Jadaliyya Talks: Negar Razavi on The Systemic Problem of “Iran Expertise” in Washington

Jadaliyya Talks: Negar Razavi on The Systemic Problem of “Iran Expertise” in Washington

By : Negar Razavi

In the latest installment of Jadaliyya Talks, Negar Razavi sat down with Co-Founder/Editor of Jadaliyya, Bassam Haddad, and human rights attorney and Co-Editor of Jadaliyya, Noura Erakat, to discuss her article "The Sytemic Problem of 'Iran Expertise' in Washington." In this interview, they discuss the article, go in-depth with Negar's methodology and findings of her study, as well as the huge online conversation the article initiated.

Her article can be found here.

Negar Razavi


Negar Razavi
is a political anthropologist with a focus on critical security studies, expertise, gender, race, and U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Her research specifically examines the role of policy experts and think tanks in shaping U.S. security policies towards Iran and Egypt. She received her PhD in anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania and is teaching at William and Mary as a Visiting Assistant Professor in anthropology.

Noura Erakat


Noura Erakat
 
is a human rights attorney and an Assistant Professor at Rutgers University, New Brunswick in the Department of Africana Studies and the Program in Criminal Justice. Her research interests include human rights law, humanitarian law, national security law, refugee law, social justice, and critical race theory. Noura is an editorial committee member of the Journal for Palestine Studies and a co-Founding Editor of Jadaliyya, an electronic magazine on the Middle East that combines scholarly expertise and local knowledge. She is the author of Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine.

Bassam Haddad


Bassam Haddad 
is Director of the Middle East and Islamic Studies Program and Associate Professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. He is the author of Business Networks in Syria: The Political Economy of Authoritarian Resilience (Stanford University Press, 2011). Bassam serves as Founding Editor of the Arab Studies Journal and the Knowledge Production Project. He is co-producer/director of the award-winning documentary film, About Baghdad, and director of the series Arabs and Terrorism. Bassam is Co-Founder/Editor of Jadaliyya Ezine and the Executive Director of the Arab Studies Institute. He serves on the Board of the Arab Council for the Social Sciences and is Executive Producer of Status Audio Magazine. Twitter: @4Bassam.

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    • The Systemic Problem of “Iran Expertise” in Washington

      The Systemic Problem of “Iran Expertise” in Washington

      When it comes to understanding the Trump administration’s erratic and dangerous “maximum pressure” strategy toward Iran, it can be tempting to focus blame entirely on his closest advisors—most notably, John Bolton. After all, Trump’s national security advisor has rarely made his desire for regime change in Iran a secret.

Tadween Talks: Revisiting "Mediating the Arab Uprisings" with Adel Iskandar

In this interview, Jonathan Adler, the managing editor of Tadween Publishing, sits down with Adel Iskandar to revisit one of Tadween’s first books, Mediating the Arab Uprisings, and to discuss the continually contested arena of media politics in the Middle East.

About the Book:


From “Facebook revolutions” to “Al Jazeera uprisings,” the outburst of popular activism across the Arab world has either been attributed to the media, drawn up by the media, observed through the media, or decontextualized by the media. Bloggers become icons, self-proclaimed experts becoming interpreters of unfolding events, stereotypes are cultivated, and autocratic regimes continue to subdue freedom of the press. The uprisings have become the most compelling media stories in recent memory. With much at stake, the burden of relaying human narratives accurately and responsibly is a burden on all journalistic establishments worldwide. In a unique collection of essays that covers the expanse of the Arab popular protest movements, Mediating the Arab Uprisings leaves no stone unturned by offering spirited contributions that elucidate the remarkable variation and context behind the fourth estate’s engagement with these mass protests.

To read more about the book, visit Tadween Publishing, and find below the covers and table of contents.

Adel Iskander

Adel Iskandar is Assistant Professor of Global Communication at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada. He is the author, coauthor, and editor of several works including Egypt In Flux: Essays on an Unfinished Revolution (AUCP/OUP), Al-Jazeera: The Story of the Network that is Rattling Governments and Redefining Modern Journalism (Basic Books), Edward Said: A Legacy of Emancipation and Representation (University of California Press), and Mediating the Arab Uprisings (Tadween Publishing).

Jonathan Adler

Jonathan Adler graduated from Yale University in December 2017. He is the Managing Editor of Tadween Publishing and a contributor to Jadaliyya E-Zine. Jonathan is also the Engaging Books and Pedagogy JadMag Editor at the Middle East Studies Pedagogy Initiative (MESPI). His work has been published in Jewish Historical Studies: Transactions of the Jewish Historical Society of England and the North Carolina Historical Review.





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