Some Panels from the Upcoming Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association (Boston 2016)

Some Panels from the Upcoming Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association (Boston 2016)

Some Panels from the Upcoming Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association (Boston 2016)

By : Jadaliyya Reports

The Middle East Studies Association (MESA) will be holding its annual meeting in Boston beginning this coming Thursday, 17-20 November 2016. Over a span of four days, scholars and researchers from across North America, the Middle East, and beyond will present their work via an impressive and diverse array of thematic panels (see complete program here).

In order to highlight some of the panels, below is a list of MESA 2016 Annual Meeting panels in which one or more members of the Arab Studies Institute (including Jadaliyya, Arab Studies Journal, Status Audio Journal, Forum on Arab and Muslim Affairs, and Knowledge Production Project)  is involved in as an organizer, presenters, discussant, and/or chair. However, to appreciate the full spectrum of topics, themes, geographic areas, and disciplines represented, we encourage you to browse the entire program. All information, including registration information, can be found by clicking here.


Friday, 11/18/16 3:45pm

A Tribute to the Work of Mary Ann Tétreault (1942-2015)
Organized by Farah Al-Nakib

The Politics of Occupation: Mary Ann Tétreault’s Take on the Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait
by Al-Nakib, Farah

From Stories of Democracy to Histories of the Margins: Enlarging the Spectrum of Kuwaiti Voices
by Beaugrand, Claire

Institutional Autonomy and Economic Change in Small States: Mary Ann Tétreault’s Contribution to the Study of Oil Politics
by Martin, Geoff

Gender and the Public/Private Sphere: Insights from Mary Ann Tétreault
by Mitchell, Jocelyn Sage

Discussant: Gwenn Okruhlik


Roundtable on Global Arab America: Cosmopolitanism and Its Discontents
Organized by Suad Joseph and Pauline Homsi Vinson

Lisa Hajjar
Sarah Gualtieri
Bassam Haddad
Carol Fadda


Roundtable on Electrifying Middle East and North African Studies
Organized by Ziad Abu-Rish and Janell Rothenberg

Janell Rothenberg
Nida Alahmad
Ziad M. Abu-Rish
Omar Jabary Salamanca
Gokce Gunel
Pauline Lewis

Discussant: Laleh Khalili


Political, Social, and Religious Reform in the Age of Social Media
Organized by Nadia Oweidat

Cairene Women, Graffiti, and Online Social Networks: Pinterest as a Platform for Social, Political, and Religious Reform Efforts
by Bardhan, Soumia

Rethinking State Control over Media Production in Egypt
by El Khachab, Chihab

The Alpha and the Omega: Divination, Deliverance, and Delusion in Digital Egypt
by Iskandar, Adel

The New Generation of Islamic thought Reformists and their use of Social media: the cases of Bihiri, Nasr and Harqan
by Oweidat, Nadia

Discussant: Linda Herrera


Saturday, 11/19/16 10:00am

Special Session on Explaining Divergent Outcomes: The Arab Spring Five Years On

Lisa  Anderson
Val Moghadam
Joshua Landis
Amaney Jamal
Bassam Haddad
Shamiran Mako

 

Saturday, 11/19/16 2:00pm

Beneath and Beyond Gender and Sexuality: Cultures of Friendship, Sociality, and the Erotic in the Modern Middle East
Organized by Pelle Valentin Olsen

“My Dear Brother”: Bonds of Friendship in Ottoman Sports Clubs
by Yildiz, Murat C.

Joining the Effendiyya? The Case of Paulina Hassun
by Efrati, Noga

Cruising Baghdad: Masculinity, Sexuality, and Homoerotic Desire in The Works of Dhu al-Nun Ayyub
by Valentin Olsen, Pelle

Discussant: Haytham Bahoora


Academic Freedom under Assault: A Roundtable on Recent Developments in Egypt and Turkey
Organized by Laurie Brand

Denying Academic Freedom by Law in Turkey
by Bali, Asli

The Precarious State of Academic Freedom in Egypt
by Fahmy, Khaled

Academic Freedom and Political Stability in Contemporary Turkey?"
by Igsiz, Asli Z.

Expanding the Borders of The Forbidden in Egyptian Universities
by Langohr, Vickie


Saturday, 11/19/16 4:00pm

Representations Respond to History & Trauma

Asma’a (2011): Representing HIV/AIDS in Arab Cinema
by Alawadhi, Hend

Media Realism in Time of War: Identification, Interactivity, and Symbolism in Syrian Television Drama”
by Alhayek, Katty

Draw Me a Gun: Children’s Books in the Trenches of the ‘Arab Hanoi’
by Maasri, Zeina

Turkic Muslims’ Literary Response to the Uninvited Russian “Guest”
by Okur, Jeannette E.


Sunday, 11/20/16 8:00am

Roundtable on Middle Eastern Sports Studies: The State of the Field
Organized by Andrea Stanton

James M. Dorsey
Andrea L. Stanton
Murat C. Yildiz
Danyel Reiche 


The Crisis in Turkey
Organized by Val Moghadam

Fatma Muge Gocek
Yesim Arat
Asli Z. Igsiz
Huseyin Levent Koker

 

Sunday, 11/20/16 10:00am 

Water and Power Politics: Palestine and Lebanon

Reexamining the Lebanese State Through Water: Sect, Class, and Politics in Mount Lebanon
by Boueri, Kevin

When U.S. Aid didn’t Come to The Rescue: Nazareth, the Israeli State and Water Politics
by Dallasheh, Leena

The Human Right to Water and Sanitation: The Case of Palestine for Assessing the Opportunities and Potential Pitfalls of a Discourse
by Gasteyer, Stephen P.

Water Wars: The Battle over the Privatization and Monopolization of Israel`s Water Sector
by Herzog, Donna

Phase "A": Redesigning the Litani River, 1948-1956
by Lawson, Owain


Coercive Apparatuses after the Arab Spring

To Coup or Not to Coup: The Tunisian Military in 2013
by Grewal, Sharan

The Coercive Apparatus in Tunisia: Paradigms Lost?
by Weirich, Sarah

Coups and Nascent Democracies: Egypt and Tunisia in a Comparative Perspective
by Bou Nassif, Hicham

Follow the Money: How certain economic activities do (or don’t) generate political resources for the Egyptian Military
by Marshall, Shana

Discussant: Eva Bellin 

 

Sunday, 11/20/16 12:00pm

Controversy, Scandal and Rumor in Modern Algeria and Tunisia: The Role of Public Opinion in Instigating Political and Social Changes
Organized by M`Hamed Oualdi

 Martyr or Traitor? Economic Development and National Memory in Algeria
by Davis, Muriam Haleh

“Blasphemy, Free Speech, or Political Affair, the Jabeur Mejri Affair in Tunisia”
by Marzouki, Nadia

“Embezzlement and Bribery in Late Ottoman Tunisia (1850s-1880s)”
by Oualdi, M`Hamed

From “Qui tue qui” to “Bled Miki:” Controversies and Political Uncertainty in Post-Conflict Algeria
by Serres, Thomas


The State and Social Conflict in Egypt under the Sisi Regime
Organized by Hesham Sallam and Dena Shehata

"The Officer Has Saved the Nation: Military Bureaucrats and Businessmen in Egypt"
by Abul-Magd, Zeinab A.

"Will the `taifas Neo-Mamluk state` end in Egypt?"
by El Sherif, Ashraf

"Patterns of political resistance and mobilization under the Sisi regime"
by Shehata, Dina

Discussant: Hesham Sallam

 

Sunday, 11/20/16 2:00pm

Infrastructure, Expertise, and Political Authority in the Middle East

Science versus Sentiment: The Water Supply Controversy in British Colonial Cairo
by Ismail, Shehab

Managing Mobility: Railways, Cotton, and Anti-Colonialism in Interwar Egypt
by Shokr, Ahmad

Infrastructures of Modernization: Highways and Mobility in Postwar Turkey
by Adalet, Begum

Litter and the Shrug: Thinking the Politics of Infrastructure through Garbage in Twenty-First Century Palestine
by Stamatopoulou-Robbins, Sophia


What are the Underlying Causes of Violent Conflicts? Syria`s War Five Years On

"The Syrian Uprising (2011): Revolution, Environment and Security"
by Daoudy, Marwa

"The Sectarianization of the Syrian Conflict: The Salience of Authoritarianism over Theology"
by Hashemi, Nader

"Physical Destruction and Human Displacement in Syria: Violence as a Mean of Warfare, Violence as a Political, Social and Economic (dis)Order"
by Vignal, Leila Marie Rebecca

Discussant: Bassam Haddad 

 

Black Palestinian Solidarity and Anti-Blackness: A Way Forward
Organized by Noura Erakat

"Football Is Faster Than Politics: Sudan, Egypt, and FIFA Boycotts"
by Azeb, Sophia

"Comrades, Captivity and Sunlight"
by Thomas, Greg

Discussant: Noura Erakat

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Past is Present: Settler Colonialism Matters!

On 5-6 March 2011, the Palestine Society at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London will hold its seventh annual conference, "Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine." This year`s conference aims to understand Zionism as a settler colonial project which has, for more than a century, subjected Palestine and Palestinians to a structural and violent form of destruction, dispossession, land appropriation and erasure in the pursuit of a new Jewish Israeli society. By organizing this conference, we hope to reclaim and revive the settler colonial paradigm and to outline its potential to inform and guide political strategy and mobilization.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is often described as unique and exceptional with little resemblance to other historical or ongoing colonial conflicts. Yet, for Zionism, like other settler colonial projects such as the British colonization of Ireland or European settlement of North America, South Africa or Australia, the imperative is to control the land and its resources -- and to displace the original inhabitants. Indeed, as conference keynote speaker Patrick Wolfe, one of the foremost scholars on settler colonialism and professor at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia, argues, "the logic of this project, a sustained institutional tendency to eliminate the Indigenous population, informs a range of historical practices that might otherwise appear distinct--invasion is a structure not an event."[i]

Therefore, the classification of the Zionist movement as a settler colonial project, and the Israeli state as its manifestation, is not merely intended as a statement on the historical origins of Israel, nor as a rhetorical or polemical device. Rather, the aim is to highlight Zionism`s structural continuities and the ideology which informs Israeli policies and practices in Palestine and toward Palestinians everywhere. Thus, the Nakba -- whether viewed as a spontaneous, violent episode in war, or the implementation of a preconceived master plan -- should be understood as both the precondition for the creation of Israel and the logical outcome of Zionist settlement in Palestine.

Moreover, it is this same logic that sustains the continuation of the Nakba today. As remarked by Benny Morris, “had he [David Ben Gurion] carried out full expulsion--rather than partial--he would have stabilised the State of Israel for generations.”[ii] Yet, plagued by an “instability”--defined by the very existence of the Palestinian nation--Israel continues its daily state practices in its quest to fulfill Zionism’s logic to maximize the amount of land under its control with the minimum number of Palestinians on it. These practices take a painful array of manifestations: aerial and maritime bombardment, massacre and invasion, house demolitions, land theft, identity card confiscation, racist laws and loyalty tests, the wall, the siege on Gaza, cultural appropriation, and the dependence on willing (or unwilling) native collaboration and security arrangements, all with the continued support and backing of imperial power. 

Despite these enduring practices however, the settler colonial paradigm has largely fallen into disuse. As a paradigm, it once served as a primary ideological and political framework for all Palestinian political factions and trends, and informed the intellectual work of committed academics and revolutionary scholars, both Palestinians and Jews.

The conference thus asks where and why the settler colonial paradigm was lost, both in scholarship on Palestine and in politics; how do current analyses and theoretical trends that have arisen in its place address present and historical realities? While acknowledging the creativity of these new interpretations, we must nonetheless ask: when exactly did Palestinian natives find themselves in a "post-colonial" condition? When did the ongoing struggle over land become a "post-conflict" situation? When did Israel become a "post-Zionist" society? And when did the fortification of Palestinian ghettos and reservations become "state-building"?

In outlining settler colonialism as a central paradigm from which to understand Palestine, this conference re-invigorates it as a tool by which to analyze the present situation. In doing so, it contests solutions which accommodate Zionism, and more significantly, builds settler colonialism as a political analysis that can embolden and inform a strategy of active, mutual, and principled Palestinian alignment with the Arab struggle for self-determination, and indigenous struggles in the US, Latin America, Oceania, and elsewhere.

Such an alignment would expand the tools available to Palestinians and their solidarity movement, and reconnect the struggle to its own history of anti-colonial internationalism. At its core, this internationalism asserts that the Palestinian struggle against Zionist settler colonialism can only be won when it is embedded within, and empowered by, the broader Arab movement for emancipation and the indigenous, anti-racist and anti-colonial movement--from Arizona to Auckland.

SOAS Palestine Society invites everyone to join us at what promises to be a significant intervention in Palestine activism and scholarship.

For over 30 years, SOAS Palestine Society has heightened awareness and understanding of the Palestinian people, their rights, culture, and struggle for self-determination, amongst students, faculty, staff, and the broader public. SOAS Palestine society aims to continuously push the frontiers of discourse in an effort to make provocative arguments and to stimulate debate and organizing for justice in Palestine through relevant conferences, and events ranging from the intellectual and political impact of Edward Said`s life and work (2004), international law and the Palestine question (2005), the economy of Palestine and its occupation (2006), the one state (2007), 60 Years of Nakba, 60 Years of Resistance (2009), and most recently, the Left in Palestine (2010).

For more information on the SOAS Palestine Society 7th annual conference, Past is Present: Settler Colonialism in Palestine: www.soaspalsoc.org

SOAS Palestine Society Organizing Collective is a group of committed students that has undertaken to organize annual academic conferences on Palestine since 2003.

 


[i] Patrick Wolfe, Settler Colonialism and the Transformation of Anthropology: The Politics and Poetics of an Ethnographic Event, Cassell, London, p. 163

[ii] Interview with Benny Morris, Survival of the Fittest, Haaretz, 9. January 2004, http://cosmos.ucc.ie/cs1064/jabowen/IPSC/php/art.php?aid=5412