THE CENTER FOR MIDDLE EASTERN STUDIES NEWS HARVARD UNIVERSITY

FALL 2017

2 LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR A message from William Granara

3 NEWS AND NOTES New faculty arrivals, Mobile Images from 19th-Century Iran, Syrian refugees, student profiles, Q&A’s with alumni Eugene Rogan and Asher Orkaby

20 EVENT HIGHLIGHTS Lectures, workshops, and conferences from the fall LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR

CMES ABROAD

I AM HAPPY TO TAKE THIS OCCASION TO SHARE WITH YOU an update on a successful and growing development at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies: a major expansion of opportunities and support for our students to study abroad. In the past year alone, we funded 75 students from across Harvard to study or research in the and North . Two of our signature programs are based at the CMES Tunisia Office in Tunis. Last summer we hosted six students who spent five weeks in an intensive advanced Arabic language program focusing on reading and research skills for those concentrating in Arabic Middle Eastern and Islamic humanities and social sciences. Arabic Preceptor Nour Barmada taught the classes and CMES Tunisia Office Administrative Manager Sihem Lamine led students on excursions to the National Archives and other research institutions. And in January, twelve students participated in our third annual Winter Term program in Tunisia, an introduction to the country’s history, geography, culture, and literature. In addition, two of our advanced graduate students, Laura Thompson (Committee on the Study of Religion) and Aytug Sasmaz (Department of Government), are in residence conducting pre-dissertation research on Tunisia. In January we also hosted our third CMES Winter Term program for undergraduates in Turkey. History and Middle Eastern Studies graduate students Eda Özel and Akif Yerlioğlu, along with CMES Administrative and Academic Coordinator Carol Ann Young, led eight students on visits to various sites in Istanbul, followed by a ten-day reading and study mini-course on Turkish history and culture at the Moonlight Monastery on the scenic island of Cunda. In addition, we had the pleasure to support five undergraduates for short-term study and research projects in Israel, thanks to the Rosovsky Fund, and two of our AM students, Mohamad Khalil Harb and Suzie Lahoud, received grants from our Ramez and Tiziana Sousou Fund to conduct research in and , respectively. Finally, CMES funded four graduate students to conduct thesis research in the Arabian Peninsula: Asad Jan and Firas Suqi (Graduate School of Design) to , and Azizjon Azimi (Harvard Kennedy School) and Anne Loyer (Graduate School of Education) to the United Arab Emirates. As many of the countries of the Middle East are restricted to travel, we at CMES are more than ever committed to funding as many students as possible to travel to as many countries as possible, convinced that experiencing first-hand the countries that we study and teach, and tapping into the resources of the native environment, are integral parts of our mission. With the generous support of friends and benefactors, we continue to expand this support. —William Granara, CMES Director

ON THE COVER: “Restaurant, Darband, Tehran,” by Farhad Dokhani NEWS AND NOTES

FACULTY NEWS NEW FACULTY ARRIVALS CMES welcomed three faculty members to Harvard’s Middle Eastern studies community this fall. Madeleine Cohen has joined the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations (NELC) as Preceptor in Yiddish. She received her PhD in Comparative Literature with a designated emphasis in

Jewish Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. Her Sahar Amarir, Oula Alrifai, Steven Wickman, Amber Glavine dissertation, “Here and Now: The Modernist Poetics of Do’ikayt,” explores connections between the representation of place in modernist Yiddish literature and revolutionary, anti-territorialist politics in the interwar period. She serves as the Editor-in-Chief of In geveb: A Journal of Yiddish Studies. Lisa Gulesserian has also joined NELC, as Lecturer on Armenian. She teaches elementary Western Armenian and Armenian culture courses, and her research interests include contemporary Armenian

American novelists, memory, and literary translation. She earned William Graham, William Granara Lisa Gulesserian, Carol Ann Young her PhD in English from the University of Texas at Austin. Her dissertation, “ ‘Because if the Dead Cannot Live, Neither Do We’: Postmemory and Passionate Remembering in Micheline Aharonian Marcom’s Armenian Genocide Trilogy,” posits that inherited memories of traumatic pasts must undergo imaginative transformations to be passionately remembered in the present. An amended version of her analysis of Marcom’s trilogy will be published in a forthcoming issue of Review of Contemporary Fiction. And Said Hannouchi has joined NELC as Preceptor in Arabic. He holds a PhD in Arabic and applied linguistics from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His research interests include second language acquisition, the pedagogies of teaching Arabic language and cultures, and intercultural communication and competence. His current Efe Balıkçıoğlu, Mano Sakayan, Jamil Sbitan, Chloe Bordewich research focuses on native speakers’ and non-native speakers’ expectations of conformity to Arab cultural norms and implications CMES welcomed new and returning faculty, students, visiting for development of intercultural communicative competence. He has researchers, and other members of the Harvard Middle Eastern over ten years of experience teaching Arabic as a second and foreign studies community at our fall reception on September 26, 2017. language at leading universities around the country.

FALL 2017 | CMESNEWS 3 NEWS AND NOTES

MOBILE IMAGES FROM 19TH-CENTURY IRAN 19th-century Iran,” McWilliams said. This period witnessed In fall 2017, the Harvard then been little studied since 2018), which included works significant social, cultural, tech- Art Museums presented the Harvard acquired it in 1960. from the album and built upon nological, and political change exhibition Technologies of the “I was incredibly excited the critical scholarship that in Iran, as well as an increased Image: Art in 19th-Century when I first saw the album,” emerged from Roxburgh’s class. involvement on the global stage. Iran, co-curated by Mary said David Roxburgh, the The exhibition looked at “many Those developments stimu- McWilliams and CMES Steering Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal of the fascinating connections lated and supported an era of Committee member David Professor of Islamic Art History between Qajar artists, art heightened image-making and J. Roxburgh. The exhibition and chair of the Department of forms, and new technologies in image-sharing. The album—as catalogue features essays History of Art and Architecture by co-editors Roxburgh and at Harvard. “I appreciated its McWilliams and by Mira Xenia rarity, but also the premise that Schwerda, PhD candidate in its publication could encourage History of Art and Architecture others to work on related and Middle Eastern Studies, materials. I was eager to do a who gave several gallery talks in serious study of this album.” conjunction with the exhibition. Though it took a few Katie Aberbach, of Harvard Art more years, Roxburgh got his Museums Communications, chance. In the spring of 2015, wrote the following article, he taught a graduate seminar which originally appeared focused entirely on the album, in slightly different form in which is an assembly of works HAM’s Index magazine (www. produced during Iran’s Qajar harvardartmuseums.org/index- dynasty. (The album is known in magazine) on October 13, 2017. shorthand as the Harvard Qajar All images appear courtesy of Album.) McWilliams, the Norma Harvard Art Museums/Arthur Jean Calderwood Curator of M. Sackler Museum, Alpheus Islamic and Later Indian Art Hyatt Purchasing Fund. at the Harvard Art Museums, led a number of class sessions Nearly 10 years ago, Mary as students and teachers alike McWilliams and David sought to learn more about the Roxburgh sat down together images contained within this to look at a unique album from unique object. 19th-century Iran. Filled with Two years later, McWilliams preparatory sketches, drawing and Roxburgh co-curated the templates, and fully developed exhibition Technologies of the Pavilion in a Garden of Fruit Trees with Figures Looking out from Porticoes, compositions by a range of Image: Art in 19th-Century Iran 19th century artists, the album had until (August 26, 2017–January 7,

4 CMESNEWS | FALL 2017 well as the approximately 75 academic study. Its 57 folios copying the work of past Students in the seminar other drawings, paintings, lac- contain technical materials masters was a long-standing learned about several of those quer objects, lithographs, and that point to the wider system tradition,” McWilliams said. techniques by emulating them. photographs in the exhibition— of artistic production and Outlines of artworks and Francesca Bewer, research attests to the interconnected- exchange in place at the time. designs (some of which were curator for conservation and ness and mobility of images Because artists used such themselves copied or inspired technical study programs, led produced in Qajar Iran. materials in their daily work, by other sources, such as the students in a Materials most were damaged and European paintings) were Lab session in which they Remarkable Object subsequently discarded. prepared for reproduction experimented with ink transfer The album is a wellspring for “In Iran, as elsewhere, through various techniques. methods. Students were also

Medallion with Portrait Bust of a European Woman, Enclosed in Symmetrical Composition of Scrollwork, Flowers, Birds, and Insects, c. 1805–30 Embracing Couple Attended by a Woman, c. 1850s

FALL 2017 | CMESNEWS 5 NEWS AND NOTES

Embracing Couple on a Terrace, Attended by Male and Female Servants, a Musician, and a Dancer, showing evidence of pouncing Portrait of Muhammad Shah Qajar, Seated on a Chair able to practice the technique through the holes to create a Senior Conservation Scientist, own research. For instance, of “pouncing,” in which new outline. in the Straus Center for Knipe said the students’ translucent paper is laid atop a The students also learned Conservation and Technical observations helped her identify finished image or outline, and how experts analyzed and even Studies, led discussions related watermarks on dozens of pages tiny holes are pricked on the dated the materials included in specifically to the album’s in the album, which revealed paper that correspond with the or related to the album. Penley materiality and the composition that some of its papers had been outline beneath. An artist could Knipe, the Philip and Lynn of various other related objects imported from Europe. then place the pricked paper on Straus Senior Conservator of (such as lacquer boxes). top of a blank sheet and force Works on Paper, and Katherine These sessions proved Vital Links chalk or another substance Eremin, the Patricia Cornwell fruitful for the conservators’ The close study of certain

6 CMESNEWS | FALL 2017 Rectangular Mirror Case with Bird, Flowers, and Two Bird and Flower Design, 1800–1850 Birds and Flowers, 1775–1850 Butterflies, first half 19th century preparatory sketches and century), repeats the design Schwerda, who took the class. of Artists’ Drawings from templates in the album was key in reverse. Such pairings were “Studying the album helped me Qajar Iran, a compendium to understanding other works included in the Technologies of more clearly understand the of the nearly 150 works that of art from the same period as the Image exhibition, so that connections between different make up the Harvard Qajar well. For example, one drawing viewers could compare their artists’ materials and methods.” Album, features essays written from the album, Birds and striking similarities. Schwerda focused her by students in Roxburgh’s Flowers (c. 1775–1850), shown These sorts of connections— research for the class on class, including Schwerda and above, was found to have served though made explicit in the depictions of domesticity, as the fellow CMES PhD candidates as a model for multiple objects. exhibition—might not be album contains many drawings Gwendolyn Collaço, Farhad These include a distinctive and initially evident to a casual of women and children in Dokhani, and Meredyth Winter. colorful lacquer mirror case viewer. But for the students private settings. She said that Roxburgh and McWilliams (now in a London collection) and experts who spent months the album made her realize hope that visitors to the Tech­ that was signed by the closely studying the album and “how mobile images are, and nologies of the Image exhibition celebrated 18th-century artist producing new scholarship, how they not only go from place gleaned similar lessons through Muhammad Sadiq. A somewhat they became abundantly clear. to place but also change from close examination. “These later work in the exhibition, “The album opens up a view medium to medium, and are objects require a particular, the lacquer Rectangular Mirror into how art was produced reinterpreted along the way.” sustained attention,” Roxburgh Case with Bird, Flowers, and in the Qajar era and how it A second book accompany­ said. “But they repay the time Two Butterflies (first half 19th changed,” said Mira Xenia ing the exhibition, An Album spent looking at them.” •

FALL 2017 | CMESNEWS 7 NEWS AND NOTES

STUDENT NEWS The two compiled a documentary, “Tomorrow’s THE NOT LOST GENERATION Children,” with Alrifai as Syrian asylees release documentary to highlight struggles of child refugees executive producer and Al- Rifay as director. The film is First-year CMES AM candidate for generations. Many of their families escaping the conflict. comprised of six vignettes, Oula Alrifai and her brother, friends and relatives had been When the refugee crisis each devoted to one child they Mouhanad Al-Rifay, themselves imprisoned, killed, tortured, or became headline news in 2013, interviewed. The documentary asylees from , founded the exiled for speaking out against Alrifai and Al-Rifay traveled is currently in postproduction, Syrian-American Network for the government of Bashar al- to Turkey’s Anatolia region and expected to be released in Aid and Development, dedicated Assad. Alrifai and her brother, to look for Syrians trying to early 2018. to supporting families escaping Mouhanad Al-Rifay, were rebuild their lives. They found More than 5 million Syrian the conflict in Syria. Now the already showing a penchant people stuck in a liminal stage refugees have been registered pair have created “Tomorrow’s for dissidence at school, and of immigration, with thousands by the UN High Commissioner Children,” a documentary about her parents began receiving of children—most from Aleppo, for Refugees since the conflict Syrian child refugees trying death threats from government a focal point of the civil war— began, nearly half of them to survive in Turkey. Harvard agents. They quickly fled to working as laborers from dawn younger than 18 years old. Only correspondent John Michael Washington, D.C., where Alrifai until dusk, for just a few dollars 20 percent of those children Baglione wrote the following said they were among the city’s a day. None of them were in get counseling, and less than article about their work, which first asylees from Syria. school. 5 percent are continuing their originally appeared October 18, “We were lucky,” said Al- “They have to survive and education. Turkey, with which 2017, in the Harvard Gazette. Rifay, who was 14 at the time. help their families even though Syria shares a 511-mile border “I feel like life protected us for they’re between 10 and 13, or on its north, has taken the In 2005, years before Donald some reason.” even younger,” said Al-Rifay. majority of these refugees, Trump’s travel ban, Europe’s Driven by the same instincts “They work every day, literally including 1.4 million children. refugee crisis, or Barack that made them troublemakers every single day . . . they have to Very few of the children go to Obama’s “red line,” Oula Alrifai in Syria, she and her brother skip work to be normal [kids].” school, and many of them are and her family were granted continued their mission to With the children’s forced into a life of exploitative political asylum from the Syrian bring democracy to their home. permission, the siblings began labor, according to the UN government, without ceremony. With the Tharwa Foundation, taping their talks. Alrifai said Office for the Coordination It was the day before her 18th Alrifai contributed to a series she focused on questions, using of Humanitarian Affairs birthday. of online documentaries called neutral language to ask the (UNOCHA). “That was a depressing day,” “First Step,” which called for children what they thought One boy, Moustafa, a refugee said Alrifai, a master’s degree a nonviolent revolution in the about the war, Assad, and the from Aleppo, spends his 10- candidate with the Center country. Two years later, the rebels. “I wanted to know what hour days at a sweets shop on for Middle Eastern Studies at siblings founded the Syrian- they thought without guiding his feet. He also helps in his Harvard University. “I had to American Network for Aid them. We wanted to give these father’s shoe store, where other leave everything behind.” and Development (SANAD), kids a voice, because no one hazards take their toll. The Al Rifa’i family had dedicated to providing support was talking about them,” she “These kids are completely fought for democracy in Syria and financial assistance to said. pessimistic. They don’t see

8 CMESNEWS | FALL 2017 anything positive in life,” said Al-Rifay. “That’s not right for a 12-year-old.” Another boy, Shrivan, whose neighborhood in Aleppo was evacuated when the Free Syrian Army invaded, expressed disdain for the rebel group. Shrivan had been a high performer in school, but had to start working only a week after escaping shelling and sniper fire. “In his mind, they brought the problem into his life,” said Al-Rifay. “Now he sees the bigger picture, but at the time, he was someone who left because of the opposition.”

With the help of SANAD’s Mouhanad Al-Rifay and Oula Alrifai education fund, Shrivan was able to stop working and is back in school. they’re saying,” Al-Rifay agreed, siblings most. They are well [Trump’s travel ban], it’s even “I feel like my whole “and then a terrorist comes aware that if they had fled worse.” struggle was convincing people along, says ‘Oh, hey, we believe Syria today instead of 12 years Though Alrifai sees little that Syrians are people,” Al- in jihad, too,’ and they make ago, they would not have been hope of the war ending with Rifay said. “We should listen to him into a terrorist.” welcomed so readily—if at all. Assad’s ouster and the return of these kids because they’re going According to the UNOCHA, “I’m Syrian and people democracy, she said there is still to be adults soon. And if we children are being recruited should know that that doesn’t hope for the children to reach don’t do anything, they’re going into militant groups in 90 mean we’re terrorists. We’re their full potentials. Invest in to be taken to the other side.” percent of surveyed locations refugees but we’re not coming these kids now, she said, because Radical groups take advantage where Syrian refugees have to take your jobs,” she said. otherwise there will be a much of children, he said, citing a settled. “We’re not radical Islamists steeper price down the line. boy who, when asked what he “What we went through is who want to blow up places in “You can’t be numb to it. would do to make Syria better, not comparable to what they America. This whole package They are the future generation said he would go to jihad. went through,” Alrifai said. that was created about Syria and leaders of Syria.” • “He’s a little kid. He doesn’t It is the relative ease with is just unbelievable. What know what jihad is,” Alrifai said. which the Al Rifa’i family was [people] see on CNN and in → Read the original article “When someone is that granted residence and recently newspapers is ‘terrorists and with additional graphics at news.harvard.edu/gazette age . . . they don’t know what citizenship that drives the Syria,’ and now thanks to

FALL 2017 | CMESNEWS 9 NEWS AND NOTES

STUDENT PROFILE: CHLOE BORDEWICH so as to speak to readers outside how they shape the ways Middle Eastern studies, to use people interact both with the Chloe Bordewich is a PhD the Center for Arabic Study methodologies developed by state and with each other, candidate in History and Middle Abroad (CASA). Though I later other kinds of historians, and to particularly in terms of making Eastern Studies. spent two years working in the highlight why the history of the and eroding social trust. field of international election Middle East should matter to I’ve also been working on a How did you become observation and human rights, everyone. project related to cartography interested in Middle Eastern that year in Cairo at a historic in from the 1920s studies? moment—sandwiched between What are your research to 1970s. In this case I’m In 2006, when I was 16, I went the first free elections in Egypt’s interests? interested in moving beyond to Cairo for three weeks as history and a military coup— I’m in the process of developing postcolonial theory to examine part of a now-defunct State excited me about the possibility my prospectus now, but broadly concretely the transfer and Department–funded exchange of pursuing a PhD in Middle speaking I’m interested in transformation of knowledge program for high school Eastern history. the nexus of information and during the extended period of students called LINC (Linking power in the late and post- decolonization. What happens Individuals, Knowledge, and Why did you choose CMES? Ottoman Arab world, especially to knowledge gathered by and Culture). My parents had told Having majored in an area Egypt. Freedom of access to for the purposes of a colonial me they couldn’t pay for an studies department as an information has taken center state once a colonizer leaves? expensive teen tour, but I was undergrad, I saw the value of stage since the beginning of It’s important to me as welcome to go anywhere I being surrounded by people the Arab uprisings in 2011, a historian to speak to our wanted if I found a way to pay using other disciplines to in recognition of the fact own society, helping us for it. The friendships I made answer similar questions that lack of access to basic better understand a region through LINC have been the about the same places I was information about how one’s about which we have so bedrock of my social network studying. But I also regretted government functions has an many misconceptions and, in Egypt for the last 12 years, not having a strong disciplinary incredibly corrosive effect on I hope, shedding light on ensuring that it has felt like a training, and I wanted this society and especially on the our own present moment second home even at the worst as a scholar. The History and ability to mobilize sustained of anxiety about truth, of times. As an undergraduate Middle Eastern Studies PhD challenges to authoritarian trust, misinformation, and at Princeton, I fell in love program offered both. I am regimes. Though I fully expect surveillance. But I’m also with Arabic, spending my first able to be equally a member of it to change when I’m in the aware of the legacy of Western summer of college studying it the History Department and field, my current plan is to scholars’ misappropriation of in Morocco. I majored in Near CMES communities. CMES is write about human intelligence information gathered in the Eastern studies and in January tight-knit and personalized—a gathering in khedival Egypt field, sometimes construed 2012 returned to conduct field boutique experience. And (late 19th and early 20th c.), as spying, and the inequality research for my senior thesis on as a member of the History within Ottoman and, later, of access to sources and to the historical consciousnesses Department, I was encouraged British imperial contexts. I ask resources that privileges us of the ongoing revolution. I to take courses and exam fields what that can tell us about the over Arab historians (for moved to Cairo five months beyond my regional subfield. formation of the state, but I’m example) in studying Arab later to spend my first year As a result, I think I am better also particularly interested in history. So I also feel it’s after college as a fellow at equipped to frame my research institutions’ broader impact: important to write something

10 CMESNEWS | FALL 2017 that can be useful to the society Bassem Youssef perform about which I’m writing, not standup comedy in Boston. only to our own. What travel/research What do you like best about opportunities have you studying at Harvard? pursued during your time at It’s frustrating at times that Harvard? there aren’t more faculty at My first year at Harvard Harvard in my field. But a silver coincided with the inaugural lining is that students in Middle CMES J-Term trip to Tunisia, Eastern history are resourceful, on which I learned how to eat uncompetitive, and supportive a brik, saw the Great Mosque of each other. It’s not a crowded of Kairouan, and explored the space, and everyone helps each Tunisian National Archives. other out. CMES, in particular, That summer, 2016, CMES is also very supportive of our supported my first foray into travels. There is recognition studying modern Turkish, at an that going abroad for language intensive language institute in study and research, even at the Istanbul, as well as preliminary preliminary stage, is crucial research in London and Cairo. for developing relevant and While in Turkey, I also taught meaningful projects—especially English at a cultural center because we are working in a for Syrian refugees, Ad Dar, region where archival access is where I found a wonderful and heavily restricted and building welcoming community. During trust with the institutions where J-Term 2017, I returned to Cairo Outside Siwa, in Egypt’s Western Desert we will conduct our dissertation for three weeks to research the research is essential. history of Egyptian cartography, and in summer 2017 I was an of my cohort in the History the judicial system, or other What do you like best about ARIT fellow studying advanced Graduate Students’ Association channels. I help coordinate the living in Cambridge? modern Turkish at Boğaziçi each year. Just after the 2016 Middle East Beyond Borders Cambridge is a highly walkable, University in Istanbul. The two presidential election I organized workshop and am a fellow friendly place to live with all the summers of Turkish helped a popular event called “Between of the Science, Religion, and cultural benefits of a big city. It’s me develop the proficiency the Archive and the Public Culture program at the Divinity great to be able to stop working I needed to begin Ottoman Sphere” with CMES Shawwaf School. I’m also involved with and head to the Palestinian film Turkish coursework at Harvard. Visiting Professor Khaled the Middle East Refugee Service festival at the MFA, catch a Fahmy and two history faculty Initiative, which works to make night of Ottoman theater, or, the What extracurriculars have to discuss how we can make an refugees from Iraq and Syria highlight of my fall semester this you pursued? impact, as historians, outside who have been resettled in the year, see the Egyptian comedian I’ve served as a representative academia, through activism, Boston area feel welcome here,

FALL 2017 | CMESNEWS 11 NEWS AND NOTES and sometimes volunteer for STUDENT PROFILE: IAN MCGONIGLE National Laboratory for the Arabic translation projects. Genetics of Israeli Populations, I regularly meet with my Ian McGonigle is a PhD after spending a year visiting at Tel Aviv University; and Indivisible chapter, trying to candidate in Anthropology and Harvard while writing my multiple research trips to remain politically engaged at Middle Eastern Studies. research proposal, it became Doha, Qatar, where I visited the grassroots level. clear that CMES would offer the Qatar National Biobank How did you become a great intellectual home for and studied the Qatar Genome What are your plans after interested in Middle Eastern someone like myself who was Project. finishing your degree? studies? relatively new to Middle East This work describes how This is a long way off! I really It was a cold January evening studies, and who would benefit biology is a site for negotiating love teaching, and would in Cambridge, England, from the diverse repertoire identity: in ethnic population like to find an academic job when my friend arrived to of academic events that the genetics, in legal discourse that values that. I’d also like my dorm room to invite me Center hosts throughout the over rights to citizenship, in to spend at least a few years on a spontaneous trip to year. I thus decided to apply rare disease genetics, and in teaching abroad, in the Middle Marrakesh. Within twenty- to the joint PhD program personalized medicine. The East. Because of the nature of four hours we were over the in Anthropology and MES. central thesis of this work is the tenure process here, that Atlas Mountains and on a I felt that CMES would be that the molecular realm is is often not seen as a realistic sunset camel ride over sand pedagogically invaluable to my an emergent and privileged option, but I think I would dunes into the borderlands of regional education. site for articulations of learn a lot from students Mauritania, where we were ethno-national identity in encountering their own history hosted overnight in Berber What are your research the contemporary Middle rather than someone else’s. tents. From here a curiosity interests? East. In parallel, this is a with the Middle East fast As a social anthropologist, I study of Middle Eastern What advice would you offer sprouted and flourished, and focus on contemporary Middle ethnonationalism through the a prospective student? over the next year I made Eastern societies, with a lens of biology, specifically Don’t think too narrowly trips to Egypt and Syria, focus on ethnic and national genetics and biobanking. when considering the faculty where I began pondering identity. Specifically, I have with whom you’d like to work. national and ethnic identity been investigating the ways in What do you like best about Harvard encourages us to build in this culturally rich corner which biology relates to ethnic studying at Harvard? relationships with several of the globe. It was at this and national identity in Israel Harvard, of course, is professors, not be “owned” by point I decided to switch my and Qatar. immensely endowed and any single one. They don’t all academic trajectory from My doctoral dissertation resourced, but the thing I like need to be experts in the Middle biochemistry to Middle describes how recent advances most about being here is the East. Think about assembling a Eastern studies. in genetic technologies sense of being at the epicenter team each of whose members relate to the ways ethnicity of academic knowledge brings something to the table: Why did you choose CMES? is measured in Israel and production. Harvard is the subject matter expertise, After training as a biologist, Qatar. The empirical basis for “Rome” of the American professional mentorship, I initially began my graduate this research has included a academy. It is a beacon of close reading of your work, or work in anthropology at the one-year participant-based charisma that perennially methodological creativity. University of Chicago, but ethnographic study of the draws the brightest and best

12 CMESNEWS | FALL 2017 to study, visit, teach, and share I also co-organized an evening their work here. People are dinner and conversation with always passing through, and Professor Cornel West, titled there is always a fascinating “Africa and Identity in a Global lecture, a touring political Frame.” leader, or an international conference being hosted. What are your plans after finishing your degree? What travel/research I am currently on the academic opportunities have you job market for professor pursued during your time at positions in Anthropology, Harvard? STS (Science, Technology, and I was generously supported by Society), and Middle Eastern CMES to spend the summer studies. of my second year in Muscat My next research project (in the Sultanate of Oman) focuses on wine production in studying Arabic in an intensive the highly fraught West Bank program. Living in Muscat was area of Israel/Palestine, where captivating. As an Indian Ocean growing grapes and making nexus, Oman has African, South wine are more than commercial Asian, Persian, and Arabian viticulture. Here, wine is a influences, and the population way of reestablishing ancient is a diverse mix, with many Jewish practices and imagining migrant workers who have a connection to biblical sites. In come from all over, particularly this context, building wineries to work in the oil and gas serves to naturalize the Israeli industry. Most memorable state and the Jewish national were swimming in the Wadis, identity, and thus bolster claims evening strolls in the Souk, and to legitimate sovereignty. taking a tour to the summit of I plan to build a long-term Jebel Shams. ethnographic project on this topic. What extracurriculars have you pursued at Harvard? What advice would you offer I have been co-organizer of a prospective student? Jebel Shams, Oman a weekly Hebrew language Make the most of the resources table at CMES. I am also one available and events on offer of the CMES graduate student at CMES. Take the initiative students. Get to know the can learn a lot from some of the representatives at the Graduate to organize collaborative faculty in CMES, and drop in on very seasoned regional experts Student Council. This semester events with the other graduate some of the lecture courses. You that teach here!

FALL 2017 | CMESNEWS 13 NEWS AND NOTES

STUDENT PROFILE: KIM QUARANTELLO

Kim Quarantello is a second- and research methods. I also year student in the AM in wanted to improve my Arabic Middle Eastern Studies program. language ability and the Arabic instruction at Harvard has been How did you become excellent. interested in Middle Eastern studies? What are your research I became interested in interests? Middle Eastern studies as an Currently, I am working on a undergraduate at Wellesley master’s thesis that will explore College, where I studied the evolving conceptions Arabic after visiting a Lebanese of refugee and asylum law friend in . I have been in Islamic jurisprudence. I particularly invested in hope to use this research to understanding American analyze current religious and foreign policy decisions (and demographic trends in refugee mistakes) in the region and I source and host countries, View from the Burj Khalifa, Dubai gained exposure to the role using Geographic Information of domestic policy in shaping Systems mapping to visually foreign policy while working on present data. attended the Harvard Arab cultural events at CMES and Capitol Hill. World Conference in Jordan the Harvard Semitic Museum. What travel/research over spring break, combined I have also tutored at the Why did you choose CMES? opportunities have you with visits to Muscat and Dubai Harvard Bridge Program, an I chose CMES for its pursued during your time at to visit the same friend from adult education and training interdisciplinary and flexible Harvard? college who first brought me to program open to University program as well as its rigorous In January 2017, I received Beirut! staff members who hope to language requirement and funding to participate in a improve their English speaking scholarship opportunities for Kennedy School J-Term field What extracurriculars have and writing skills or receive language studies. The ability study course, “Humanitarian you pursued? professional support to advance to take courses related to Negotiations on the Frontlines Through my involvement in the their Harvard careers. the Middle East at Harvard of the Middle East.” The Middle East Refugee Service Divinity School, Kennedy course took place in Israel and Initiative, I have worked with What advice would you offer School, and Law School—in Palestine and provided exposure fellow students to connect a prospective student? addition to the Graduate to government officials, NGO refugees from the Middle East Take advantage of travel School of Arts and Sciences— representatives, UN agencies, who have resettled in Lowell, opportunities and make sure has enhanced my learning aid workers, and other actors Massachusetts, with Arabic- that you take classes with experience and exposed me to a engaged in this protracted speaking students at Harvard. professors before they go on myriad of academic approaches political conflict. I additionally We have organized social and sabbatical!

14 CMESNEWS | FALL 2017 STUDENT PROFILE: THEO WYE to Ottoman Egyptian legal manuscripts to the importance Theo Wye is a second-year CMES has few equals; very few of polo in Safavid state identity. student in the AM in Middle places in the world will you I’m currently writing my thesis Eastern Studies program. take a class by someone whose on the symbolism of prisons books you read and love. I also in Islamic State propaganda, How did you become liked the fact that the program and I’m comparing the interested in Middle Eastern is very flexible and allows you administration of prisons under studies? to have a lot of control over Syrian and Iraqi regimes to the In my second to last year of what you study. At Oxford I administration of them under high school the Arab spring didn’t have much choice in the Islamic State. I hope that it happened and that was the what specific areas I studied, will provide new light on how first time that I was really so it was really refreshing to be we perceive the Islamic State exposed to the Middle East able to pursue my own interests and also how captured fighters in a contemporary setting. further without strict course will be rehabilitated. with it!), I still want to use The teaching at high school requirements. what I have learned. Ideally was always very focused What do you like best about that would involve building on Europe and I felt that What are your research studying at Harvard? on my research into insurgent they were ignoring such an interests? I really liked the freedom to groups in Syria and Iraq. For important part of the world. I I started out with a strong focus study whatever I wanted. the moment at least I want to had always enjoyed languages on British colonial history in Coming from the British write as much as possible on and I thought that studying the interwar period, especially university system, I never really contemporary issues in the Arabic was an opportunity to the colonial administration had much of an opportunity to Middle East. This year was the do something totally different. of Iraq. I was interested choose the courses that I was first time that I was properly Somehow I managed to get in comparing it to the US doing. The class environment exposed to journalism: I am an into Oxford to study Arabic and administration of Iraq post here was totally different as associate editor for the Journal Islamic studies, where I focused 2003 to see what policymakers well. It was hard to adjust of Middle Eastern Politics and on modern Middle Eastern could learn from repeated to in the beginning, but I Policy at the Kennedy School, history. The program allowed mistakes there. From there I ended up loving the fact that so that’s an avenue I definitely me to study in Jordan for a year knew that I wanted to apply everyone had something to want to explore. I want to stay and I couldn’t get enough of it! my background in history to say. The teachers and students in the for the a more contemporary setting. here really do give you the foreseeable future, but moving Why did you choose CMES? I made a point when I got confidence to do that. to somewhere in the Middle I knew that I wanted to study here to take a course each East is also something I’m in America for my master’s and semester on a geographic area What are your plans after considering. Not forgetting my I would be lying if I said that of the Middle East or general finishing your degree? Arabic would be nice as well. the thought of saying that I topic that I had absolutely no Whilst I think that my went to Harvard to my friends knowledge about so I’ve ended academic career is going to be What advice would you offer and family wouldn’t be a cool up researching topics from put on ice (I need a few years a prospective student? thing. Academically obviously, the emergence of HTS in Syria before I can fall back in love Two years seems like a long

FALL 2017 | CMESNEWS 15 NEWS AND NOTES time but it really isn’t! Make ALUMNI NEWS sure you know what you want to do but also don’t let THE FALL OF THE OTTOMANS WITH EUGENE ROGAN that blinker you. At Harvard, you have the opportunity Eugene Rogan is Professor religion actually factor into of the Ottoman Empire and to study literally anything, of Modern Middle Eastern the alliance formations of its causes. While a new class so make the most of that. History and Director of St World War I? of historians has begun to I think most importantly Antony’s Middle East Centre The Ottomans were drawn problematize this depiction don’t forget why you want at the University of Oxford. He into the First World War out of the long decline of the to come here in the first completed his AM in Middle of national and territorial Empire, do you think the place. A lot of people let the Eastern Studies at Harvard in interests. They believed Russia collapse of the Ottoman idea of heavy workloads get 1984 and his PhD in History to pose an existential threat Empire was inevitable, and them down but the point and Middle Eastern Studies at and sought an alliance with any how much did World War I of being here isn’t to get a Harvard in 1991. He is the author European power that might contribute to this? perfect GPA that you can of The : A History, which offer protection against Russian The Ottoman Empire was then show off to future has been translated into ten expansionism. Germany deliberately killed by the employers. Some of the languages and was named one brought religion into the Entente powers in the course classes and conversations of the best books of 2009 by the equation when they demanded, of World War I. Britain you will have here are Economist, the Financial Times, in return for a treaty of alliance, conceded to French and going to stick with you for and the Atlantic Monthly. Rogan that the Ottomans declare not Russian territorial demands the rest of your life. Also, returned to the Center for Middle just war but a jihad against the at the outset of the war, which everyone at CMES is super Eastern Studies on September Entente powers. The Ottomans made partition of the Ottoman helpful so don’t hesitate to 21, 2017, to talk about his most were none too convinced of Empire inevitable upon defeat. ask questions. Don’t think recent book, The Fall of the the wisdom of the appeal, but That process reached its logical that you shouldn’t apply Ottomans: The Great War in the in return for a crucial treaty of conclusion in the 1920 Treaty of because you got scared off Middle East, 1914–1920 (2015). alliance they were willing to Sevres, in which the Ottoman by the impressive bios of CMES AM candidate Blaire Byg bring religion into their war Empire was reduced to Istanbul all our wonderful students. sat down with him to ask about effort. While the call for jihad and the undesired rump of They are great obviously his most recent book, his time at failed to rouse colonial Muslims Anatolia—the Arab provinces but what sets CMES apart CMES, and his future projects. to revolt in mass against Britain, were seized by Britain and is the variety of students France, and Russia, the threat of France, and Eastern Anatolia here. Don’t think that you review such an uprising played on the was carved into Armenian and won’t fit in. I can remember of your book The Fall of the minds of British war planners Kurdish autonomous zones, very well looking at the Ottomans starts with the right through the war. However, with Italy and Greece taking prospective students’ page line, “In November 1914, the religion was not a major factor the Anatolian coastline. We on the CMES website and world’s only great Muslim in the war itself. can debate just how “sick” the not thinking that I was good empire was drawn into a Ottoman man was by 1914, but enough, and I very nearly life-or-death struggle against Historians of the Ottoman one thing is beyond doubt: the didn’t apply. I’ll never regret three historically Christian Empire have written Ottoman Empire did not die of ignoring that feeling. • powers.” How much did prolifically on the decline natural causes.

16 CMESNEWS | FALL 2017 how the Armenians came to How did your time at CMES be perceived as a fifth column influence your career path? and how Russian measures It was my CMES experience compromised the standing of that made me want to pursue Ottoman Armenians. an academic career, and to become a historian. It sounds You are releasing a new odd to say, but I came to edition of your 2009 book, Harvard with an economics The Arabs, in a few months. degree, having never taken Can you talk about the a history course. I didn’t additional material that the like economics very much new edition will contain? and, taking advantage of the Why did you feel this was interdisciplinary options the William Granara, Gülru Necipoğlu, Eugene Rogan, Cemal Kafadar, Leila Fawaz important to add? AM provided, I took a couple The most recent edition of The of history classes. Nothing Arabs ended with an optimistic has seemed as interesting One of the most compelling genocide has provoked postscript about the Arab to me since. Most of my and controversial between Armenians and Turks Spring written at the end of classmates—Joshua Landis, chapters in the book is today. While official Turkish 2011. There was nothing in the Najwa al-Qattan, Jim Gelvin— titled “Annihilation of the circles continue to reject analysis to help readers come were brilliant historians and Armenians.” In addition the claim of genocide, some to grips with the counter- further inspiration. It would to describing the massive of the most important new revolution and the collapse of be no exaggeration to say that population transfers of research on the subject has order across the Arab world. I found myself as an academic Armenians, you also include been conducted by Turkish The whole logic of The Arabs at Harvard, and I’ll always be accounts of conversations scholars drawing on Turkish was based on the notion that grateful to my classmates and that showed Ottoman officials archives. I relied heavily on to understand the Arab world teachers at CMES for bringing ordering the mass murder of their work in my own account. today, you need to know some out the historian in me. Armenians. What sources did My goal was to try and draft history. For that to work, the you use to establish that mass a bridging narrative between book must be in touch with Do you know yet what your murder of the Armenians Armenian and Turkish contemporary realities. In 2017, next project will be after the had taken place? Have you accounts—recognize the that means making sense of updated edition of The Arabs received much pushback Ottoman policies to eradicate the revolutionary moment of comes out? on your description of the the Armenians as a genocide, 2011, and of the conflicts that The next book will focus on Armenian annihilation? but provide the context to followed in Syria, , Yemen, the reconstruction of Damascus The Armenian genocide was understand why 1915 proved Iraq, and the emergence of after the terrible Christian without doubt the hardest a genocidal moment. There is the Islamic State movement. massacres of 1860. I’m hoping part of the book to write—both no attempt to exculpate the I believe the new edition will it might offer some lessons because of the inherent human Ottoman authorities for the help readers make better sense for the massive challenge tragedy and because of the decisions and actions they of the tragic state of the Arab of rebuilding Syria after its intense political activism the took, but I seek to explain world today. current civil war. •

FALL 2017 | CMESNEWS 17 NEWS AND NOTES

ASHER ORKABY ON YEMEN’S OTHER CIVIL WAR

Asher Orkaby is a 2014 graduate contemporary situation in were some of the first of Harvard’s joint PhD program Yemen? humanitarian missions in History and Middle Eastern In Yemen today, the Republic undertaken by organizations Studies. He is currently a has basically devolved into a like the United Nations and research associate at Harvard’s couple of rooms in a luxury the International Committee Davis Center for Russian and hotel in Riyadh. How did of the Red Cross. Today, civil Eurasian Studies and a lecturer the Republic that was first war in Yemen has pushed at Harvard Extension School. founded in 1962 devolve into this already poor country His book, Beyond the Arab such a sorry state? In order to yet again into one of the Cold War: The International understand the death of the worst humanitarian crises History of the Yemen Civil Republic, you have to see its on the globe. How has the War, 1962–1968, was published birth. The story starts even role of these organizations by Oxford University Press in before 1962 with the nascent in addressing humanitarian July 2017. The book offers a Yemeni nationalist movement, crises shifted since the 1960s? reframing of the Yemen Civil which birthed a new, modern The UN Yemen Observer Pakistan” (which it’s not). Prior War, emphasizing that it should republic in a country that Mission from 1963 to 1964 to 1963, the ICRC had never be understood in the context of was probably one of the more was brought in to observe the had operations in the Arabian Yemeni nationalism and local backwards and repressive withdrawal of Egyptian troops Peninsula. During the war, the dynamics, and not just as another religious theocracies in the and the cutting off of Saudi aid ICRC set up a hospital and proxy conflict in the Arab Cold world. My book contributes to northern tribesmen who mobile clinic in a remote tribal War. CMES AM candidate Anna to our understanding of the were fighting the war. Neither area in the middle of a desert Boots sat down with Orkaby to current conflict by beginning one of these scenarios actually mountainous region of northern talk about the book, his research, the narrative decades earlier, happened, but what I argue in Yemen. By acting as a neutral and his time at the Center for during the 1960s, when a the book is that the UN went power not actively involved in Middle Eastern Studies. generation of revolutionary beyond its mission by the very the outcome of hostilities, the Yemeni nationalists founded fact that it was on the ground Red Cross was able to facilitate Yemen has been embroiled a modern republic. This and it was able to give the communication between the in civil war since March revolutionary generation has Saudis and Egyptians ways to isolated northern tribesmen and 2015, with forces loyal since passed on, marking the “let off steam.” So even though the international community. to President Abdrabbuh simultaneous death of Yemen’s most historians label the UN Although, the flip side is that Mansour Hadi fighting those government, whose legitimacy mission a failure, I argue that it with the Red Cross, neutrality allied with the Houthi rebel was dependent upon the was a success. can sometimes be taken a little movement. How do you think republic’s original founders. The other mission was the too far, as happened with its your book, which is about International Committee of response to Egypt’s use of the Yemen Civil War that In the book, you talk about the Red Cross. André Rochas, chemical weapons. was fought between 1962 the significance of the who headed the Red Cross Today, both the UN and and 1968, can contribute to humanitarian missions to mission to Yemen, famously the Red Cross have operations our understanding of the Yemen in the 1960s. These thought that Yemen was “east of in Yemen. They are limited

18 CMESNEWS | FALL 2017 three or four independent sees conflicts in Yemen. This organizations. This was the was true during the 1960s, and first well-documented use, and it is true today. In the 1960s, not also the first instance where only was there a Cold War lens the international community over everything, but there was failed to enforce the chemical also something called the “Arab weapons taboo. Each country Cold War,” which was a conflict had its excuse. The Americans between the monarchies, led were worried about hypocrisy by , and the Arab in Vietnam. The UK was Nationalist states, led by Gamal worried about being termed Abdel Nasser in Egypt. What “imperialist” if they condemned I show is that the Yemen Civil Egypt. NATO countries were War was not a manifestation of worried about access to the this bipolar conflict or dictated Suez Canal. The Soviets were by outside powers, but was intent on defending their driven by Yemeni nationalism operations, because as in Egypt used poison gas in the Egyptian ally. Today, the entire and local events. previous conflicts, these Yemen Civil War in the 1960s. world knows that Bashar northern tribesmen (who What was the response of the al-Assad has used chemical How did Harvard’s joint are no longer northern, they international community and weapons in Syria, but action is PhD program in History and occupy half the country), the what does that teach us about not taken for similar reasons Middle Eastern Studies shape Houthis, are not recognized the use of chemical weapons that it wasn’t taken in the 1960s. your academic trajectory and by any international body. in Syria in 2013? The lesson is that there are interests? It is incumbent upon the The reason that Egypt’s use recurrent historic, economic, Program faculty members UN and Red Cross to act as of poison gas in the 1960s was political, and diplomatic limits Roger Owen, Steven Caton, and a neutral mediator in the important is because it was to prioritizing the protection of Erez Manela provided me with conflict, providing an outlet the first well-documented human rights in foreign policy. the training and mentorship for all parties without issuing use of poison gas by a military necessary to straddle both unreasonable preconditions for since World War I. In Egypt’s What do you think the media, historical archival research either side. case, most of these weapons or scholars of the Middle and a Middle East area and How can the success of the targeted the cave network in the East, get wrong about the language specialty. CMES 1960s be replicated? Regardless northern highlands of Yemen, Yemen Civil War and about was a conducive physical and of logistical difficulties and which was the base for most of the current civil war, and how academic space, facilitated by a diplomatic sensitivities, it is the operational headquarters for does your book contribute to helpful and friendly staff who vital that both the UN and the tribesmen of northern Yemen. changing this narrative? took a great personal interest Red Cross be given the latitude The world knew that The title of this book was in our success. The program’s needed to fulfill their role as Egypt was using chemical chosen purposefully: “Beyond flexibility allowed me to develop a neutral party, not beholden weapons. There were reports the Arab Cold War,” meaning my own path as an international to the restrictions of legal by the ICRC, and there beyond the bipolar prism historian, while focusing on the international recognition. were forensic reports by through which the world media history of Yemen. •

FALL 2017 | CMESNEWS 19 NEWS AND NOTES

AT THE CENTER CMES WELCOMES NEW STAFF EVENT HIGHLIGHTS Elizabeth H. Shlala joined CMES this fall as Graduate Program Administrator and is responsible for administering the AM SEPTEMBER 2017 Harvard University; Assistant and PhD programs, the Visiting Researcher program, and Without Malice towards the Professor, Department of alumni relations. Prior to her current position at CMES, she Enemy, without Trust in Sociology and Anthropology, was a Visiting Researcher both at CMES and at the FXB Center their Allies: Contradictions Hebrew University. Co- for Health and Human Rights, Harvard T.H. Chan School of the Ottoman Great War: sponsored with the Center of Public Health, where she remains a Fellow. Her work on A CMES Director’s Series talk for European Studies modern migration, law, and gender in the Middle East recently by Eugene Rogan, Professor Colonial Encounters and culminated in her newly published book, The Late Ottoman of Modern Middle Eastern Divergent Trajectories in the Empire and Egypt: Hybridity, Law, and Gender (London: SOAS/ History and Director, St Mediterranean Study Group. Routledge Studies on the Middle East, 2018). Antony’s College Middle East Shlala has spent the past fifteen years in the field of Middle Centre, Oxford University. Resettling Syrian Refugees: East and North Africa studies. She earned a PhD in history, an The Intersection of Rehabili­ MA in history, and a BS in foreign service, all from Georgetown Conquest and Conversion in tation and Protection: A live University. She also earned a certificate for Session IV of the Medieval Muslim Sicily: A recording of the Humanitarian Euro-Mediterranean Consortium for Applied Research on talk by Alex Metcalfe, Senior Assistance Podcast of the International Migration at the European University Institute, Lecturer, Department of His­ Advanced Training Program on Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, Italy. Before tory, Lancaster University, UK. Humanitarian Action (ATHA), coming to Harvard, she was a Fellow in the International History Harvard Humanitarian Department at the London School of Economics and Political OCTOBER 2017 Initiative. With H.E. Reem Abu Science and a Research Associate at the Centre on Migration, From Market to Battlefield: Hassan, lawyer and activist, Policy, and Society at the University of Oxford. She is excited Iran in German Politics, Jordanian Minister of Social to share her research, teaching, and advising experience with 1921–1941: A talk by Roman Development, 2013–15; Amira students and colleagues at CMES. • Siebertz, Lecturer, Institute for Ahmed Mohamed, Boston Middle Eastern and Oriental Consortium for Arab Region Studies, University of Bonn, Studies (BCARS) and the Germany. International Organization for Migration; Kate Akkaya, How Security Laws UNHCR US Protections Make Citizenship: The Unit; Denis Sullivan, Institutional Legacies of Director, BCARS, Professor the British Empire in Anti- of Political Science and Terror Laws in Israel and India: A talk by Yael Berda, → Video of “Conquest and Academy Scholar, Harvard Conversion in Medieval Muslim Sicily” is available Elizabeth Shlala Academy for International at cmes.fas.harvard.edu and Regional Studies, WCFIA,

20 CMESNEWS | FALL 2017 Sheida Dayani, Alex Metcalfe Roman Siebertz Nazan Maksudyan

Said Hannouchi, Ömür Budak Gülru Necipoğlu, William Granara, Sihem Lamine Emilio Spadola

International Affairs, North­ Ottoman Consuls in Boston: Grapes from Zion: Biblical Islamists and Spirit eastern University. Moderated 1845–1917: A talk in the Prophecy and Quality Exorcisms in Contemporary by Meredith Blake, host of Sohbet-i Osmani Lecture Wine in the West Bank: A Morocco: A Critique of the Humanitarian Assistance Series by Ömür Budak, Consul talk by Ian McGonigle, PhD Anthropological Orthodoxy: Podcast. Co-sponsored with General of the Republic of candidate, CMES; research A CMES Director’s Series ATHA and BCARS. Turkey in Boston. associate, Program on Science, talk by Emilio Spadola, Technology, and Society, Visiting Associate Professor, History of Children and The Early Zaytuna: The Harvard University. Department of Anthropology, Youth in the Ottoman Mosque of a Rebellious City: Tufts University; Associate Empire: A talk in the Sohbet-i A CMES Director’s Series talk In Between: A one-man show Professor of Anthropology, Osmani Lecture Series by by Sihem Lamine, architect; written and performed by Colgate University; President, Nazan Maksudyan, Associate Administrative Manager, playwright and actor Ibrahim Middle East Section, American Professor, Leibniz-Zentrum Center for Middle Eastern Miari. Co-sponsored with the Anthropological Association, Moderner Orient, Berlin. Studies Tunisia Office. Center for Jewish Studies. 2016–18.

FALL 2017 | CMESNEWS 21 EVENT HIGHLIGHTS

Esra Dil, Cemal Kafadar Lubomyr Hajda

Hagop Kouloujian Farhad Dokhani, Abbas Amanat Shady Nasser

NOVEMBER 2017 Ottoman World, 1895–1912: Why Does Ukraine Matter? Series talk by Hagop Kouloujian, Good Food and Industrial A talk in the Sohbet-i Osmani Considering New Prospects Lecturer, Near Eastern Vigor: Strategies of Long- Lecture Series by Uğur Peçe, in Ottoman, Turkish, and Languages and Cultures, UCLA. Lived Companies from the Lecturer on History and Black Sea Studies: A talk in the Late Ottoman Era until Literature, Harvard University. ­Sohbet-i Osmani Lecture Series In Search of Modern Iran: A Turkey Today: A talk in the by Lubomyr Hajda, Senior talk by Abbas Amanat, Profes­ Sohbet-i Osmani Lecture Series From Ancient Gates to Advisor to the Director of the sor of History and International by Esra Dil, Sakarya University; Postmodern Drawbridges: Harvard Ukrainian Research Studies, Yale University. Visiting Scholar, Harvard Exclusivity and Exclusion in Institute. Business School. Contemporary Jerusalem: The Muslim Brotherhood in A CMES Middle East Forum Krikor Beledian’s Dazzling Egypt: The post-2013 Frag- Protesting Empire: From a presentation by Paola Caridi, Journey, from Medieval mentation and Its Implica- Civil War in Crete to Popular Lecturer, Palermo University; Mystical Poets to Postmodern tions: A CMES Middle East Demonstrations in the author, Jerusalem Without God. Fiction: A CMES Director’s Forum talk by Victor Willi,

22 CMESNEWS | FALL 2017 SERIES SPOTLIGHT MIDDLE EAST SEMINAR This seminar series, co-sponsored by CMES and the Weather­ head Center for International Affairs (WCFIA), brings ambassadors, dignitaries, journalists, and scholars to lecture on ­topics in modern Middle East politics. Begun in 1975 by Edward Sheehan, a WCFIA Fellow and former diplomat and journalist, the series has been chaired by Richard Clarke Cabot Professor of Social Ethics Herbert Kelman since 1977. CMES research associates Lenore G. Martin and Sara Roy joined Professor Kelman as co-chairs in 1996. The fall 2017 line-up included the following talks:

■■ Sara Roy, Michael B. Greenwald The Dilemma of Islamic Constitutionalism, September 7, 2017 | Intisar A. Rabb, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School; Faculty Director, Islamic Legal Studies Program; Susan S. and Kenneth L. Wallach Professor, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. ■■ The New Normal in the Middle East: The Gulf and the Blockade of Qatar—Strategizing a Way Forward, September 14, 2017 | Michael B. Greenwald , Former United States Treasury Attaché to Qatar and . ■■ Palestine: Anatomy of an Abyss, September 28, 2017 | Mouin Rabbani, Senior Fellow, Institute for Palestine Studies; co-editor, Jadaliyya. ■■ Ahmet Acar Hind Kabawat A Panacea or Curse: The Effect of Syrian Immigration on the Ongoing Turkish Political-Economic Picture, October 12, 2017 | İlhan Can Özen, Assistant Professor of ­Researcher, Graduate Institute Twelver Imami Shiite Views Economics, Middle East Technical University, Ankara. of International and Develop- on the Variant Readings of the ■■ Turkey’s Higher Education and Research Institutions: mental Studies, Geneva; Advi- Quran: Legal and Theological Aspirations and Realities, November 1, 2017 | Ahmet Acar, sor, World Economic Forum. Implications: A talk in the former Rector, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Harvard Law and Religion 2008–16. Writing Along the Water: Lecture Series by Shady ■■ The Challenges of Negotiating Peace in Syria, November Law and Muslim Commercial Nasser, Assistant Professor, 2, 2017 | Hind Kabawat, Member, High Negotiations Society in the Western Indian Near Eastern Languages and Committee, Syria; Director of Interfaith Peacebuilding, Ocean: A talk in the CMES Civilizations, Harvard. Co- Center for World Religions, Diplomacy, and Conflict Arabian Peninsula Studies sponsored with the Committee Resolution, George Mason University. Lecture Series by Fahad on the Study of Religion, ILSP: ■■ The Time of Mute Swans: Remembering as a Cure Bishara, Assistant Professor, Law and Social Change, and for Global Political Plague, November 2, 2017 | Ece Corcoran Department of Julis-Rabinowitz Program on Temelkuran, Turkish political commentator, journalist, History, University of Virginia. Jewish and Israeli Law. and author.

FALL 2017 | CMESNEWS 3 Ibrahim Miari

Mira Xenia Schwerda, Damla Ozakay

Ersin Kalaycıoğlu, Mark Elliott, Cemal Kafadar, Ömür Budak

AT A GLANCE

NEW FACULTY ARRIVALS MOBILE IMAGES FROM 19TH-CENTURY IRAN SYRIAN REFUGEES STUDENT PROFILES EUGENE ROGAN & ASHER ORKABY NEW CMES STAFF EVENT HIGHLIGHTS