-colonialism in Abadan. His monograph based on this thesis entitled Refining Knowledge: Labour, Politics and Oil Nationalisation in Iran, 1933-51 will be published with Edinburgh University Press in 2023. Mattin has also published about banditry in Iran during the early twentieth century, examining its relationship to the country’s constitutional revolution and integration into the capitalist world economy. He has also written an article in Diplomatic History about how perceptions of Shi’a Islam shaped U.S. foreign policy during the 1978-79 Iranian revolution. Mattin completed his PhD in History at SOAS in 2020. Previously he attained an MA in Near and Middle Eastern Studies at SOAS and a BA in History at the University of Cambridge. Stephanie Cronin is Elahé Omidyar Mir-Djalali Research Fellow, Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford. She is the author of Armies and State-building in the Modern Middle East: Politics, Nationalism and Military Reform (I. B. Tauris, 2014); Shahs, Soldiers and Subalterns in Iran: Opposition, Protest and Revolt, 1921-1941 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010); Tribal Politics in Iran: Rural Conflict and the New State, 1921-1941 (Routledge, 2006); and The Army and the Creation of the Pahlavi State in Iran, 1910-1926 (I. B. Tauris, 1997). She is the editor of Subalterns and Social Protest: History from Below in the Middle East and North Africa (Routledge, 2007); Reformers and Revolutionaries in Modern Iran: New Perspectives on the Iranian Left (Routledge, 2004); and The Making of Modern Iran; State and Society under Riza Shah, 1921-1941 (Routledge, 2003).

On 25 July 2021 Tunisian President Kais Saied dismissed the government and suspended parliament, subsequently employing the army and security forces around government buildings to thwart any opposition to his power grab. How did Tunisia – long hailed as a democratic model in the region – reach such a stage? Who is President Saied and what does he plan on doing? What are his sources of power and support, both within Tunisia and internationally? And does his power grab mean the end of Tunisian democracy? This panel will tackle these questions and more. Youssef Cherif runs the Columbia Global Centers | Tunis, the North and West African research centre of Columbia University. He is a Tunis-based political analyst, member of Carnegie’s Civic Activism Network, and a regular contributor to number of think-tanks (Carnegie, ISPI, IAI, IEMed, etc.). He consulted previously for IWPR, IACE, the United Nations, The Carter Center, and the Tunisian Institute for Strategic Studies (ITES). He comments on North African affairs for several media outlets, including Al Jazeera, BBC, DW, France 24, among others. He holds a Chevening Master of Arts in International Relations from the Dept. of War Studies of King's College London, and a Fulbright Master of Arts in Classical Studies from Columbia University. Youssef is the editor of the book The Modern Arab State: A Decade of Uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, 2021. Dr Anne Wolf is a Fellow at All Souls College, University of Oxford, where she teaches Authoritarian Politics. She holds a doctorate from the University of Oxford (St Antony’s College) and an MPhil in Politics and International Relations from the University of Cambridge (Clare College), where she was previously the Margaret Smith Research Fellow in Politics and International Relations (Girton College). Her 2017 book Political Islam in Tunisia: The History of Ennahda, published by Oxford University Press, won the CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title. Her second book, Ben Ali’s Tunisia: Power and Contention in an Authoritarian Regime is forthcoming with OUP. Wolf has published numerous journal articles on Authoritarian Politics in the Arab world. She is an Associate Editor at the Journal of North African Studies and a Senior Research Fellow at the Project of Middle East Democracy.

Oil price volatility and accelerated energy transitions away from hydrocarbons to meet climate change mitigation measures have presented existential threats to the economies of hydrocarbon-dependent welfare states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). These state rely on oil and gas not only in their exports to fund welfare distributive measures, but also domestically for highly-subsidized energy and water consumption. In response, each GCC state announced economic development plans presented as avant-garde “Visions”—one tailored to each of the six GCC states— reflecting a future target of transformation away from oil and gas through energy and economic diversification and reform. In a fundamental policy shift, GCC states implemented energy subsidy reform following the 2014 oil price declines, with varying degrees of success. In another fundamental policy shift in October 2020, in preparation for COP26 in Glasgow, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain pledged to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 or 2060. Beyond the economic pressures, GCC states also face environmental challenges owing to their highly subsidized energy and water consumption and emissions in an already-constrained environment owing to climate change. This talk summarizes the state of the environment in the Gulf states and examines the role of the environment in the economic and energy diversification plans of their Visions. It argues that the environment has had a limited role in the Visions, despite the state of the environment in the region, offering a striking difference with other regions. The talk concludes with implications on the region’s long-term sustainability and success of proposed reforms. MEC Friday Webinar. This is a recording of a live webinar held on 5th November 2021 for the MEC Friday Seminar Michaelmas Term 2021 series on the overall theme of The Environment and The Middle East. Dr Manal Shehabi (Academic Visitor, St. Antony's College, University of Oxford; and Senior Research Fellow, Oxford Institute for Energy Studies) presents “Environment Discounted: Energy and Economic Diversification Plans in the Gulf”. Professor Walter Armbrust (St Antony’s College, Oxford) chairs this webinar, and Dr Michael Willis is the Q&A Moderator. The combination of oil price volatility and the accelerated energy transitions away from hydrocarbons to meet climate change mitigation measures have presented existential threats to the economies of hydrocarbon-dependent welfare states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). These state rely on oil and gas not only in their exports to fund welfare distributive measures, but also domestically for highly-subsidized energy and water consumption. In response, each GCC state announced economic development plans presented as avant-garde “Visions”—one tailored to each of the six GCC states— reflecting a future target of transformation away from oil and gas through energy and economic diversification and reform. In a fundamental policy shift, GCC states implemented energy subsidy reform following the 2014 oil price declines, with varying degrees of success. In another fundamental policy shift in October 2020, in preparation for COP26 in Glasgow, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain pledged to reach net-zero emissions by 2050 or 2060. Beyond the economic pressures, GCC states also face environmental challenges owing to their highly subsidized energy and water consumption and emissions in an already-constrained environment owing to climate change. This talk summarizes the state of the environment in the Gulf states and examines the role of the environment in the economic and energy diversification plans of their Visions. It argues that the environment has had a limited role in the Visions, despite the state of the environment in the region, offering a striking difference with other regions. The talk concludes with implications on the region’s long-term sustainability and success of proposed reforms. Dr Manal Shehabi is an applied economist with expertise in economic, energy, resource sustainability & policy making in resource-dependent economies, focusing on the Middle East and Gulf regions. She publishes in academic journals, books, and policy reports. Using economy-wide modeling and political economy, her research made important contributions to the analysis of economic and energy diversification, economic adjustments, decarbonization and hydrogen, and policy alternatives in Gulf hydrocarbon economies following the energy transition and oil price volatility. Her research also impacted policy making, for example she constructed an economic model for policymaking in Kuwait, led or co-authored various policy reports (such as to the UNFCCC, KISR, the IPCC, and G20’s T20 Italy), and conducted capacity building for economic and climate policymakers in Gulf countries and beyond. A polyglot, regularly advises policymakers & firms. Professor Walter Armbrust is a Hourani Fellow and Professor in Modern Middle Eastern Studies. He is a cultural anthropologist, and author of Mass Culture and Modernism in Egypt (1996); Martyrs and Tricksters: An Ethnography of the Egyptian Revolution (2019); and various other works focusing on popular culture, politics and mass media in Egypt. He is editor of Mass Mediations: New Approaches to Popular Culture in the Middle East and Beyond (2000). Dr Michael J. Willis is Director of the Middle East Centre at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford and King Mohammed VI Fellow in Moroccan and Mediterranean Studies. His research interests focus on the politics, modern history and international relations of the central Maghreb states (Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco). He is the author of Politics and Power in the Maghreb: Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco from Independence to the Arab Spring (Hurst and Oxford University Press, 2012) and The Islamist Challenge in Algeria: A Political History (Ithaca and New York University Press, 1997) and co-editor of Civil Resistance in the Arab Spring: Triumphs and Disasters (Oxford University Press, 2015). If you would like to join the live audience during this term’s webinar series, you can sign up to receive our MEC weekly newsletter or browse the MEC webpages. The newsletter includes registration details for each week's webinar. Please contact mec@sant.ox.ac.uk to register for the newsletter or follow us on Twitter @OxfordMEC. Accessibility features of this video playlist are available through the University of Oxford Middle East Centre podcast series: http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/series/middle-east-centre

This is a recording of a live webinar held on 29th October 2021 for the MEC Friday Seminar Michaelmas Term 2021 series on the overall theme of The Environment and The Middle East. Dr Jamie Furniss (Institut de recherche sur le Maghreb contemporain (Tunis) / Department of Social Anthropology, University of Edinburgh) presents: The blue-clad fennec: authoritarian environmentalism in Tunisia, and its afterlives. Professor Walter Armbrust (St Antony’s College, Oxford) chairs this webinar, including the Q&A session. There is hardly a city in the whole of Tunisia without a faded sign reading “Boulevard de l’environnement” (Shari‘ al-bi’a) on one of its most prominent thoroughfares. If it hasn’t fallen over from neglect or been removed—for example by angry protesters or as a sort of nostalgic and kitsch lawn ornament—one may find a statue of desert fox (Fennec) in a blue jumpsuit, minus a few limbs, standing at the end of the avenue. These are the traces of the authoritarian environmentalism of Ben Ali’s Tunisia, the forms and afterlives of which this paper seeks to sketch. I begin by arguing that environment emerged as a category of political action in 1990s Tunisia largely as a way of papering over the totalitarian state by appealing to strategic hot-button issues in the eyes of the “West” (like women’s rights), as well as an attempt at aesthetic and moral discipline. I then evoke some of the consequences this genealogy has on the ways “environment” is used and understood in Tunisia today. What exactly does “environment” refer to in Tunisia is both a necessary contextual backdrop to this paper and a question that emerges from the political and social history I aim to examine. From some examples such as analysis of the Arabic terms (bi’a vs. muhit), the discourse in public signage pertaining to waste, the creation in 2017 of Tunisia’s “environmental police” and participant observation I have conducted on civil society “environmental” projects, I attempt to demonstrate that environment is a concept characterized by visuality and proximity. This makes garbage and in particular its visual accumulation in public space a kind of archetypal “environmental problem”. The rapid political telescoping of waste into issues of corruption (e.g. during the “Italian waste scandal”) as well as the use of cleanup as a political idiom (e.g. during the halit wa‘I movement following Kais Said’s election as president) are indices of ongoing political overtones of the issues of waste, cleanliness, and environment more broadly, in contemporary Tunisia. Dr Jamie Furniss is currently a researcher at the Institut de recherche sur le Maghreb contemporain in Tunis, on leave from a position as a lecturer in Social Anthropology at the University of Edinburgh. He has a DPhil from the University of Oxford in International Development and has conducted fieldwork in Egypt and Tunisia, primarily on topics pertaining to environment, waste, and urban development. Professor Walter Armbrust is a Hourani Fellow and Professor in Modern Middle Eastern Studies. He is a cultural anthropologist, and author of Mass Culture and Modernism in Egypt (1996); Martyrs and Tricksters: An Ethnography of the Egyptian Revolution (2019); and various other works focusing on popular culture, politics and mass media in Egypt. He is editor of Mass Mediations: New Approaches to Popular Culture in the Middle East and Beyond (2000). If you would like to join the live audience during this term’s webinar series, you can sign up to receive our MEC weekly newsletter or browse the MEC webpages. The newsletter includes registration details for each week's webinar. Please contact mec@sant.ox.ac.uk to register for the newsletter or follow us on Twitter @OxfordMEC. Accessibility features of this video playlist are available through the University of Oxford Middle East Centre podcast series: http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/series/middle-east-centre

Dr Hussam Hussein investigates the construction of the discourse of water scarcity in Jordan, and the political economy of the water sector. This is a recording of a live webinar held on 22nd October 2021 for the MEC Friday Seminar Michaelmas Term 2021 series on the overall theme of The Environment and The Middle East. Dr Hussam Hussein (Lecturer in International Relations at DPIR, Oxford Martin School Fellow in Water Diplomacy, and Fulford Junior Research Fellow at Somerville College) presents the politics of water scarcity in the case of Jordan. Dr Neil Ketchley (St Antony’s College, Oxford) chairs this webinar and Dr Michael Willis (St Antony’s College, Oxford) moderates the Q&A. This talk investigates the construction of the discourse of water scarcity in Jordan, and the political economy of the water sector. It identifies the actors constructing the discourse and the elements comprising the discourse. The research finds that there is a single dominant discourse of water scarcity, which is composed of two narratives: water insufficiency and water mismanagement. The water insufficiency narrative is constructed to emphasise factors external to the responsibility of the Jordanian government as reasons for water scarcity, like nature, refugees, and neighbouring countries. It is mainly constructed by governmental aligned actors and deployed to open solutions on the supply and conservation sides and ultimately to maintain the status quo of the current water uses. The water mismanagement narrative is constructed to emphasise as reasons for water scarcity factors of mismanagement of water resources and deployed to increase economic efficiency in the water sector, challenging existing uses, allocations, and benefits. Dr Hussam Hussein’s research focuses on the role of discourses in shaping water policies in the Middle East, on transboundary water governance, and on issues related to the political economy of water resources in arid and semi-arid regions. Hussam has also worked on issues of sustainable development and environmental governance for the Italian Embassy in Jordan, the European Parliament, the World Bank and UNICEF. He obtained his PhD from the University of East Anglia with a thesis on hydropolitics and discourses of water scarcity in the case of Jordan. Dr Neil Ketchley is Associate Professor in Politics in the Department of Politics and International Relations (DPIR) and the Oxford School of Global and Area Studies (OSGA). His research focuses on the dynamics of protest and activism in the Arabic-speaking Middle East and North Africa. His most recent book, Egypt in a Time of Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2017), won the Charles Tilly Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Award from the American Sociological Association. His work has appeared in journals such as the American Political Science Review, the Journal of Politics, Political Research Quarterly, and Mobilization. Neil's current research interests include episodes of historic mass protest in the MENA, the rise of political Islam in Egypt, and the changing profiles of regional political elites. Dr Michael J. Willis is Director of the Middle East Centre at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford and King Mohammed VI Fellow in Moroccan and Mediterranean Studies. His research interests focus on the politics, modern history and international relations of the central Maghreb states (Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco). He is the author of Politics and Power in the Maghreb: Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco from Independence to the Arab Spring (Hurst and Oxford University Press, 2012) and The Islamist Challenge in Algeria: A Political History (Ithaca and New York University Press, 1997) and co-editor of Civil Resistance in the Arab Spring: Triumphs and Disasters (Oxford University Press, 2015). If you would like to join the live audience during this term’s webinar series, you can sign up to receive our MEC weekly newsletter or browse the MEC webpages. The newsletter includes registration details for each week's webinar. Please contact mec@sant.ox.ac.uk to register for the newsletter or follow us on Twitter @OxfordMEC. Accessibility features of this video playlist are available through the University of Oxford Middle East Centre podcast series: http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/series/middle-east-centre

MEC Friday Webinar. This is a recording of a live webinar held on 15th October 2021 for the first episode of the MEC Friday Seminar Michaelmas Term 2021 series on the overall theme of The Environment and The Middle East. MEC Friday Webinar. This is a recording of a live webinar held on 15th October 2021 for the first episode of the MEC Friday Seminar Michaelmas Term 2021 series on the overall theme of The Environment and The Middle East. Oxford academics Dr Michael Willis, Professor Walter Armbrust, Dr Laurent Mignon and Dr Usaama al-Azami reflect upon how issues of the Environment relate to their own research. Dr Michael J. Willis is Director of the Middle East Centre at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford and King Mohammed VI Fellow in Moroccan and Mediterranean Studies. His research interests focus on the politics, modern history and international relations of the central Maghreb states (Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco). He is the author of Politics and Power in the Maghreb: Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco from Independence to the Arab Spring (Hurst and Oxford University Press, 2012) and The Islamist Challenge in Algeria: A Political History (Ithaca and New York University Press, 1997) and co-editor of Civil Resistance in the Arab Spring: Triumphs and Disasters (Oxford University Press, 2015). Professor Walter Armbrust is a Hourani Fellow and Professor in Modern Middle Eastern Studies. He is a cultural anthropologist, and author of Mass Culture and Modernism in Egypt (1996); Martyrs and Tricksters: An Ethnography of the Egyptian Revolution (2019); and various other works focusing on popular culture, politics and mass media in Egypt. He is editor of Mass Mediations: New Approaches to Popular Culture in the Middle East and Beyond (2000). Dr Laurent Mignon is Associate Professor of Turkish language and literature at the University of Oxford, a Fellow of St Antony’s College and Affiliate Professor at the Luxembourg School of Religion and Society. His research focuses on the minor literatures of Ottoman and Republican Turkey, in particular Jewish literatures, as well as the literary engagement with non-Abrahamic religions during the era straddling the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic. In March and April 2019, he was invited as Visiting Professor at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris. He is an Associate Member of the Centre de Recherche Europes-Eurasie at INALCO, Paris. His newest publications are: Uncoupling Language and Religion: An Exploration into the Margins of Turkish Literature, Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2021. https://www.academicstudiespress.com/ottomanandturkishstudies/uncoupling-language-and-religion Alberto Ambrosio and Laurent Mignon (ed.), Penser l'islam en Europe: Perspectives du Luxembourg et d'ailleurs, Paris: Hermann, 2021. https://www.editions-hermann.fr/livre/9791037005472 Dr Usaama al-Azami is Departmental Lecturer in Contemporary Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford. He read his BA in Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford and his MA and PhD in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. Alongside his university career, he also pursued Islamic studies in seminarial settings in which he has also subsequently taught. He has travelled extensively throughout the Middle East, living for five years in the region. Usaama al-Azami is primarily interested in the interaction between Islam and modernity with a special interest in modern developments in Islamic political thought. His latest book, Islam and the Arab Revolutions: Ulama Between Democracy and Autocracy (Hurst Publishers, October 2021; Oxford University Press, USA, forthcoming 2022) looks at the way in which influential Islamic scholars responded to the Arab uprisings of 2011 through 2013. His broader interests extend to a range of disciplines from the Islamic scholarly tradition from the earliest period of Islam down to the present. If you would like to join the live audience during this term’s webinar series, you can sign up to receive our MEC weekly newsletter or browse the MEC webpages. The newsletter includes registration details for each week's webinar. Please contact mec@sant.ox.ac.uk to register for the newsletter or follow us on Twitter @OxfordMEC.

Dr Orkideh Behrouzan (SOAS University of London), gives a talk for the Middle East Centre seminar series on 21st May 2021, chaired by Edmund Herzig (Faculty of Oriental Studies). Discussant: Dr Maziyar Ghiabi (University of Exeter). Iran has been one of the worst hit countries by the Coronavirus pandemic, while its pandemic response has been shaped by the politicization of the outbreak and the securitization of information about it. This landscape of suspicion reveals a particular form of biopolitics that underlies the society’s structures of social and moral immunity, which are significant in determining the afterlife of a pandemic and emerging local and global biologies and socialities. This project is an attempt to trace the psychological life of the Coronavirus pandemic and the psycho-politics of its emergence and evolution, in order to understand the specific processes and forces in which the pandemic gains a local life and what it reveals about society. Biographies: Orkideh Behrouzan is a physician, medical anthropologist, anthropologist of science and technology, and the author of Prozak Diaries: Psychiatry and Generational Memory in Iran (2016, Stanford University Press). She is the founder of the Beyond Trauma Initiative, and a bilingual author and poet in Persian and English. For more, please see: https://www.orkidehbehrouzan.com Maziyar Ghiabi is a Wellcome Lecturer in Medical Humanities at the University of Exeter. His primary work has concerned the study of illegal drugs and ‘addiction’ in West Asia and in the global South. Maziyar’s current project is titled Living ‘Addiction’ in States of Disruption funded by Wellcome Trust (2021-26). Before this, Maziyar was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the Drugs & (Dis)Order Project, based at the SOAS (University of London) and held research and teaching positions at Oxford University, the EHESS and SciencesPO. His first book Drugs Politics: Managing Disorder in the Islamic Republic of Iran (London: Cambridge University Press, 2019, also in Open Access) was awarded the 2020 Best Book of the Year (Nikki Keddie Prize) by the Middle Eastern Studies Association (MESA). Maziyar obtained his DPhil in Politics from Oxford University in 2017

Professor Marie Ladier-Fouladi (CNRS)/ CETOBaC) gives a talk for the MEC Women's Rights Research Seminars. Chaired by Soraya Tremayne (Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology). Marie Ladier-Fouladi is a senior Researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS)/ CETOBaC (Centre d’Études Turques, Ottomanes, Balkaniques et Centrasiatiques) and professor of Political Sociology and Population Studies at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in Paris. Marie Ladier-Fouladi earned her Ph.D. in Demography and Social Sciences from the EHESS (École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales - Paris) in 1999 and entered CNRS (National Center for Scientific Research) in 2000. In 2012, she earned her full Professorship (Habilitation à Diriger des Recherches -HDR) in Demography and Social Sciences. The title of her HDR’s dissertation was: “Understanding the Socio-Political Change Through the Prism of Demography”. In October 2019, she joined the Centre for Turkish, Ottoman, Balkan and Central Asian Studies (CETOBaC). Her research investigates the relationship between demographic changes and socio-political transformations, especially relying on the case of Iran. This approach consists in analyzing demographic phenomena by putting them in relation to their context, in the historical, social, economic, and political perspective. It is from this reflection on the relationship between demography and politics, and the perspectives they open up to understand social behaviors that she has defined her methodological approach. She has conducted several research projects on women and youth as new protagonists of political change in Iran, family and solidarity networks, social policy, immigration policy, political elections and population’s political horizon in Iran. She recently started working on a new research program entitled: From Global to Local: The Disturbing Future of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In 2010, the Iranian government reversed the neo-Malthusian policy it had introduced in December 1989, and opted for a new population policy that I will define as populationist. It consisted in deploying all possible means to reach a target population of 150 million, within an unspecified timeframe though. The supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, fully endorsed this policy, and in May 2014, for the sake of speeding up the process, he drew up a strategic program in a 14-article decree, called “Population General Policies”, which sanctioned the state’s new population policy, and instructed the legislative, the executive, and the judiciary powers to implement it. Grounded in the alleged threat of population aging due to birth control and declining fertility, the new population policy aims to accelerate population growth by reversing the downward trend in fertility. There is no doubt that the process of population aging has started in Iran, but not to the extent that this demographic evolution may justify the implementation of incentive, coercive and particularly aggressive measures in order to entice Iranian people into having more children. While, by reappropriating their fertility, Iranian women succeeded in coming out of “the male sphere of domination” and thus reaching dignity and equality, they again find themselves subject to injunctions that violate their reproductive health rights and thereby their human rights. I first shed light on the actual yet concealed objective of the new population policy of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The examination of coercive as well as incentives measures shall then evidence the detrimental effect of this new policy on Iranian women's rights.

Hamid Dabashi (Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University in New York), gives a talk for the Middle East Studies Centre. The first comprehensive social and intellectual biography of Jalal Al-e Ahmad, this book explores the life and legacy of Jalal Al-e Ahmad (1923-69), arguably the most prominent Iranian public intellectual of his time and contends that he was the last Muslim intellectual to have articulated a vision of Muslim worldly cosmopolitanism, before the militant Islamism of the last half a century degenerated into sectarian politics and intellectual alienation from the world at large. This unprecedented engagement with Al-e Ahmad’s life and legacy is a prelude to what Dabashi calls a post-Islamist Liberation Theology. The Last Muslim Intellectual is about expanding the wide spectrum of anticolonial thinking beyond its established canonicity and adding a critical Muslim thinker to it is an urgent task, if the future of Muslim critical thinking is to be considered in liberated terms beyond the dead-end of its current sectarian predicament. A full social and intellectual biography of Jalal Al-e Ahmad, a seminal Muslim public intellectual of the mid-20th century, this book places Al-e Ahmad’s writing and activities alongside other influential anticolonial thinkers of his time, including Frantz Fanon, Aimé Césaire and Edward Said. Chapters cover Jalal Al-e Ahmad’s intellectual and political life; his relationship with his wife, the novelist Simin Daneshvar; his essays; his fiction; his travel writing; his translations; and his legacy. Hamid Dabashi is the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. He received a dual PhD in Sociology of Culture and Islamic Studies from the University of Pennsylvania in 1984, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University. He wrote his dissertation on Max Weber's theory of charismatic authority with Philip Rieff (1922-2006), the most distinguished Freudian cultural critic of his time. Professor Dabashi has taught and delivered lectures in many North American, European, Arab, and Iranian universities. Professor Dabashi has written twenty-five books, edited four, and contributed chapters to many more. He is also the author of over 100 essays, articles and book reviews on subjects ranging from Iranian Studies, medieval and modern Islam, and comparative literature to world cinema and the philosophy of art (trans-aesthetics). His books and articles have been translated into numerous languages, including Japanese, German, French, Spanish, Danish, Russian, Hebrew, Italian, Arabic, Korean, Persian, Portuguese, Polish, Turkish, Urdu and Catalan. His books include Authority in Islam [1989]; Theology of Discontent [1993]; Truth and Narrative [1999]; Close Up: Iranian Cinema, Past, Present, Future [2001]; Staging a Revolution: The Art of Persuasion in the Islamic Republic of Iran [2000]; Masters and Masterpieces of Iranian Cinema [2007]; Iran: A People Interrupted [2007]; and an edited volume, Dreams of a Nation: On Palestinian Cinema[2006]. His most recent work includes Shi’ism: A Religion of Protest (2011), The Arab Spring: The End of Postcolonialism (2012), Corpus Anarchicum: Political Protest, Suicidal Violence, and the Making of the Posthuman Body (2012), The World of Persian Literary Humanism (2012) and Being A Muslim in the World (2013).

Gillian Mosely (Film Director and Producer) joins Dr Anne Irfan, Professor Eugene Rogan and our Middle East Centre webinar audience to talk about her documentary film, The Tinderbox - Israel and Palestine: time to call time? Dr Anne Irfan (Refugee Studies Centre, Oxford) and Professor Eugene Rogan (St Antony’s College, Oxford). Extract from British Council Film website: Knowledge is power, but lack of knowledge keeps power where politicians want it... From BAFTA-award-winning producer Gillian Mosely, in association with multi-award winners, Spring Films (NIGHT WILL FALL, THE ACT OF KILLING), THE TINDERBOX is a controversial, revealing, and timely new feature documentary exploring both sides of the Israeli Palestinian conflict. It’s the first time the facts behind the divide have been brought to the screen in a single film, and delves deep into history, as well as hearing from contemporary Israeli and Palestinian voices. Exposing surprising, shocking and uncomfortable truths, not least for its Jewish director and onscreen investigator, this is an important film that will provide valuable context and help people make up their minds – or even change them. http://www.thetinderboxfilm.com A first-time director, Gillian Mosely began producing films in 1997, creating, developing, producing and exec producing a wide range of high end documentaries for Arte, BBC, Channel 4, Discovery, History, ITV, NatGeo, PBS and ZDF among others. In 2017 Gillian produced her first Feature Documentary: Manolo: the Boy Who Made Shoes for Lizards (Netflix). TV films include “Ancient Egypt: Life and Death in the Valley of the Kings,” BBC2, and BAFTA, Royal Television Society and AIB award-winning “Mummifying Alan,” Channel 4, Discovery, NGCI. Dr Anne Irfan is Anne Irfan is Departmental Lecturer in Forced Migration at the Refugee Studies Centre. She holds a Dual Master’s Degree from Columbia University and the LSE and a PhD from the LSE, where she wrote her doctoral thesis on the historical role of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in the Palestinian refugee camps. She previously taught at the University of Sussex and the LSE, and is an Associate Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy. Anne’s research interests include global refugee history, UNRWA and Palestinian refugees, forced migration in the Middle East, the spatiality of refugee camps, and archival suppression. She is currently Co-Investigator on the British Academy-funded research project Borders, global governance and the refugee, examining the historical origins of the global refugee regime. In recent years, she has spoken at the UK Parliament in Westminster, and the UN Headquarters in New York and Geneva about the functions of the UNRWA regime and the exclusions facing Palestinian refugees from Syria. Anne’s work has been published in Journal of Refugee Studies, Jerusalem Quarterly and Forced Migration Review, as well as media outlets The Washington Post and The Conversation. Her article ‘Is Jerusalem international or Palestinian? Rethinking UNGA Resolution 181’ was named co-winner of the 2017 Ibrahim Dakkak Award for Best Essay on Jerusalem. She is currently working on a book about UNRWA’s institutional history. Professor Eugene Rogan is Professor of Modern Middle Eastern History at the University of Oxford and Director of the Middle East Centre at St Antony’s College. He is author of The Fall of the Ottomans: The Great War in the Middle East, 1914-1920 (Penguin, 2015) which was named The Economist books of the year 2015 and The Sunday Times top ten bestseller; and The Arabs: A History (Penguin, 2009, 3rd edition 2018), which has been translated in 18 languages and was named one of the best books of 2009 by The Economist, The Financial Times, and The Atlantic Monthly. His earlier works include Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire (Cambridge University Press, 1999), for which he received the Albert Hourani Book Award of the Middle East Studies Association of North America and the Fuad Köprülü Prize of the Turkish Studies Association; The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948 (Cambridge University Press, 2001, second edition 2007, with Avi Shlaim), which has been published in Arabic, French, Turkish and Italian editions; and Outside In: On the Margins of the Modern Middle East (I.B. Tauris, 2002).

Professor Irene Schneider (Georg-August-Universität Göttingen), gives a talk for the MEC Women's Rights Research Seminars. Chaired by Professor Marilyn Booth (Magdalen College, Oxford) Irene Schneider is Professor of Arabic and Islamic Studies. She received her PhD from Tuebingen University in 1989 and published her Dissertation under the title "Das Bild des Richters in der adab al-qadi-Literatur". In 1996 she finished her habilitation at the University of Cologne with a Study published under the title "Kinderverkauf und Schuldknechtschaft. Untersuchungen zur frühen Phase des islamischen Rechts" (English short version in the article: Freedom and Slavery in Early Islamic Time (1st /7th and 2nd /8th centuries), in: al-Qantara. 28. 2007, S. 353-382). In 2008 she turned down the offer of the Chair "Islamic Studies and Gender Studies" at the University of Zurich and in 2014 the offer of the Sharjah Chair of Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter/UK. Abstract: Irene Schneider: "Debating the Law, Creating Gender“ My book strived to break new ground in mainly four research areas. 1. First, by observing legal iterations/debates (Benhabib 2003) in connection with the construction of gender roles in a Muslim state for a period of more than seven years (2012–2018), the question was asked why these iterations partly lead to “jurisgenerative” results, i.e. to “lawmaking” and partly failed to do so. The aim was to understand how these iterations developed in Palestinian society and “who belled the cat,” i.e., who steered these iterations successfully and how some discourses became dominant while others did not. Research so far had most often considered only short-term developments leading to reforms, ignoring long-term developments and discourses that ended without success. 2. Second, the research combined the analysis of the dominant discourses in these iterations between 2012 and 2018 – khulʿ in the first phase (2012–2014) and the question of how international law can be brought into harmony with national law in the second phase (2014–2018) – on the socio-legal level with an in-depth linguistic analysis based on Koselleck’s Begriffsgeschichte and the approach of translating from the “global” to the “local.” This linguistic analysis proved essential in understanding the shifts in these iterations as well as the social power struggle behind these shifts. 3. Third, the concentration on university teaching as part of iterations, especially when combined with an analysis of the textbook and the actual teaching process has revealed a deeper understanding of intellectual discourses in Palestine in a section of the public sphere, i.e., the universities, which has been ignored so far. It is still a surprisingly underresearched area taking into consideration that it is in universities that the future elite – in this case future lawyers, judges, and scholars – are trained. The question, whether they are well-enough equipped with the existing education to take up the task of harmonizing international law with national law based on Islamic legal terminology must be seriously asked. 4. Fourth, because of the political situation especially since 2007, there has been more research on the West Bank than on Gaza and research most often concentrated on one area or the other but was not combined and compared as is done in this book. Especially the research focus on Gaza lead to surprising results in comparison with West Bank iterations.