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SUMMARY:Judith Tucker on Globalization 18th Century Style
DESCRIPTION:Judith Tucker\, Professor of History at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar and former editor of the International Journal of Middle East Studies\, gave the April 7\, 2010 Monthly Dialogue lecture on the topic of “Globalization 18th Century Style: The Adventures of Salim the Algerine.” \n \n \nTucker introduced her biographical research on the elusive historical figure\, Salim\, and noted that the project was still in progress as she sifts through a variety of historical data\, chronicles\, travelogues\, letters\, among other eighteenth century materials in order to construct a narrative of the man’s life. Tracing records of Salim’s various forced and unforced journeys across the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean\, Tucker said that she was captivated by this extraordinary “drama of connections among far-flung regions and the displacement of what we might consider a hapless victim of globalization eighteenth century style.” \n \n \nTucker first came across Salim\, who has gone down in the historical record as “Salim the Algerine\,” by examining a collection of Appalachian tales and privately owned records. According to Tucker\, the records tell of a man who was born the son of an Ottoman official and a local woman from Algiers. On his way home to Algiers from time spent studying in Istanbul\, Salim was abducted by Spanish pirates in the western Mediterranean in the mid-eighteenth century\, transferred to a French cargo vessel heading to the port of New Orleans\, and then sold into slavery to work on a local plantation. Within a year\, Salim escapes and flees northwards\, only to be captured by the Shawnee in the Ohio valley. He escapes once more and comes close to perishing in the woods before he is rescued by an English settler on a hunting expedition. The English settler takes Salim in and lodges him at his home in West Virginia until he recovers his strength and learns enough English to tell his story and express his desire to return home to Algiers. His hosts sent him to Williamsburg\, the local colonial capital\, and he receives the patronage of local gentry\, who help sponsor his repatriation\, and he makes his way to London. At this point in the historical narrative\, Salim disappears for a few years but resurfaces again back in Williamsburg after returning from time spent in Algiers. Tucker explains that he is now recorded as a changed man who has suffered great disappointments. He settles in Virginia\, is again taken under the wing of the local gentry\, and acquires the reputation of a harmless eccentric who hovered on the edge of sanity and then drifts into obscurity. “The story seems to have it all\,” Tucker said\, “piracy\, slavery\, captivity\, and redemption.” \n \n \nOne chapter of the story that puzzled her\, Tucker said\, was “why Salim enjoyed a certain social success among the Virginia gentry.” The reason\, she said\, was probably due to the fact that Salim was well educated and had knowledge of Greek\, which was a sign of gentry\, elitism\, and nobility. \n \n \nTucker noted that there is no doubt that Salim existed\, but much of the story remains obscure and its truth may never be determined. She argued\, however: “whether I find additional material about the historical Salim or not – and I’m still looking – I think that this is a story well worth telling\, particularly for today’s audiences\, because it brings the history of eighteenth century globalization into a different focus.” If globalization is “more the subject of multiple conversations than it is of systematic or fixed lines of contestation\,” Tucker said\, then globalization is not merely a modern-day phenomenon based on virtual networks of instantaneous communication and technological feats\, but is evident through the global connectivities traced through stories such as that of Salim. “Historians\,” she said\, “have found globalization a useful concept for understanding longer-term transformations” and\, indeed\, “the eighteenth century was a very important period for shaping the global as we inhabit it today\,” she said. \n \n \nGlobalization\, Tucker argued\, can be defined as having three broad dimensions. The first of these is material\, which is defined by the physical movement of goods and people through increasingly efficient transportation systems that “shrink the globe.” The second dimension is what can be defined as the spatio-temporal\, which refers to the intensity and speed of global connectivities enhanced by new infrastructures\, institutions\, and norms. The third is cognitive and cultural\, which is defined by the flow of ideas\, tastes\, and desires into a global imaginary leading to “the dominant understandings of the design and destiny of the world as a whole.” But\, Tucker said\, it is important to note that “the globalization debate\, in fact\, to date\, as has often been pointed out\, is Eurocentric in a variety of ways. It has often been told as the story of European expansion at the expense of other perspectives.” \n \n \n“Viewing the story of Salim through the lens of globalization\,” Tucker argued\, “lends nuance and complexity to the eighteenth century globalization narrative in all its dimensions – its material\, spatial\, temporal\, and cultural.” Indeed\, “the story of Salim is unthinkable outside of the global frame” she said. “If the phenomenon of globalization is about the physical movement of people and goods on a global scale\, then Salim is surely an excellent example of both: a person who is transformed into a good and then catapulted out of his Mediterranean world into a global transatlantic space.” However\, Tucker argued\, the story complicates the norms of European expansion as “Salim was not incorporated into the global economic system as part of the established patterns of labor recruitment\, but rather as the by-product of a struggle for regional control that has to do\, ultimately\, with the contested globalization of the Mediterranean.” \n \n \nTucker argued that “the complex situation in the Mediterranean in the time of Salim reminds us that the material patterns of globalization were established in ways more far more fluid\, contested\, and uncertain in outcome than we sometimes think.” She noted that “the Salim story of globalization is a far cry from the tale of the benign spread of Enlightenment ideas.” Rather\, “it could be told as the story of a major displacement and marginalization of the cosmopolitan Arabo-Islamic heritage\, to which Salim was an intellectual heir.” \n \n \nDuring her research\, Tucker encountered different versions of the Salim story\, each re-told towards a specific cultural project. Over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries\, the story becomes one of Salim’s conversion to Christianity and is tailored to fit within the specific “global imaginary” of the time\, lending to enhanced dichotomies and conflict between Christianity and Islam. “The revised Salim story serves to bring him into line with what looks like a global imaginary of the spread of Christianity – an adjustment of the Salim story that signals a transition in the nineteenth century to a less eclectic and a more parochial engagement with the global\,” Tucker concluded. \n \n \nJudith Tucker (PhD\, History and Middle Eastern Studies\, Harvard University) is Professor of History and former Editor of the International Journal of Middle East Studies. \n \n \nHer research interests have focused on the Arab world in the Ottoman period\, women and gender in Middle East history\, and Islamic law\, women\, and gender. She is currently working on a project that explores globalization and the Middle East in the eighteenth century. She is the author of many publications on the history of women and gender in the Arab world.   \n \n \nArticle by Suzi Mirgani. Mirgani is the CIRS Publications Coordinator. 
URL:https://cirs.qatar.georgetown.edu/event/judith-tucker-globalization-18th-century-style/
CATEGORIES:Dialogue Series,Race & Society,Regional Studies
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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Moscow:20100412T080000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Moscow:20100412T180000
DTSTAMP:20260412T061005
CREATED:20141022T134451Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240314T110040Z
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SUMMARY:Michael Nelson Lectures on Preparing for the Next Digital Revolution
DESCRIPTION:In partnership with ictQatar\, on April 12\, 2010\, CIRS organized a Distinguished Lecture featuring Michael Nelson\, Visiting Professor of Internet Studies in Georgetown University’s Communication\, Culture\, and Technology Program. Nelson\, an expert in the areas of business\, culture\, and technology\, lectured to an audience of 450 people on “The Cloud\, the Exaflood\, and the Internet of Things–Preparing for the Next Digital Revolution.” Nelson gave an overview of the future of the internet by delving into the policy\, technology\, and business decisions that are shaping how the technology will be used. \n \n \nNelson drew on his experiences working for the United States government\, and his contribution to the Obama campaign specifically\, by highlighting the strategic use of words in order to make or break certain initiatives. Language\, he said\, can be used tactically to shape policy decisions. In order to think about the future of computing and the internet\, Nelson shared with the audience\, eleven key words that sum up the discourse. The first word that he offered was “people\,” and this\, he said\, “is the most important word because it is what defines how technology develops.” The development of new hardware and software used in computing is growing at an accelerated rate and is surpassing the pace at which people are learning to use these technologies. Currently\, there is a growing gap between the progress of new technologies and the people able to operate them. \n \n \nThe second word Nelson offered was “vision\,” and this referred to what kind of future people foresee for technology. He argued that “we are entering the third phase in the development of the internet\, and this phase is as profound\, revolutionary\, and transformational as the World Wide Web was ten or fifteen years ago.” This next phase is only just now being defined; “over the next two or three years\, we are going to make critical decisions about how the internet evolves and how it is used\,” Nelson argued. Importantly\, decisions made in the business sector will either open up new possibilities or curtail existing ones. \n \n \nThrough the third word\, “Cloud\,” the cost of technologies has been lowered significantly. “The ‘cloud\,’” Nelson said\, “is really a different way of doing computing” that developed out of academia and research institutions that needed to store large quantities of data remotely. Cloud computing involves outsourcing to a third party or provider. Organizations like Microsoft\, Google\, and Amazon are at the leading edge of the development of this technology. \n \n \nNelson’s fourth word was “game changer\,” which emphasizes how these new cloud computing services will radically change the way computing is done. The first phase of computing was based on the notion of individual computers working independently of others based on software and data\, the second phase developed when computers were plugged into the web giving access to the world\, and the third and current phase is the cloud\, which means that individual computers do not have to be tied down to their own software and data\, but can operate remotely by accessing data from other computers. This new mode of operation is defined by Nelson’s fifth word: “Many-to-many.” \n \n \nNelson’s sixth offering was the word “things\,” which referred to the sharp increase in technological applications and gadgets. He said that “it’s not just about computers and people anymore; it’s about a hundred billion devices.” Indeed\, Nelson said “today\, about one and a half million PCs and a few hundred million smart phones plug into the internet.” Because of these tools\, we are now dealing with an “exaflood.” This is the seventh prominent word in Nelson’s lecture\, and refers to the huge increase in the amount of data available on the internet. “We all know what a megabyte is\, and a gigabyte\, but if you take a billion gigabytes\, you get an ‘exabyte\,’ Nelson remarked. \n \n \nThis increase in the amount of raw data led to Nelson’s eighth word “collaboration\,” which refers to how people can work together to make sense of it. “Social media is\, of course\, one of the leading edge applications for enabling new types of collaboration. For a lot of people in their teenage years\, Twitter and Facebook are actually replacing e-mail\,” he said. This is inspiring ‘crowd sourcing\,’ which is a means of rallying people from all over the world to sort data. “In the last twenty years\, we have gone from having a scarcity of data to having an overwhelming amount of data\,” Nelson explained. In fact\, “the reason President Obama is in the White House is because of these technologies and because of the ‘cloud’ […] The campaign used social media to mobilize hundreds of thousands of people to get them involved in the campaign and to get millions of people to give money\,” he said. \n \n \n“Consumerization” was Nelson’s ninth word\, and defines the upgrade of digital technologies in the workplace as people begin to blend their work and home technologies. “This is the trend we see now where people are bringing into the workplace incredibly sophisticated tools and software applications that they use at home\,” such as social media capabilities\, he said. \n \n \nThe tenth word was “predictions\,” and refers to a vision of what the internet will make possible in the near future. One of the predictions that Nelson offered was that “within five years\, 80% of all computing and storage done worldwide could happen ‘in the cloud\,’” but it is more likely that it will take a decade. Another prediction he suggested was that “within five years\, 100 billion devices and sensors could be connected to the net\,” but this too will most probably happen within ten years’ time. For these changes to happen there needs to be substantial changes in technological usage\, cultural shifts\, and policy implementations. \n \n \nThese necessary changes led to Nelson’s eleventh\, and final\, word\, “policy.” He argued that “policy is often fifteen to twenty years behind the technology\, and if that policy is not well designed\, it can hold everything back. So\, governments have a critically important role to play and I am very glad that Qatar\, and the Qatari government\, is focused on this.” \n \n \nConcluding the lecture\, Nelson gave three possible scenarios for the future of computing. The first of these is the ‘clouds scenario’ wherein a variety of organizations operate different forms of ‘clouds\,’ using different technologies that are purposefully incompatible. The second is the ‘cloudy skies’ scenario where different organizations operate different technologies\, but agree upon methods of interoperability. The third\, and most desirable\, possibility is the ‘blue skies’ scenario where different clouds\, run by different organizations\, all use common standards that make flexibility and interoperability the norm. Finally\, Nelson said that “we are now less than 15% of the way through this incredible change” and so it is up to the users to demand the changes that they would like to see happen in the future.  \n \n \nArticle by Suzi Mirgani. Mirgani is the CIRS Publications Coordinator. 
URL:https://cirs.qatar.georgetown.edu/event/michael-nelson-lectures-preparing-next-digital-revolution/
CATEGORIES:American Studies,Dialogue Series,Race & Society,Regional Studies
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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Moscow:20100420T080000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Moscow:20100420T180000
DTSTAMP:20260412T061005
CREATED:20141022T133917Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240314T110030Z
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SUMMARY:Robert Fisk on Western Journalism and the Middle East
DESCRIPTION:Robert Fisk\, award-winning journalist and Middle East Correspondent for The Independent newspaper\, gave the annual faculty-appointed Distinguished Lecture on April 20\, 2010 on the subject of “State of Denial: Western Journalism and the Middle East.” GU-Qatar student Amna Al-Thani introduced Fisk to a capacity audience of 800 guests at the Four Seasons Hotel in Doha. \n \n \nFisk began by noting that on September 11\, 2001\, he was contacted by various news agencies who repeatedly asked him “who did it?” This\, he said\, was very telling of the state of Western journalism as they would not ask the obvious question of “why did this happen?” Fisk argued that “when you have an ordinary crime on the street\, the first thing the police do is look for a motive. But when we had an international crime against humanity in New York\, Washington\, and Pennsylvania\, the one thing journalists were not supposed to do was look for a motive.” \n \n \nIn today’s terror driven discourse\, Fisk said\, delving into the background historical reasons for why such attacks happen is considered synonymous with an apology for terrorist activity. This is challenging because it would open up a problematic discourse that questions the relationship between the United States\, the Arab world\, and Israel. \n \n \nIn Western journalism\, Fisk argued\, “what we were confronting\, especially in the United States\, was the parasitic\, osmotic relationship between journalists and power.” Because the United States administration refers to the Israeli “occupied territories” as “disputed territories” and the Israeli “wall” is referred to as a “security barrier\,” this language is picked up by the popular press and becomes the sanitized language of journalism. “By failing to use the real words\, we de-semanticize the conflict\,” said Fisk. “Through our journalistic cowardice\, we make it easier for those who suffer to become the aggressors and those who are the occupiers to become the victims\,” he argued. Journalists become complicit in conflicts when they subscribe to this type of reporting. \n \n \nThe worst example of this sanitization of conflict is television\, where producers will not allow scenes of death or violence\, thus concealing the reality of war from the public. Viewers of television in the West are not given the opportunity to see for themselves the effect of wars. Fisk argued that “our leaders\, all of whom at the moment have zero experience of real war – the journalists do\, but not our leaders in the West – they are able to present to the public war as a bloodless sandpit\, war as something primarily to do with victory and defeat rather than death.” \n \n \nCurrently\, Fisk argued\, there is a wall of fortresses that divide the world into West and East. There are British\, US\, and Western European military posts in Afghanistan\, Iraq\, Tajikistan\, Turkey\, Jordan\, Egypt\, Algeria\, Yemen\, Qatar\, Bahrain\, and Saudi Arabia\, as well as in a variety of other strategically located regions. “It’s a kind of iron curtain across the Middle East\,” he said. \n \n \nWestern governments say that they want to export democracy\, but\, Fisk argued\, the voices on the other side say they want nothing more than justice. Currently\, the enemies of the Western world are predominantly Islamist. He said that “we don’t even largely reflect upon what I suspect is one of the principle frustrations that exist in this region: that Muslims have kept their faith and we have not.” He continued by saying\, “what has happened is that a people who have kept their faith are now largely dominated socially\, economically\, politically\, and\, usually\, militarily\, by a people who have lost their faith. How do you explain that to yourselves?” \n \n \nIn conclusion\, Fisk said: “I think the West should always be encouraged to send its teachers\, and its educators\, its builders\, its engineers\, its bridge-builders\, and its scientists to the Muslim world\, to learn as well as to help and teach. But\, militarily\, we have no business being in the Muslim world.” \n \n \nEarlier in the day\, Fisk was invited to the GU-Qatar campus to speak informally to a group of faculty\, students\, and staff. He answered questions related to the effects of technology on journalism.  \n \n \nA prominent journalist and the Middle East Correspondent for The Independent in the UK\, Robert Fisk has won numerous press awards for his work including being named the British International Journalist of the Year seven times and receiving the Amnesty International UK Press Award twice. He has lived in the Middle East for over 30 years\, and has reported on the 1979 Iranian revolution\, the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the Sabra and Chatila massacre\, the 1991 Persian Gulf War\, the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan. He is one of a few western journalists to have interviewed Osama bin Laden\, which he has done three times\, and is also a best-selling author\, whose books include The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East and Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War. Robert Fisk holds a PhD in politics from Trinity College Dublin and holds 12 honorary degrees from other universities. \n \n \nArticle by Suzi Mirgani. Mirgani is the CIRS Publications Coordinator.
URL:https://cirs.qatar.georgetown.edu/event/robert-fisk-western-journalism-and-middle-east/
CATEGORIES:American Studies,Dialogue Series,Race & Society,Regional Studies
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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Moscow:20100426T080000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Moscow:20100426T180000
DTSTAMP:20260412T061005
CREATED:20141022T133319Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240314T110022Z
UID:10000917-1272268800-1272304800@cirs.qatar.georgetown.edu
SUMMARY:Mehran Kamrava International Lecture
DESCRIPTION:Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar\, Dean Mehran Kamrava speaks about “A 2020 vision of the Middle East” \n \n \nClick here to download an MP3 of Kamrava’s speech \n \n \nIn its inaugural International Lecture\, CIRS travelled to the Kingdom of Bahrain on April 26\, 2010\, to offer insights and dialogue with people in the neighboring GCC state. In this unique Public Affairs Program\, CIRS emphasized the objective of providing a forum for exchange of ideas with other communities in the Gulf region and beyond. The distinguished speaker\, Mehran Kamrava\, was introduced to the audience by GU-Qatar Alumna Haya Al Noaimi. \n \n \nKamrava is Interim Dean of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and Director of the Center for International and Regional Studies. He lectured on the topic of “A 2020 Vision of the Middle East\,” where he introduced and analyzed several key trends he sees that have the ability to shape the future of the Middle East over the next ten years. Kamrava said that\, “as students of the Middle East\, and as citizens of the region\, often times we dwell on the past.” \n \n \nOutlining the evening’s lecture\, the four primary areas that Kamrava focused on were related to 1) the nature of the state that currently exists across the Middle East; 2) the role and the nature of the relationship between the United States and the region; 3) the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; and 4) trends occurring in the Gulf region\, including the events unfolding in Iran and Iraq. \n \n \nTurning to the first area of discussion\, or “the state of the state” in the Middle East\, Kamrava argued that there are a number of different political dynamics that are currently being played out in the international arena. There are a number of different state formations and governance models that range between the democratic\, the non-democratic\, and the many other models in between these two opposing spectrums. In the Middle East\, there are democratic models of governance that vary in their viability and vibrancy; “some democracies are somewhat more cosmetic\, or at least have much more limited political parameters around them – you might call them pseudo democracies\,” of which Turkey\, Israel\, and Lebanon are good examples\, Kamrava said. \n \n \nThe Middle East also has several states that are non-democratic as they attempt to exclude the public from any political participation through the instrumentalization of repressive mechanisms. There are other political systems in the region that are thoroughly non-democratic\, but try to appear democratic. Many of these non-democracies\, Kamrava argued\, “try to be inclusionary and inclusive insofar as the population is concerned – the streets become democratic theaters.” \n \n \nDiscussing the United States’ relationship to the region\, Kamrava argued that since WWII\, there have been four primary features that have guided American foreign policy towards the Middle East. These include\, guaranteeing the safety and security of the state of Israel; guaranteeing access to Middle Eastern oil at reasonable prices; containing regional threats to American interests across the region; and\, “after the Cold War – or once Iraq invaded Kuwait – there was a fourth aspect and that was to station military forces in the region directly because regional allies\, at least insofar as the United States saw them\, turned out to be unreliable for American policy calculations\,” Kamrava argued. Expounding upon American military presence in the Middle East\, he said that if one looks at a map\, it becomes clear that “across the Middle East\, there is a very strong American presence” in the form of large and easy to mobilize military bases. To this effect\, Kamrava said\, “the big question is: does it look like\, at any time in the foreseeable future\, even in the next ten years\, the American military is going to disengage from the Middle East?” \n \n \nThese features of American foreign policy\, Kamrava said\, are instrumental to the third area of discussion regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “America’s alliance with Israel is certainly key in the way that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has unfolded historically and also currently\,” he said. Projecting his views on the situation\, Kamrava said that “as we move forward\, we can see a continuation of this unending ‘peace process\,’” especially in light of the encroachment of illegal Israeli settlements and rapidly increasing population growth. With this knowledge in mind\, and by looking at the sobering facts on the ground\, he posed an uncomfortable question to the audience by asking “does it still make sense to talk about a Palestine?” \n \n \nLooking into the future\, Kamrava posed three possible models for what future political turns Palestine might take. The first of these is the “Tibetan model\,” where Palestine’s objective to be an officially recognized sovereign state all but disappears as it becomes subsumed under Israel. In this model\, “although there is a Palestinian identity\, there will not be a Palestinian state\,” Kamrava explained. The second and opposite possibility is for Palestine to take on the “East European” or “Central Asian” model\, which is for it to emerge as a distinct state in the future. The third\, and final\, model is for Palestine to become a disparate amalgam of reservations and entities that are landlocked and isolated from one another with little economic and political power. \n \n \nFinally\, turning to the Gulf region\, Kamrava projected that\, politically\, “I don’t think much is going to change\, at least insofar as states are concerned” in the GCC\, but it is very difficult to predict what will happen in Iran over the next few years. He added that “the regional superpowers [Iran\, Saudi Arabia\, and Egypt] are not going to be as dominant in dictating regional foreign policy.” Indeed\, “we will see a continued ascendance in the economics of the Gulf region\, particularly smaller countries like Bahrain and Qatar.” The region will see a new set of powers that\, because of their economic wealth\, policy agility\, and elite cohesion\, will become more prominent in shaping the future of the GCC\, the Middle East\, and beyond. \n \n \nIn conclusion\, Kamrava summed up his prognosis for the Middle East of 2020 by saying that “what we will continue to see in the region are American ‘footprints\,’” in the form of U.S. military bases\, as well as “a continued domination of Israel.” He also noted that “I don’t think there is going to be a wave of democracy sweeping across the region and that is because oil-based economies will continue to exist throughout the region.” As a final thought\, Kamrava said that he was optimistic that we will see “the continued enrichment of human capacity and human capital in every country of the Middle East.”  \n \n \nDr. Mehran Kamrava is Interim Dean of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar and Director of Georgetown’s Center for International and Regional Studies. He is an expert in comparative politics\, political development\, and Middle Eastern politics. He is the author of nine books\, including\, most recently\, Iran’s Intellectual Revolution and The Modern Middle East: A Political History Since the First World War. \n \n \nArticle by Suzi Mirgani. Mirgani is the CIRS Publications Coordinator.
URL:https://cirs.qatar.georgetown.edu/event/mehran-kamrava-international-lecture/
CATEGORIES:American Studies,Dialogue Series,Distingushed Lectures,Regional Studies
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