Middle East Centre

The Middle East Centre, founded in 1957 at St Antony’s College is the centre for the interdisciplinary study of the modern Middle East in the University of Oxford. Centre Fellows teach and conduct research in the humanities and social sciences with direct reference to the Arab world, Iran, Israel and Turkey, with particular emphasis on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. However, during our regular Friday seminar series, attracting a wide audience, our distinguished speakers bring topics to light that touch on contemporary issues.

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Episodes

The logic of chaos: The pattern of dictatorships

Ece Temelkuran, author of How to Lose a Country: the Seven Steps from Democracy to Dictatorship (2019) gives a talk for the Middle East Centre Friday Seminar series. Chaired by Dr Laurent Mignon (St Antony's College, Oxford). A certain political and moral insanity seems to be taking over the world. Both the political and the moral consensuses are under the consistent attack of rightwing populist leaders using authoritarian tools. Although in each country this attack is perceived as an independen...

Dec 09, 2020•1 hr 1 min

Why Syria Still Matters and Why Assad is Still There

Dr Lina Khatib, Director, Middle East and North Africa Programme, Chatham, Jeremy Bowen (Middle East Editor, BBC News) give a talk on Syria and it's current political situation. Chaired by Professor Eugene Rogan (St Antony's College, Oxford). After nine years of civil war, the prospects for regime change in Syria seem more remote than ever. Its society dispersed and its economy shattered, Syria remains a central state in the Middle East. Regional stability cannot be restored while Syria’s confli...

Dec 03, 2020•1 hr 1 min

Apocalymbo: Trickster Politics in the Age of the Pandemic (and Other Crises)

Walter Armbrust (St Antony’s College, Oxford), author of Martyrs and Tricksters: An Ethnography of the Egyptian Revolution (2019), gives a talk for the Middle East Centre Friday Seminar Series on 20th November 2020. Chaired by Dr Michael Willis (St Anthony's College, Oxford) Professor Walter Armbrust is a Hourani Fellow and Professor in Modern Middle Eastern Studies. He is a cultural anthropologist, and author of Mass Culture and Modernism in Egypt (1996); Martyrs and Tricksters: An Ethnography ...

Nov 25, 2020•1 hr 1 min

‘God Does not Discriminate’: Inclusive Mosques Politics in France and the United Kingdom

Benjamin Dubrulle (Maison Française d'Oxford), gives a seminar for the MEC Women's Rights Research Seminars. Chaired by Dr Soraya Tremayne (School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford) on 18th November 2020. ‘God Does not Discriminate’: Inclusive Mosques Politics in France and the United Kingdom In the last ten years, mosques welcoming believers regardless of their gender and sexuality have been established in France and the United Kingdom. Known as ‘inclusive mosques’, t...

Nov 24, 2020•48 min

The New Populist nationalism in Saudi Arabia

Madawi Al-Rasheed (KCL and LSE), author of Salman’s Legacy: The Dilemmas of a New Era in Saudi Arabia (2018) and Ben Hubbard (The New York Times), author of MBS: The Rise to Power of MBS (2020) give a talk for the Middle East Centre Friday Seminar Series. Chair ed by Dr Usaama Al-Azami (Faculty of Oriental Studies, Oxford) The seminar discusses the simultaneous phenomena of reform and repression in Saudi Arabia under Crown Prince Muhammad ibn Salman. In recent years, Saudi Arabia has seen swift ...

Nov 17, 2020•1 hr 1 min

Illiberal Liberals and the Future of Dictatorship in Egypt

Dalia Fahmy (Long Island University) editor of Egypt and the Contradictions of Liberalism: Illiberal Intelligentsia and the Future of Egyptian Democracy (2017), gives a talk for the Middle East Centre Friday Seminar Series. This talk will address the dictatorship syndrome specifically through the lens of liberalism in Egypt. It will seek to address why a particular denomination of Egyptian liberalism, despite at face value being wholly opposed to dictatorship, ultimately proved susceptible to th...

Nov 10, 2020•1 hr 5 min

Challenging the Limited View - The Case of the Women in Mosques Movement

Part of the Middle East Centre Women's Rights Research Seminars. With Dr Mine Yildirim Chair: Dr Nazila Ghanea (Department for Continuing Education,University of Oxford). The place of women in the religious space of mosques in Turkey has been a long debate- more so recently. The Women in Mosques Movement’s challenge of the quality of space allocated for women in mosques led to strong criticism but also aroused genuine discussion about the deeply held beliefs underlying the place given to women a...

Nov 06, 2020•35 min

Authoritarian or Revolutionary? Reflections on the Nature of the State in the Islamic Republic of Iran

Maryam Alemzadeh (Princeton) Siavush Randjbar-Daemi (St Andrews), author of The Quest for Authority in Iran: a history of the presidency from revolution to Rouhani (2017), give a talk for the Middle East Centre Friday Seminar Series. Chaired Professor Edmund Herzig (Faculty of Oriental Studies, Oxford) Scholars have shown the dictatorial function of the parallel political system of the Islamic Republic: although the authoritarian office of supreme leadership and the security apparatuses strictly...

Nov 04, 2020•59 min

The Dictatorship Syndrome

Alaa Al Aswany, author of The Dictatorship Syndrome (2019), gives a talk for the Middle East Centre seminar series. Chaired by Professor Eugene Rogan (St Antony's College, Oxford) Alaa Al Aswany is Egypt’s most celebrated novelist and essayist whose books are runaway bestsellers in Arabic and have been translated into more than 30 languages. His second novel, The Yacoubian Building (2002) established Al Aswany as a global literary figure. This was followed by Chicago (2007), The Automobile Club ...

Oct 23, 2020•1 hr 1 min

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