On October 4, 2018, CIRS hosted its first CURA workshop for students. “Designing a Research Question” was intended to outline the research process and offer strategies for developing a research question. This was accomplished through the process of finding and narrowing a research topic, identifying a research problem, and devising a research question to address…
On June 5, 2017, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt cut diplomatic ties with Qatar, imposed a blockade, and immediately moved to close off access to Qatar, with an embargo on air, sea, and land traffic to and from the country. These punitive measures were based on allegations that Qatar was supporting terrorism, which Qatar denied,…
In October 2018, the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) held a CURA Seminar under its CURA (CIRS Undergraduate Research Advancement) initiative. Each semester, CURA Fellows come together for an active discussion of research papers that were submitted to a current CIRS research project. The papers are shared in advance of the seminar, and CURA fellows…
On October 28–29, 2018, the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) held the second working group under its research initiative on “Informal Politics in the Middle East.” Over the course of two days, a number of scholars were convened to discuss issues including: the tribe in Yemen, the Dīwãniyya in Kuwait, ‘ashwa’iy cities in the Middle East, social activism…
On November 11, 2018, the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) launched its recent book on Environmental Politics of the Middle East (Oxford University Press/Hurst, 2018), edited by Harry Verhoeven, Associate Professor of International Relations and African Politics at Georgetown University in Qatar, who presented the research findings at a CIRS Dialogue. In Verhoeven’s…
On January 16, 2019, CIRS invited Middle East analyst Massaab Al-Aloosy to discuss his research on “Fundamentalist Metamorphosis: Hezbollah’s Ideological Evolution from Idealism to Pragmatism.” During the talk, he mapped out the…
On January 20-21, 2019, the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) held the first working group under its research initiative on “Russia and the Middle East.” Over the course of…
CIRS invited Richard L. Russell, professor at the National Defense University in Washington, DC, to deliver a talk titled “Taking Measure of American Foreign Policy” on January 27, 2019, in…
Abdelwahab El-Affendi, Dean of the School of Social Sciences and Humanities and Professor of Politics at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, was invited by CIRS to discuss the current…
CIRS hosted its second CURA workshop for GU-Q students on the topic “Introduction to Research Methods” The workshop, held on February 7, 2019, presented a conceptual definition of research methods, introduced methodological…
Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar is a Qatar-based novelist and community course instructor at VCUarts Qatar who writes on topics related to gender, race, and pedagogy. On February 13, 2019, she presented a…
On February 24-25, 2019, the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) brought together a number of scholars to commence a new research effort on the “Political Economy of the Contemporary…