Gwen Mikell, Professor of Anthropology and Foreign Service at Georgetown University, gave a CIRS Focused Discussion on the subject of “The Kofi Annan Legacy for Africa” on November 2, 2011. She noted that the lecture grew out of a project that she began in 2006, where she was invited to write about Kofi Annan’s African initiatives over…
On November 13–14, 2011, CIRS held a two-day working group meeting, to discuss issues related to its research initiative on “Food Security and Food Sovereignty in the Middle East.” The working group consisted of experts in the field who deliberated the historical, economic, and political aspects of the discourse as well as specific case studies…
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…
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.