SPEAKERS :
April 22, 2008
Zachary Lockman
Chair of the Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at New York University,
President of the Middle East Studies Association of North America
The United States and the Middle East
April 22, 2008
12:00 pm –2:00 pm
204 Maxwell Hall
Click Here for poster with more information.
Click Here for video
of presentration
Free and open to the public.
April 21, 2008
The Greek photojournalist Iason Athanasiadis who has recently returned from Iran will share some of his photos of Iran
and discuss the country’s domestic and international politics. I would like to remind people that he is the director
of the powerful documentary “Deserted Riviera” which we screened recently that dealt with the Hezbollah-Israeli conflict
of 2006.
Lunch will be served at this event (12:15-2:15) in 204 Maxwell Hall
Click Here for more info in printer friendly .pdf format.
Lecture that Hillel is hosting April 15, 2008 at 12:30pm-2pm
The speaker's name is Hagit Ofran. She is speaking later in the evening at Ithaca College. She will speak about Israel, settlements in the Palestinian territories, the peace process, and the two-state solution. She is a team leader of Settlement Watch (a program based out of the well-known political group in Israel, Peace Now).
Contact info:
Hillel of Syracuse University
315-422-5082 x212
resage@suhillel.org
Three Important Speakers
4 8 Shehata Click Here for more information. Click
Here for Maxwell link. Click Here for video of lecture.
4 9 Eltahawy Click Here for more information. Click
Here for Maxwell link. Click Here for video of lecture.
4 10 Vitalis Click Here for more information. Click
Here for Maxwell link. Click Here for video of lecture.
PLEASE NOTE THE NEW TIME AND PLACE FOR THIS LECTURE.
The Association of Public Diplomacy Scholars Presents:
Walter T. Douglas
Director, Office of Press & Public Diplomacy
Near East Affairs Bureau
U.S. Department of State
Public Diplomacy in the Middle East: A U.S. Policy Perspective
Friday April 4, 2008
2:30pm-4:00pm
Eggers Hall 220
(Public Events Room)
Pete Moore Lecture
Associate Professor of Political Science Case Western Reserve University
The War Economy of Iraq in Comparative & Regional Perspective
Professor Moore's main research and teaching field is economic development and state-society relations in the Middle East and Africa. Specifically, he focuses on business-state relations, privatization, and decentralization as well as sub-state conflict and regional security in the Gulf Arab States and Levant. He is the author of Doing Business in the Middle East: Politics and Economic Crisis in Jordan and Kuwait (Cambridge University Press, 2004) as well as dozens of journal articles.
March 25, 2008
4:00 pm – 6:00 pm
204 Maxwell Hall
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Irshad Manji Lecture: Islam and Democracy: Do They Have A Prayer?
The New York Times calls Irshad Manji “Osama bin Laden’s worst nightmare.” Oprah Winfrey has given her the first annual Chutzpah Award for “audacity, nerve, boldness and conviction” She takes both as a compliment.
Irshad is Director of the Moral Courage Project at New York University. It aims to develop leaders who will speak truth to power. They include reform-minded Muslims, whom Irshad is strengthening through her books and films.
Friday, February 15, 2008
4 p.m.
Maxwell Auditorium
Reception to follow in Maxwell Foyer
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November 13, 2007
5:00 pm
Public Events Room
220 Eggers Hall
Rami Khouri Lecture: Free at last! Free at last! Allahu Akbar, we are free at last!
Khouri will discuss how the basic underlying driving forces that have prompted hundreds of millions of ordinary Arabs and Muslims in the Arab-Asian region to seek political empowerment and change, through Islamist politics and movements like Hamas, Hizbullah, the Muslim Brothers and others, are almost identical to the forces that inspired African-Americans and other Americans to struggle for their civil rights in the 1950s-60s. He will maintain that the underlying sentiments and motivational forces that drive people toward these movements are political and national, not purely religious, just as Martin Luther King's rhetoric and action were primarily motivated by political rights and aspirations, though they were couched in the credible, legitimizing and mobilizing power of faith.
Click Here for poster in printer friendly .pdf format.
Click Here for link to video in WMF (windows media
format).
October 11, 2007
4:00 pm
100 Eggers Hall
Jason Brownlee
The Origins and Implications of Competitive Autocracy in the Middle East
By the late 1990s Iran's domestic opposition movement posed arguably the most potent challenge to authoritarian rule in the Middle East. Its success was especially striking in contrast to Egypt, where President Mubarak's ruling party permeates all levels of government. What explains the variation between competitive, contested autocracy in Iran and the hegemonic dominance of the Mubarak regime? What consequences do these differences hold for the prospects of democratization?
Click Here view poster in printer friendly .pdf format.
March 22, 2007
Akbar Ganji
Political Journalism in a Theocratic State: The Case of Iran
Akbar Ganji, one of Iran's leading investigative journalists, writers and human rights activists, was charged with "damaging national security" by the Iranian judiciary and spent six years in prison. To protest his terms of imprisonment he went on a hunger strike which lasted more than 80 days and almost killed him. Ganji is the winner of the 2006 World Association of Newspapers' Golden Pen of Freedom Award and Canadian Journalists for Free Expression's International Press Freedom Award in 2000. He is also the winner of the 2006 Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders.
Click Here to view the webcast of the event. (Windows Media Player required).
March 14, 2007
Ali Abu Awwad & Robi Damelin
Israel and Palestinian Bereaved Families Supporting Reconciliation
Ali Abu Awwad is a resident of Beit Ummar, Hebron, where his family relocated in 1948. Ali grew up in a politically active family and was active in resisting the Israeli occupation during the first intifada (Palestinian uprising). He was arrested for his political activities and served four years of the 10 he was sentenced until his release following the Oslo accords. During the second intifada, Ali was shot by an Israeli settler and was hospitalized in Saudi Arabia. While there, he received the grave news that his brother had been shot and killed by an Israeli soldier at a checkpoint at the entrance to their village. Ali and other members of his family later joined the Bereaved Families Forum where they are active in spreading a message of reconciliation and non-violence to Palestinians and Israelis. Robi Damelin lives in Tel Aviv. She immigrated from South Africa in 1967. Robi’s son, David, was killed by a sniper while on military reserve duty, in March 2002. David was 28 years old, and was studying for his Masters Degree in the Philosophy of Education at the Tel-Aviv University. He strongly believed that through education, he could make a difference in Israel. After David’s death, Robi felt a burning need to do something to try and prevent other parents from experiencing the dreadful pain of losing a child. She closed her successful Public Relations firm to devote her entire time and energy to the Parents Circle – Families Forum and its activities promoting dialogue, tolerance and reconciliation.
November 14, 2006
Khaled Abou El Fadi
Can We Be Beautiful in an Ugly World? The Great Theft and the Muslim Imperative
Khaled Abou El Fadl, Professor of Law at UCLA, spoke at the Hendricks Chapel as part of the University Lecture Series.
November 10, 2006
Shibley Telhami
The Middle East Five Years Later: Assessing Democracy, Terrorism and Prospects for Peace
Shibley Telhami, Anwar Sadat Professor of Peace and Development at the University of Maryland, spoke as part of Maxwell's State of Democracy lecture series. Click Here for more information. (.pdf format)
October 18, 2006
Rami G. Khouri
After the Storm: Lebanon, Israel and the Challenges of Middle East Stability
Rami George Khouri, a Palestinian-Jordanian and US citizen, is director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut. His journalistic work includes writing books and an internationally syndicated column, and he also serves as editor at large of the Beirut-based Daily Star newspaper, published throughout the Middle East with the International Herald Tribune. His affiliations include being a member of the Brookings Institution Task Force on US Relations with the Islamic World, a Fellow of the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs (Jerusalem), member of the Leadership Council of the Harvard University Divinity School, and board member of the East-West Institute, the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University, and the Jordan National Museum.
Click Here to view webcast of the event. (Windows Media Player required).
September 26, 2006
Hicabi Gulgen
The Art of Marbling: Exhibition and Demonstration of Turkish Ebru
Hicabi Gulgen, one of Turkey's leading calligraphers, showed the audience the art of marbling. An important example of Islamic arts used in court and literary manuscripts, marbling art originated in Central Asia and was traded along the Silk Trade route. Handmade marble paper art decorated the walls of rich patrons in the Ottoman and Seljuk empires. Known as Turkish paper, it was also sought after in Europe.
November 17, 2005
Serif Mardin
From Islamic Organization to Civil Society: The Turkish Case
Serif Mardin, Professor of Political Science at Sabanci University and one of Turkey's leading social scientists, spoke about the Gulen Movement in Turkey.
Click Here to view poster. (Pdf. format)
February 24, 2005
Ambassador Edward Walker
Palestinian-Israeli Accommodation: A New Hope
Ambassador Walker, former Ambassador to Egypt, Israel, and United Arab Emirates, and Assistant Secretary for Near East Affairs, assessed prospects for peace between Israel and the Palestinian Authority and the current and future dynamics of the process of accommodation.
Click Here to view poster in Pdf. format.
Ambassador Walker also delivered another talk that day titled “Iraq After the Elections.”
February 8, 2005
Donald G. Ellis
Fierce Entanglements: Communication and Ethnopolitical Conflict
Donald G. Ellis, Professor of Communication at the University of Hartford, discussed the nature of ethnopolitical conflicts with a focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The author of six books and numerous articles on argument, conflict, and discourse analysis, Professor Ellis analyzed the role of communication and issues required for making progress toward controlling ethnopolitical conflict. His talk was sponsored by the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies.
January 30, 2005
Hannan Hever
Facing Disgrace: Coetzee and the Israeli Intellectual
Hannan Hever, a professor at Hebrew University as well as one of Israel’s leading literary scholar and public intellectual, delivered Syracuse University’s annual B. G. Rudolph Lecture in Judaic Studies. He asked how one can maintain a universalistic intellectual stance in Israeli today. “Confronted with the occupation,” Hever says, “many Israeli intellectuals feel torn between their commitment to universal values and their commitment to the State of Israel.” The lecture analyzed this dilemma and the various options that have been discussed and adopted by different Israeli intellectuals. In particular, Hever considered the case of Ha'aretz columnist Gideon Levy, who frequently reports on the Palestinians’ suffering in the occupied territories.
May 10, 2004
Shirin Ebadi
Islam, Democracy and Human Rights
The Iranian lawyer and human rights activist Shirin Ebadi, the recipient of the 2003 Noble Peace Prize, came to campus at the invitation of the School of Law. Her speech drew over 500 people to the Hendricks Chapel and was translated by the Director of the Middle Eastern Studies Program, Professor Mehrzad Boroujerdi.
Click photo for larger version.
March 30, 2004
Rita Hauser
The U.S. Role in a Troubled Middle East
Rita Hauser, International Lawyer, Philanthropist, and President of The Hauser Foundation, delivered a thoughtful lecture on the role of the United States in the Middle East. Appointed by President George W. Bush to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and the Intelligence Oversight Board, Rita Hauser was uniquely qualified to provide a behind-the-headlines look at the current state of U.S. foreign policy and the war on terror.
March 17, 2004
Ambassador Nicholas Platt
Iran: The Changing Scene
Nicholas Platt, a former U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan, Philippines, and Tanzania and President of the Asia Society, delivered a luncheon speech on the role of Iran in the region as well as its internal dynamics.
December 3, 2003
Rabbi Arik Ascherman
Jewish Values and Human Rights
Rabbi Arik Ascherman, a member of Rabbis for Human Rights, delivered a lecture on Jewish Values and Human Rights.
October 30, 2003
Pasi Patokallio
Resolving The Middle East Conflict: Why Do Europe and Israel Differ So Much?
Pasi Patokallio, Finnish Ambassador to Israel and, on a non-resident basis, to Cyprus and former Deputy Director-General for Multilateral Affairs at the Finnish Foreign Ministry, argued that political relations between the European Union and Israel, quite unlike between the United States and Israel, are difficult despite the fact that all three share similarities as Western democracies. It can be argued that European Union countries are post-national in their foreign policy attitudes, especially in regard to the admissibility of the use of force, whereas Israel (and the United States) are still very much in the national mode. The great divide between Europe and Israel is security, and it is reflected in policy differences with respect to the Middle East conflict (desirability and nature of a Palestinian state, Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, differing views of human rights). While the fundamental tension embodied in different security outlooks is likely to continue much can de done to narrow policy differences. European policy toward Israel is neither hostile nor immutable but given the reactive nature of EU foreign policy the ball is very much in Israel's court.
October 23, 2003
Keith Wattenpaugh
Challenges and Opportunities Facing American Academia in the Wake of the Iraq War
Keith Wattenpaugh, Assistant Professor of History and Associate Director of Peace and Global Studies at Le Moyne College, argued that the current situation in Iraq demands an integrated, multi-disciplinary response from the American academic community in the form of a concerted research agenda, a commitment to collegial exchange in all its forms with Iraqi academia in the arts, humanities and social sciences, and active engagement with the international academy, the US government and the American people. A failure to mount such a response will marginalize the American academic community from national and international academic and pubic discourse and make it increasingly vulnerable to attacks on academic freedom and funding cutbacks. It would also constitute a missed opportunity to make stronger the connections between all the humanistic and social science disciplines and Islamic and Middle Eastern studies. And finally it would be an unconscionable abnegation of our responsibilities towards our Iraqi colleagues.