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Past Events

multi-day

Serbest Kurdish Studies Conference

9:00 AM - 6:00 PM, sponsored by Buffett Institute for Global Affairs

The conference convenes annually to discuss the experiences and struggles of Kurds, and the historical and comparative study of Kurdish...

Apr
15
2024

MENA Monday | Water on Fire: A Memoir of War

12:30 PM - 2:00 PM, sponsored by Middle East and North African Studies

Lunch will be served at this event. Water on Fire tells a story of immigration that starts in a Beirut devastated...

Nov
13
2023

Difficult Conversations on Israel and Palestine

5:00 PM - 6:30 PM, sponsored by Middle East and North African Studies

Please join MENA Studies & Jewish and Israeli Studies for this conversation *What is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict all about? Why has...

Oct
25
2023

Settler Colonialism and the Question of Palestine

12:30 PM - 2:00 PM, sponsored by Middle East and North African Studies

Nadia Abu El-Haj will speak to the historical context around current events in the Middle East while discussing whether there...

Oct
20
2023

Palestine and Israel 101: What is the conflict about?

3:00 PM - 4:30 PM, sponsored by Middle East and North African Studies

Prof. Wendy Pearlman will provide a historical overiew of the origins of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and its major milestones, actors,...

Oct
17
2023

MENA | Revolutionary Defeat & the Future of Struggle

6:00 PM - 7:30 PM, sponsored by Middle East and North African Studies

Syrian Writer and Former Political Prisoner Yassin al-Haj Saleh in Conversation with Wendy Pearlman (Northwestern University) and Danny Postel (New...

May
22
2023

MENA Mondays: Book Talk: Sentient Flesh

12:30 PM - 2:00 PM, sponsored by Middle East and North African Studies

 In Sentient Flesh R. A. Judy takes up freedman Tom Windham’s 1937 remark “we should have our liberty 'cause ....

Apr
24
2023

MENA Mondays: Book Talk: Iran in Motion

12:30 PM - 2:00 PM, sponsored by Middle East and North African Studies

Completed in 1938, the Trans-Iranian Railway connected the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf. Drawing on newspapers, industry publications, travelogues,...

Apr
17
2023

Anthropology Colloquium: Lara Deeb, Scripps College

3:00 PM - 5:00 PM, sponsored by Anthropology Colloquia and Events

“What Will People Say? Love Across Difference in Lebanon”   Intersectarian and interreligious marriages often provoke strong opposition from Lebanese of all...

Apr
11
2023

Zeina Hashem Beck: Reading and Conversation

5:00 PM - 7:00 PM, sponsored by Middle East and North African Studies

Join MENA and Creative Writing for an evening with acclaimed poet Zeina Hashem Beck! Reception followed by poetry reading. Zeina Hashem Beck...

Feb
20
2023

MENA Mondays: MENA CONVERSATION | Landscapes of Toxicity

12:30 PM - 1:45 PM, sponsored by Middle East and North African Studies

Join us for this week's MENA Monday event.  This event is virtual.  Register for the Zoom here: https://bit.ly/MENAFeb20 . Title: MENA CONVERSATION...

Nov
21
2022

MENA Mondays: Everyday Policing in the MENA Region

12:30 PM - 1:45 PM, sponsored by Middle East and North African Studies

Join us for this week's MENA Monday *virtual* event.  Speakers: Rema Hammami, Birzeit University; Jillian Schwedler, Hunter College; Omar Sirri, Human...

Nov
14
2022

MENA Mondays: Graduate Student Colloquium

12:30 PM - 1:45 PM, sponsored by Middle East and North African Studies

Join us for this week's MENA Monday event. Lunchboxes will be available at noon if attendees would like to eat...

Nov
7
2022

MENA Mondays: New Directions in MENA Studies

12:30 PM - 1:45 PM, sponsored by Middle East and North African Studies

Join us for this week's MENA Monday event held via Zoom. Register for the event. Speaker: Can Açiksöz, Anthropology, UCLA Salih Can...

Oct
31
2022

MENA Mondays: Faculty Colloquium with Fahri Oz

12:30 PM - 1:45 PM, sponsored by Middle East and North African Studies

Join us for this week's MENA Monday event. Lunchboxes will be available at noon if attendees would like to eat...

Jun
6
2022

MENA Studies Spring 2022 Graduate Student Colloquium

12:30 PM - 2:00 PM, sponsored by Middle East and North African Studies

This is a hybrid event Participate via Zoom (must have a Northwestern NetID) Xena Amro, Comparative Literary Studies | Foreigners in Paris:...

May
9
2022

Archives without Documents — A MENA Conversation

12:30 PM - 1:30 PM, sponsored by Middle East and North African Studies

Register for the Zoom link: https://bit.ly/archives-without This conversation will bring together scholars working on questions of archives and documents, or their absence,...

Apr
25
2022

Luminous Shadows: Performance and Praxis in SWANA

12:00 PM - 2:45 PM, sponsored by Middle East and North African Studies

Luminous Shadows: Performance and Praxis in SWANA Performances: 12:30 - 1:50 pm faggy faafi Cairo boy: a staged reading by Mariam Bazeed a...

Feb
28
2022

Roundtable on Publishing in MENA Studies Journals

12:30 PM - 2:00 PM, sponsored by Middle East and North African Studies

Join Rebecca Johnson (Associate Editor, Journal of Arabic Literature), Roberto Mazza (Executive Editor, Jerusalem Quarterly), and Jessica Winegar (Co-Editor, Political...

Dec
8
2021

Histories of the Iranian Left—A Conversation

1:30 PM - 3:00 PM, sponsored by Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities

A conversation with Naghmeh Sohrabi (Brandeis), Eskandar Sadeghi-Boroujerdi (Goldsmiths), and Manijeh Moradian (Barnard). Moderated by Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi (Princeton). Recent scholarship has...

Nov
17
2021

The Translator: Film Screening and Panel Discussion

3:00 PM - 6:30 PM, sponsored by Buffett Institute for Global Affairs

The in-person event is sold out! Virtual Access still available. Join us for a screening of award-winning filmmaker Rana Kazkaz's new...

Nov
15
2021

MENA Studies Core Faculty Meeting

12:30 PM - 1:30 PM, sponsored by Middle East and North African Studies

Quarterly meeting of the MENA Studies Program core faculty

May
30
2021

Arab-Jewish Intersecting Identities: Gender, Protest and Politics 

11:00 AM - 12:30 PM, sponsored by The Crown Family Center for Jewish and Israel Studies

ARAB-JEWISH CULTURE, IDENTITY, AND LANGUAGE: PAST AND PRESENT Arab-Jewish Intersecting Identities: Gender, Protest and Politics  Guest Speakers: “The History of the Mizrahi Protest:...

May
10
2021

MENA Graduate Student Colloquium

12:00 PM - 1:00 PM, sponsored by Middle East and North African Studies

Presenter: Jesús C. Muñoz (PhD Student, Comparative Literary Studies/MENA Program) Title: “Poetics of Glowing Histories in Flesh and Art: Witnessing the...

May
3
2021

MENA Graduate Student Colloquium

12:00 PM - 2:00 PM, sponsored by Middle East and North African Studies

Presenter: Jesús C. Muñoz (Comparative Literary Studies/MENA) Title: Poetics of Glowing Histories in Flesh and Art: Witnessing the Lives of the...

Feb
8
2021

Aravrit: Language as a Space of Inclusion

12:00 PM - 1:00 PM, sponsored by Middle East and North African Studies

Join us for a conversation about the potential encapsulated in a language to create powerful emotional space and visibility. We...

Nov
30
2020

Race and Blackness in Middle East Studies: A MENA Conversation

12:00 PM - 1:30 PM, sponsored by Middle East and North African Studies

This event is free and open to everyone, but registration is required: bit.ly/race-middle-east-studies Participants Mandana Limbert is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Queens...

Nov
23
2020

MENA Graduate Colloquium

12:00 PM - 1:30 PM, sponsored by Middle East and North African Studies

Fall Quarter MENA Graduate Colloquium Presenters Maryam Athari (Art History): "Diagnostic Revelations: Rifat Chadirji's Street Photography" Issrar Chamekh (Political Science) "Pathways to Elective Office: Candidate...

Nov
17
2020

Slavery, Colonialism, and Race in the Muslim World

10:00 AM - 11:30 AM, sponsored by Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought in Africa (ISITA)

The Northwestern University in Qatar Faculty Working Group on Race Invites you to this event in the year-long series Decentering...

Oct
22
2020

Liberating History: Fatma 75 (1975)

All day, sponsored by Block Museum of Art

Online screening of FATMA 75 followed by a live discussion with a scholar of Maghrebi women's cinema Florence Martin FATMA 75 (Selma...

Mar
9
2020

MENA Graduate Student Colloquium

12:00 PM - 1:30 PM, sponsored by Middle East and North African Studies

Presentations by MENA graduate students on their research   Details to come...

Feb
14
2020

The Aftermath of the Assassination of Qassem Soleimani

2:00 PM - 3:00 PM, sponsored by Buffett Institute for Global Affairs

The assassination of Qassem Soleimani and the subsequent shooting down of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 shook the world. But...

Dec
2
2019

MENA Graduate Student Colloquium

12:00 PM - 2:00 PM, sponsored by Middle East and North African Studies

Presentations by MENA doctoral students Open only to Northwestern graduate students and faculty   Hazal Ozdemir (Department of History) “They Migrate by Renouncing Their...

Sep
18
2019

MENA Languages at the Academic Directions Fair

9:00 AM - 12:00 PM, sponsored by Middle East and North African Studies

Want to find out about studying Arabic, Hebrew, Turkish, and Persian, study abroad and other options for your course of study?...

Jun
3
2019

MENA Movie Night: The Matchmaker (Israel)

5:00 PM - 7:00 PM, sponsored by Middle East and North African Studies

From the New York Times: In the summer of 1968 in Haifa, Israel, a teenager named Arik (Tuval Shafir) finds his...

May
18
2019

Film Screening + Discussion: Naila and the Uprising

1:00 PM - 3:30 PM, sponsored by Middle East and North African Studies

Please join us for this FREE screening of the documentary film Naila and the Uprising, followed by an in-depth discussion with...

May
13
2019

Maimonides the Mālikī — A Lecture by Marc Herman

12:00 PM - 1:30 PM, sponsored by Middle East and North African Studies

Moses Maimonides (1138-1204) penned perhaps the most comprehensive medieval account of rabbinic tradition. But his ideas were at odds with...

May
6
2019

MENA Graduate Student Colloquium

12:00 PM - 2:00 PM, sponsored by Middle East and North African Studies

Presentations by MENA doctoral students Open only to Northwestern graduate students and faculty   Özge Karagöz (Department of Art History) Turkish Post-Revolutionary Figuration in the...