The Institute for Middle East Studies was founded in 2007 as part of a broad, University-wide initiative to support academic work on the Middle East. During the 2006-2007 academic year, the Elliott School of International Affairs at GW created four new faculty positions focusing on the Middle East. At the same time, the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences authorized the creation of three new full-time positions in Arabic. These new faculty members joined an impressive array of Middle East experts at GW, creating a fully inter-disciplinary collective of faculty associates for the Institute.

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News and Events

IMES Special Event
Book Discussion
We Are All Moors: Ending Centuries of Crusades against Muslims and other Minorities.   

Featuring:

Anouar Majid
Author, We Are All Moors: Ending Centuries of Crusades against Muslims and other Minorities

With remarks by:

Ambassador Aziz Mekouar
Ambassador of Morocco to the United States

The Institute for Middle East Studies and the Embassy of Morocco present a special event featuring remarks by Moroccan Ambassador Aziz Mekouar and a booksigning with Anouar Majid.  Majid will be discussing his newest book, We Are All Moors: Ending Centuries of Crusades against Muslims and other Minorities.   

In We Are All Moors, Anouar Majid contends that the acrimonious debates about immigration and Islam in the West are the cultural legacy of the conflict between Christians and Moors. Offering a groundbreaking new history of the West's perception and treatment of minority cultures, Majid explores how "the Moor" emerged as the archetypal Other against which Europe would define itself. The characteristics attributed to this quintessential minority - racial inferiority, religious impurity, cultural incompatibility - would be reapplied to other non-European and non-Christian peoples: Native Americans, black Africans, Jews, and minority immigrant communities, among others.

**A reception will follow the event**

Thursday, December 3, 2009
4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Lindner Family Commons
Room 602, 1957 E Street, NW

To RSVP for this lecture click here

 

IMES Brownbag
Islamism and Democracy in North Africa

With

Hugh Roberts

Thursday, November 19, 2009
12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.
Suite 505, 1957 E Street, NW

To RSVP for this lecture click here

 

For more events, click here.

Congratulations to the GW students who participated in the NCUSAR Capital Area Regional Model Arab League conference? held at Georgetown University on November 6-8, 2009:

Waseem Ahmed, Alexa Tohme, Heba Taha, Josh Grace, Laura Alazhari, Laura Galian, Muhammad Ahmed, Nedra Cherif, and Rama Williams won the Outstanding Delegation Award for their representation of Lebanon, and IMES graduate students Amirah Ismail and Rahul Ravi won the Outstanding Delegation Award for their representation of Egypt on the Joint Defense Council.

IMES Faculty Associate Ilana Feldman authored an article in the Journal of Palestine Studies (Spring 2009) discussing the possible negative consequences of identifying the current situation in Gaza as primarily a humanitarian problem.  Read the abstract: "Gaza's Humanitarianism Problem"

GW Receives $1 million from Kuwait in Support of IMES
The State of Kuwait, through the generosity of the Amir His Highness Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahsmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, has presented The George Washington University with a $1,050,000 gift in support of the Institute for Middle East Studies. GW President Steven Knapp notes that, "His Highness's generosity will help us continue to build one of this nation's premier centers for the study of this important region." Read the full press release

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