On November 3, 2008, James Reardon-Anderson, Dean of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, gave a lecture at CIRS’s Monthly Dialogue Series on the connection between “Rainfall and the American Civil War.” Dean Reardon-Anderson explained to the invited audience that the lecture was inspired by a class he regularly teaches entitled “Map…
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.
Georgetown University professors Jo Ann Moran Cruz and Haifaa Khalafallah gave the December 3, 2008, Monthly Dialogue lecture entitled “Religion and Legitimization of Political Rule in the Islamic and Christian Worlds: Preliminary Findings.” The presentation was part of a larger study entitled Religion and the State in the Christian and Islamic Worlds, in which both professors conducted research…
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…
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…
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, 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.
Nur Yalman, Professor Emeritus of Social Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies at the Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, gave a CIRS Focused Discussion on February 8, 2010 on the topic of “Turkey’s Transformation: Regional Implications.” Yalman was invited to Doha by GU-Qatar Professor Mark Farha on whose PhD thesis Yalman served as an advisor. The lecture was attended…
Ibrahim M. Oweiss, Professor of Economics at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, gave the February CIRS Monthly Dialogue lecture on the subject of “Current Economic Global Depression: Causes and Effects With Reference to the Gulf Economies.” Oweiss began the talk by noting that he refers to the current economic crisis as…
On March 10, 2009, a Monthly Dialogue entitled “International Power Realignment in the Gulf” was given by Mehran Kamrava, Director of the Center for International and Regional Studies and an expert on Iran and the Persian Gulf. The Dialogue was attended by Georgetown faculty, students, staff, and invited guests. Kamrava’s Monthly Dialogue informed the audience about “how changing dynamics in the Gulf are resulting in…
Drawing on his career of experience as a diplomat, former U.S. ambassador to Syria and Israel, Edward Djerejian, offered his insights and analysis of current foreign policy challenges facing the United States in the Middle East and South Asia to a full house at the Diplomatic Club in Doha on March 17, 2009. Ambassador Djerejian,…
On April 7, 2009, Mark Farha, Visiting Assistant Professor at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar, was invited by CIRS to give the April Monthly Dialogue on the subject of “Lebanon as the Mirror of Arab Politics.” Farha began by noting that the “sheer number of civil society organizations, the amount of political activism,…