On December 10-11, 2017, the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) held the second working group under its research initiative on “Mobility, Displacement, and Forced Migration in the Middle East.” Over the course of two days, scholars discussed issues around: borders and mobility of Syrian refugees in the Levant; livelihood and identity politics of Syrian…
On January 10, 2018, CIRS screened There Be Dragons, a short experimental film by Suzi Mirgani, Managing Editor at CIRS. The film premiered at the Doha Film Institute’s Ajyal Youth Film Festival on November 30, 2017, one of 16 local productions showcased in the Made in Qatar program at the festival. The three-minute film was conceived in a…
On January 21-22, 2018, the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) convened a working group on “Nation Building in Central Asia.” The working group took place under the larger CIRS research project which aims to examine various social and political processes that have been taking place in Central Asia following the dismantling of the…
In February, 2018, CIRS convened a one-day roundtable meeting to bring together scholars, scientists, experts, and business practitioners with extensive experience on science and scientific production in the Middle East. Over the course of a day the participants engaged in a vibrant and open conversation on the opportunities and constraints of conducting scientific research in…
The International Criminal Court (ICC) was established in 1998 to ensure that war crimes and crimes against humanity do not go unpunished. Although governments usually have capable systems to enforce laws, when it comes to mass atrocities, they often lack the framework to deal with crimes of such proportions. Since its inception, the ICC has…
On March 10, 2018, the Center for International and Regional Studies held its first working group under its research initiative on “Informal Politics in the Middle East.” During the working group, a number of scholars were convened to discuss various questions on a number of related topics: tribes and the Yemeni state, women and non-governmental…
The Center for International and Regional Studies invited GU-Q student Emma Mogensen (class of 2018) to present her senior thesis, “Refusing the Uniform: Immigrant and Ethnic Minority Women’s Activism in Denmark, 1967–1997,” at a public talk on March 19, 2018, in which Mogensen shed light on an often-overlooked period of activism in Danish history. This…
“There is always a sense of timeliness about the politics of the Middle East,” and a pressing sense of the issues, according to Beverley Milton-Edwards, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Doha Center. “It doesn’t matter what day of the week it is, what time of year it is—the Middle East is always in the…
The Center for International and Regional Studies hosted a workshop on Universal Basic Income (UBI) experiments. This was part of the CIRS-Faculty Book Series, which provides an opportunity for faculty members to present book manuscripts to scholars and receive critical feedback in advance of publication. The workshop was held on March 26, 2018, and included…
On March 28, 2018, George Osborne, former British Conservative Party politician and current editor of the London Evening Standard, was invited by CIRS to deliver a Focused Discussion in which he spoke to Georgetown University-Qatar faculty, staff, and students about the increasingly challenging state of international politics. He began the conversation by noting that “there…
The Center for International and Regional Studies invited, Islam Hassan, CIRS Research Analyst, to present his study, co-conducted with Nael Shama, at a Dialogue event on April 11, 2018. Hassan noted that, for the past decade, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has had foreign policy objectives in the Red Sea and East Africa in its…
On April 12, 2018, CIRS convened its first CURA Discussion Seminar under the center’s new initiative: CIRS Undergraduate Research Advancement. The seminar was introduced to support the research needs of undergraduate students at Georgetown University in Qatar, and to provide them with opportunities to hone their research skills. As part of the seminar, CURA fellows…