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52. Examining the Future of Authoritarianism in the Arab World
- Author:
- Joseph Sassoon
- Publication Date:
- 04-2015
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Center for Contemporary Arab Studies
- Abstract:
- Dr. Joseph Sassoon has spent the past few years working to improve our understanding of authoritarian governments that are typically inscrutable to outsiders, focusing first on the Ba‘th Party under Saddam Hussein for his book Saddam Hussein’s Ba‘th Party: Inside an Authoritarian Regime and, more recently, conducting a comparative analysis of eight authoritarian regimes in the Arab world. Dr. Sassoon’s comparative analysis, which he recently finalized during a fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, looks at differences and commonalities among these coercive governments and will be published in his forthcoming book, Anatomy of Authoritarianism in the Arab Republics.
- Topic:
- History, Authoritarianism, Democracy, Interview, and Baath Party
- Political Geography:
- Iraq, Middle East, Arab Countries, Syria, Egypt, and Tunisia
53. George Salem: A Mission of Love
- Author:
- Vicki Valosik
- Publication Date:
- 04-2015
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Center for Contemporary Arab Studies
- Abstract:
- For more than three decades, CCAS Board Member George Salem has sought ways to improve the lives of Palestinians and Arab Americans.
- Topic:
- Government, Humanitarian Aid, Business, Profile, and Advocacy
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Palestine, North America, and United States of America
54. Innovative Approaches to Teaching About the Middle East
- Author:
- Susan Douglass
- Publication Date:
- 04-2015
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Center for Contemporary Arab Studies
- Abstract:
- The Education Outreach program of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies hosted nine events for educators during the 2014-2015 academic year. As a National Resource Center, CCAS was able to support these programs, in part, with funding from a Title VI grant from the Department of Education. These events included the annual summer institute and a Teach-In on Iraq and Syria, while several other innovative events fell under three main themes: literature, anthropology, and cultural exploration through interactive museum excursions.
- Topic:
- Education, Anthropology, and Higher Education
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, North America, and United States of America
55. MAAS Students Bring Scholars and Activists to Campus
- Author:
- Vicki Valosik
- Publication Date:
- 04-2015
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Center for Contemporary Arab Studies
- Abstract:
- This semester, second-year students in the Masters of Arts in Arab Studies (MAAS) program planned several major campuswide events that brought together scholars and activists—some coming from as far away as Morocco—and gave these student organizers the opportunity to explore their academic interests outside the classroom.
- Topic:
- Security, Education, Political Activism, Arab Countries, Higher Education, and Advocacy
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, North Africa, North America, and United States of America
56. Remembering and Making History in Egypt
- Author:
- Vicki Valosik
- Publication Date:
- 04-2015
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Center for Contemporary Arab Studies
- Abstract:
- Dr. Hoda Elsadda has spent years documenting history—as it has been lived and experienced by women in Egypt—but this time she’s the one making history. Elsadda, a Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Cairo University and current Carnegie Foundation Centennial Fellow at the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, served on the “Committee of 50” delegates who wrote the historic 2014 Egyptian constitution.
- Topic:
- Human Rights, History, Women, Constitution, Arab Spring, and Higher Education
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, North America, Egypt, and United States of America
57. Sabbatical Secrets & Buying Books in Beirut
- Author:
- Daniel Neep
- Publication Date:
- 04-2015
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Center for Contemporary Arab Studies
- Abstract:
- The sabbatical is a cornerstone of the modern research university. Faculty are granted a semester away from the usual responsibilities of teaching and grading, supervising dissertations, and serving on committees, allowing professors to dedicate their energy to aspects of their work that can be neglected during the academic year. Sabbatical allows professors to immerse themselves in the field, bury themselves in archives, collaborate with colleagues at different institutions, and discover new ideas to enrich their research. At the same time—and this is a closely guarded secret among those initiated into the mysteries of academe—spending a sabbatical in a new place enables us to pursue one of the most sacred, most noble, and most enjoyable duties of our calling as scholars: the copious, hedonistic purchase of piles and piles of books..
- Topic:
- Research and Higher Education
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Arab Countries, and Lebanon
58. "Time Sticks": How Islam and Other Cultures Have Measured Time
- Author:
- Barbara Freyer Stowasser
- Publication Date:
- 04-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Contemporary Arab Studies
- Abstract:
- Time is essential to the very structure of Muslim communal life. Times of ritual and worship of Muslim obligation are regulated according to celestial events, both lunar and solar, meaning that they are always place-specific and are seasonally adjusted on a daily basis. The sun measures the day with its four daylight prayers and—by the length of its absence—also controls the fifth, the night prayer. The moon measures the months and so also the year with its seasons of ritual celebrations. The Islamic calendar is an essential but oft-forgotten institution that has held the Islamic world together over wide geographic distances and for well-nigh a millennium and a half. One of its greatest advantages may have been that it was so low maintenance. By adopting a strictly lunar calendaric system, the beginnings (and thereby the ends) of the twelve months of the year, and therefore the year as a whole, could be determined empirically, anywhere, by way of sighting of the new moon that signaled a new month's beginning.
- Topic:
- Islam, Political Theory, and Culture
- Political Geography:
- Middle East and Arabia
59. Revolution in the Arab World: The Long View
- Author:
- William Zartman, Laleh Khalili, Jillian Schwedler, and Gamal Eid
- Publication Date:
- 10-2011
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Contemporary Arab Studies
- Abstract:
- In January and February 2011, populist uprisings toppled the authoritarian governments of Tunisia and Egypt, and similar revolts began to emerge in other Arab states, including Bahrain, Libya, Morocco, Syria, and Yemen. An article in the 18 March 2011 issue of the Chronicle Review by Ursula Lindsey, "The Suddenly New Study of Egypt," addressed how these events had turned the study of persistent authoritarianism in the Arab world on its head. No longer, for example, could scholars point to how Egyptians and other Arabs tend to engage in one of two extremes: political apathy or political violence. Lindsey also suggested that scholars shift their focus away from the power of elites to the strength of ordinary people and grass-roots movements, or retool their scholarship to allow for, in the case of Egypt, more emphasis on groups other than the Muslim Brotherhood as significant sources of opposition.
- Topic:
- Democratization, Economics, Regime Change, and Insurgency
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Libya, Yemen, Arabia, North Africa, Syria, Egypt, Bahrain, and Tunisia
60. Art and Ecstasy in Arab Music
- Author:
- A.J. Racy
- Publication Date:
- 12-2010
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for Contemporary Arab Studies
- Abstract:
- Throughout history, the emotional power of music has concerned philosophers, scientists, educators, moralists, and musicians. Growing up in a small rural village in southern Lebanon, I observed such power first hand. When the mijwiz (a double-pipe reed instrument) was played, traditionally using the technique of circular breathing, I saw the local listeners succumb to the instrument's magic spell. Its irresistible Dionysian ethos seemed to compel them to sing and dance. Some villagers maintained that the mijwiz enabled the shepherds, who often played it, to entrance their goats and make them stand still and listen. As an ethnomusicologist who specializes in music of the Middle East, especially of the Arab world, I have come across other similarly compelling cases of musical transformation. When singers chanted their poetry at medieval Abbasid courts in Baghdad, the listeners, including the caliphs themselves, displayed a variety of strong reactions, including moving their feet, dancing, sobbing, weeping, and tearing their garments—or in some cases listening to the performers attentively and bestowing upon them lavish compliments. Meanwhile, medieval Arabic treatises, which in the ancient Greek tradition often treated music as a science, left us ample writings about music's extraordinary cosmological associations and therapeutic effects. And for the Sufi mystics, music and dance became an integral path to transcendence, or the attainment of spiritual ecstasy.
- Topic:
- Islam, Arts, and Culture
- Political Geography:
- Middle East, Arabia, and Lebanon