• Renee Richer on Environment and Industry in Qatar

    "Beauty and the Beast: Environment and Industry in Qatar" CIRS kicked off its Monthly Dialogue Series on September 15, 2008, with a lecture by Renee Richer, Visiting Assistant Professor of…

  • American Public Diplomacy after the Bush Administration

    CIRS hosted a luncheon discussion on October 19, 2008, featuring Cynthia Schneider, Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University, nonresident Fellow at the Brookings institution, and former…

  • Commemoration of Mahmoud Darwish

    In honor of the memory of Palestinian Poet Mahmoud Darwish, CIRS hosted a literary evening to recall his life and his legacy. His Excellency, the Palestinian Ambassador to Qatar, Munir…

  • Compromising Democracy: The Lebanese Example

    During the concluding Q&A session, Berri recalled the great show of national unity during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, drawing upon examples of supported internal migration and united Lebanese resistance. Berri also highlighted nationalist ideologies, refusing the claim of a Lebanese “positive-neutral” political approach and endorsing Lebanon’s Arab identity and commitment to the Palestinian crisis. Finally, in countering the claim that the TAIF Agreement of 1989 runs parallel to a congruent democratic Lebanon, Berri ended by retracing Lebanon’s history from the days of Fakhreddine, who celebrated the unique demographics of the country where reconciliation and harmony should prevail.

  • International Relations of the Gulf Working Group II

    On January 8-9, 2009, CIRS convened the second International Relations of the Gulf working group session. This meeting was part of a year-long research initiative that began with the first working group meeting in June 2008 and which focused on analyzing several key aspects of the International Relations of the Gulf from different angles. CIRS invited a…

  • Katja Niethammer on Political Reform and Confessional Identities in Bahrain

    On January 18, 2009, CIRS began the 2008-2009 spring semester with a Monthly Dialogue lecture entitled “Democrats and Autocrats, Shi’ites and Sunnis: Political Reform and Confessional Identities in Bahrain” given by its Postdoctoral Fellow Katja Niethammer. Niethammer’s lecture is part of a larger study undertaken in her PhD research and analyzes the differences in goals, strategies and behavior…

  • Female Suicide Bombers in Iraq by Mona Eltahawy

    Journalist and opinion-writer Mona Eltahawy was invited by CIRS to give a lunchtime lecture at the SFS-Qatar campus on the subject of “Female Suicide Bombers in Iraq.” Eltahawy is an award-winning syndicated columnist and an international public speaker on Arab and Muslim issues. Her opinion pieces have been published frequently in the International Herald Tribune,The Washington…

  • Seyyed Hossein Nasr on Islam and the Preservation of the Natural Environment

    Seyyed Hossein Nasr, currently University Professor of Islamic Studies at the George Washington University, Washington D.C., is one of the most important and foremost scholars of Islamic, Religious and Comparative Studies in the world today. Author of over fifty books and five hundred articles which have been translated into several major Islamic, European and Asian languages, Professor Nasr is a well known and highly respected intellectual figure both in the West and the Islamic world.