Arab Food, Water, and the Big Gulf Land-Grab that Wasn’t

On November 14, 2011, Eckart Woertz, Visiting Fellow at Princeton University, delivered a CIRS Monthly Dialogue lecture titled, “Arab Food, Water, and the Big Gulf Land-Grab that Wasn’t.” Woertz placed the question of food security within a historical and cultural context. Food, he said, has historically been a highly politicized commodity and has been subject to political maneuvering…

Fouad Ajami Lectures on the Arab Spring

From 1980 to June 2011, he was the Majid Khadduri professor and Director of Middle East Studies at The Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He began his academic career after receiving his PhD in political science from the University of Washington in 1973. He is the author of The Arab Predicament, The Vanished Imam, Beirut: City of Regrets, and The Dream Palace of the Arabs, The Foreigner’s Gift: The Americans, the Arabs and the Iraqis in Iraq and other works. 

Walter Denny on New Ways of Looking at Islamic Art

Walter B. Denny, Professor of Art History at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, gave a CIRS Monthly Dialogue lecture on “Innovation in the Visual Arts of Islam: New Ways of Looking at…

Anthony Appiah Lectures on Ideas of Cosmopolitanism

On January 23, Kwame Anthony Appiah, Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University, delivered the first CIRS Monthly Dialogueof 2012 titled, “Being a Citizen of the World Today.” Appiah’s lecture was centered…

Peter Bergen Lectures on the Remaking of the Middle East

On February 13, 2012, Peter Bergen delivered the 2011-2012 CIRS Faculty Distinguished Lecture titled, “The Awakening: How Revolutionaries, Barack Obama, and Ordinary Muslims are Remaking the Middle East.” In addition to being CNN’s security…

Ahmad Sa’di on Population Management and Political Control

On February 21, 2012, Ahmad H. Sa’di, Professor in the Department of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University of Negev, delivered a CIRS Monthly Dialogue on the topic “Population Management and Political…

Ambassador Larocco on the Gulf Looking East

On February 26, 2012, CIRS hosted a Focused Discussion with Ambassador James Larocco Distinguished Professor and Director of the Near East South Asia Center at the National Defense University in Washington, DC. The talk…

A New Canadian-American Relationship

David Dyment, senior research associate at the Center on North American Politics and Society at Carleton University in Ottawa, gave a CIRS Focused Discussion on March 26, 2012, titled “A New Canadian-American…

Michael Driessen on the Role of Religion in Modern Democracies

Michael Driessen, a 2011-2012 Postdoctoral Fellow at CIRS and Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at John Cabot University, gave a CIRS Monthly Dialogue Lecture on “Religion-State Institutions and Patterns…