On November 28, 2007, forty invited guests gathered in the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar Library to listen to Professor Patrick Laude speak about "The Ambassadors of Inner Islam and the Encounter of Religions."This lecture was part of CIRS's on-going Monthly Dialogue Series. Laude is Professor of French, a Sorbonne graduate and author of nine books,…
As part of the Monthly Dialogue Series, Dr. Sherene Seikaly, the 2007-2008 Qatar Postdoctoral Fellow at Georgetown University's Center for Contemporary Arab Studies in Washington, DC, gave a lecture titled "A Public Good? Palestinian Businessmen and the British Colonial State 1939-1948." On December 10, 2007, Seikaly spoke to a local audience in Doha, where she defended the view…
For more information, view the Working Group's symposium summary prepared by the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs.
Earlier in the day, the Working Group symposium was held at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar. The symposium focused on institutions; relationships among public, private, and religiously inspired actors; financing issues; and other issues such as children, education, health, and gender.
On January 24, 2008, CIRS sponsored a Distinguished Lecture by Andrew Natsios, Professor on the Practice of Diplomacy at Georgetown University and former U.S. Special Envoy to Darfur. The lecture was titled "The Sudan in Crisis and the International Response" and took place at the Al Sharq Village Hotel. It was attended by fifty invited…
On February 11, 2008, students and guests of CIRS were treated to a lecture by Gary Wasserman, Professor of Government at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar. Wasserman’s lecture, part of the CIRS Monthly Dialogue Series, discussed the question “Democracy and American Foreign Policy: Do Interest Groups Help or Hinder?” Wasserman argued that allowing…
World-renowned scholar and prolific author John L. Esposito spoke to an audience of nearly 400 guests on February 17, 2008 at the Diplomatic Club in Doha. In his remarks, the Georgetown University Professor of Religion and International Affairs covered the findings of his latest book, Who Speaks for Islam: What a Billion Muslims Really Think. As the Founding…
On Tuesday February 26, 2008, CIRS hosted a one-day conference with the Italian organization Reset - Dialogues on Civilizations at Weill Cornell Lecture Hall 2. This symposium featured an intensive set of discussions in which experts from the fields of media, journalism, international relations, and film studies came together to deliberate the consequences of using the international…
Elzbieta M. Gozdziak, a prominent scholar of migration issues at the Institute for the Study of International Migration (ISIM) at Georgetown University was invited by CIRS to visit the SFS-Qatar campus. Gozdziak's visit aimed to forge research relationships and future collaborations with SFS-Qatar professors working on migration issues. During her time in Doha, she was…
On March 4, 2008, Ed Husain visited SFS-Q to meet with Georgetown University students and to engage with them in an informal group discussion. Husain was in Qatar as a guest on the Doha Debates show which had filmed a day earlier the debate entitled "This House Believes that Muslims are Failing to Combat Extremism"…
On April 5–6, 2008, the Center for International and Regional Studies hosted the "Innovation in Islam" Conference. Innovation in Islam explored topics such as the idea and reality of innovation in Islam; development of knowledge in early Islam; development and change in the Islamic legal system; the arts and artistic innovation in Islam; science and scientific innovation…
As part of its ongoing outreach efforts, the Center for International and Regional Studies (CIRS) hosted B.Z. Goldberg and Justine Shapiro, creators of the multiple award-winning documentary film Promises, and invited them to take part in public screenings of the film. Promises is a documentary film that follows the stories of seven children from opposite sides of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The film was a nominee in the category of “Best Feature Documentary” at the 74th Annual Academy Awards.Goldberg and Shapiro were invited to come to the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar campus, where they were welcomed by CIRS staff and where they conducted an informal workshop with SFS-Qatar students and faculty.On April 14th, 2008, CIRS organized two different screenings of Promises in one day in order to accommodate public demand and interest in the documentary. The first screening at the auditorium in the College of the North Atlantic-Qatar (CNA-Q) was the matinee and aimed at local Qatari and international high-school students, who attended the screening accompanied by their chaperones. The matinee was attended by 150 students from the American School of Doha and from Amna Bint Wahab School for Girls. The evening event, also held at the CNA-Q auditorium, was dedicated to the members of the general public and began with a reception for the attendees before the screening of the film. Both Goldberg and Shapiro were in attendance and took the stage after the screening of the film, in order to answer audience questions.