Research Symposia
The MENA Studies Program occasionally hosts research symposia. Below are some of our past symposia.
NEW DIRECTIONS SYMPOSIUM #2, APRIL 26-27, 2012
Lori Allen
Lecturer in Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cambridge, and Fellow, King’s College
“Cynicism and Human Rights in Palestine”
Robyn Creswell
Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature, Brown University and Poetry Editor, The Paris Review
“Nationalism and Modernity: The Origins of Free Verse”
Amira Mittermaier
Assistant Professor of Religion, University of Toronto
“Islamic Charity in Revolutionary Egypt”
Firat Oruc
Assistant Professor of English and Humanities, Georgetown University in Qatar
“The ‘Middle East’ as a Literary Space”
Zakia Salime
Assistant Professor of Women and Gender Studies, Rutgers University
“Morocco’s Anticipated Revolution: 20th February Movement and Gender Dynamics”
Evren Savci
Assistant Professor of Women and Gender Studies, San Francisco State University
“Queer in Translation: Paradoxes of Westernization and Sexual Others in the Turkish Nation”
Rachel Scott
Associate Professor of Islamic Studies, Virginia Tech
“Problematizing Islamism: the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic State”
Shaden Tageldin
Associate Professor of Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature, University of Minnesota
“Fénelon’s Gods, al-Tahtawi’s Jinn: Trans-Mediterranean Fictionalities”
NEW DIRECTIONS SYMPOSIUM #1, MAY 20-21, 2010
Hussein Agrama
Associate Professor of Anthropology and of the Social Sciences, University of Chicago
“Islamic Authority in Contemporary Egypt”
Melani Cammett
Professor of Political Science, Brown University
“Non-State Provision of Social Welfare in Lebanon”
Ilana Feldman
Associate Professor of Anthropology, George Washington University
Palestinian Refugees: Humanitarian Categories and Mechanisms of Assistance
Li Guo
Professor of Classics and Arabic Language and Culture, Notre Dame
“Ibn Daniyal: Entertainment, Vice, and Prohibition in Medieval Cairo”
Charles Hirschkind
Associate Professor of Sociocultural Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley
“Islamic Sermons on YouTube”
Megan Reid
Visiting Scholar, University of Southern California Center for Religion and Civic Culture
“Competing Paradigms of Piety in Medieval Islam”
Samah Selim
Associate Professor of African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Languages and Literatures, Rutgers University
“‘Abdelqader Hamza’s Translations of Arsène Lupin”
Paul Silverstein
Professor of Anthropology, Reed College
“Popular Islam in North Africa and Berber Cultural Movements”