Middle East Centre

Oxford University

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.

  1. 3日前

    Spectral politics in the Middle East and North Africa: the afterlives of violence and the force of memory

    Professor Charles RH Tripp (SOAS) delivered the 47th annual George Antonius Memorial Lecture on Friday 5th June 2026, chaired by Professor Eugene Rogan (St Antony’s).

    1時間14分

  2. 6月15日

    "Barbarian” Women: North African Literary Perspectives on Emancipation

    Dr Farah Ben Jemaa (University of Manouba) delivered this seminar at the MEC, chaired by Professor Michael Willis (St Antony’s College), as part of the Gender and Sexuality Seminars series. This talk examines examples of North African literature, from early twentieth-century texts to more recent works. These writings question forms of female emancipation associated with Western norms and imaginaries, while opening space for alternatives rooted in affects and collective experience. The talk will also reflect on the methodological approaches — particularly spatial ones — that may help us read and understand these literary representations. Farah Ben Jemaa is a professeure agrégée of French literature at the University of Tunis. Her research focuses on space and representations of the self in modern and contemporary literature. She completed a PhD in French Literature at the University of Manouba, with a dissertation on spatiality in the work of Valery Larbaud. She has published on authors including Georges Perec, René Char, and Valery Larbaud, as well as on contemporary cultural productions and artistic practices. Her recent work explores alternative cartographies, and the intersections of literature, politics, and feminist critique. She is currently a visiting academic at St Antony’s College for the Trinity term, thanks to the support of the Hazem Ben-Gacem Tunisia-Oxford Cooperation Programme.

    58分

  3. 5月12日

    Contingency of Structures: Triggers and the Social Geography of Revolutionary Episodes in Iran 2017–2022

    This MENA Politics Seminar was delivered at the Middle East Centre on Thursday 7 May 2026 by Dr Ali Kadivar (Boston College) and chaired by Professor Neil Ketchley (St Antony’s College). What drives the uneven geographic spread of revolutionary episodes? While structural approaches emphasize pre-existing fault lines, contingency approaches highlight emergent processes. We synthesize these perspectives, arguing that specific triggers shape a revolutionary episode's social geography by activating certain fault lines while leaving others dormant. Through a comparative analysis of three revolutionary episodes in Iran (2017–2022), each with a distinct trigger, we demonstrate how different triggers shape patterns of contention. Using event-history and spatial regression analysis of subnational protest data alongside socioeconomic and political variables, we show that a fuel price hike activated grievances in oil-producing areas, while a repressive event targeting a woman from an ethnic and religious minority mobilized protests in minority-populated districts. Our findings illustrate how triggers structure revolutionary mobilization, offering broader insights into the interaction between structural conditions and contingent events in contentious politics.   BIOGRAPHY Mohammad Ali Kadivar is a Fellow at the **Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and an Associate Professor of Sociology and International Studies at Boston College. He received his PhD in sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and previously held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University.   His work contributes to political and comparative-historical sociology by examining the causes, dynamics, and consequences of protest movements. While growing out of his experience as a participant-observer of the pro- democracy movement in Iran, his research agenda extends comparatively to explore these processes globally using historical analysis, case studies, and statistical methods.   His book Popular Politics and the Path to Durable Democracy (2022) was published by Princeton University Press. His research has appeared in journals including American Sociological Review, Social Forces, Comparative Political Studies, European Sociological Review, and Comparative Politics, and has received awards from multiple sections of the American Sociological Association.

    36分

  4. 4月14日

    Decolonizing Security Studies - a North African perspective

    This seminar was delivered at the Middle East Centre on Thursday 12 March 2026 by Professor Nizar Messari (Al Akhawayn University) and was chaired by Professor Michael Willis (St Antony’s College). Nizar Messari is Professor at Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane. His areas of expertise are International Relations Theory, Critical Security Studies, North African Politics and Latin American Politics. He has published in Arabic, English, Portuguese and French in journals such as Security Dialogue, International Studies Perspectives, Review of International Affairs, Journal of North African Studies, Contexto Internacional (in Portugueses) and Cultures & Conflits(in French) as well as numerous chapters in edited volumes in Portuguese and English. He was a visiting professor at Yale University, Universidade Estadual do Rio de Janeiro, the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and the Military Academy of Agulhas Negras (Brazil). He is currently finalizing a manuscript on Decolonizing Security Studies. He is the co-author with João Pontes Nogueira of Teoria das Relações Internacionais: Correntes e Debates. (Rio de Janeiro: Elsevier/Campus, 2005).

    52分

  5. 3月17日

    An Autocratic Middle Class? State Dependency and Protest in the Middle East and North Africa

    This MENA Politics Seminar was delivered at the Middle East Centre on Tuesday 10 March 2026 by Professor Neil Ketchley (St Antony’s College) and was chaired by Dr Maryam Alemzadeh (St Antony’s College). Does public sector employment make graduates less likely to join anti-regime protests? Recent scholarship argues yes, with consequences for bottom-up democratization in late-developing economies with expansive public and higher education sectors. This paper examines whether this thesis travels to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). We find that well-educated public sector employees were actually more likely to join anti- regime protests in Algeria and Egypt, while we estimate null effects for state dependency in Lebanon, Iraq, Sudan, and Tunisia. Supplementary analyses show that educated public sector employees who protested in Algeria – a critical case for the state-dependency argument – prioritized political rights and grievances over economic considerations. Importantly, these preferences were not visible in surveys from the pre-protest period. The findings put bounds on the external validity of the state middle class thesis, caution against inferring future protest participation from attitudinal data, and identify political conditions when the state middle class may suddenly become more protest prone.

    51分

  6. 2月18日

    Saudi Arabia and the Global Trajectory of Islamic Law

    This seminar was delivered at the Middle East Centre on Thursday 5 February 2026 by Dr Dominik Krell (Wolfson College), and was chaired by Professor Pascal Menoret (Magdalen College). This talk explores how Saudi legal thought is shaping the ways in which Islamic law is applied by Islamic courts beyond the Arabian Peninsula. Since the 1960s, Saudi Arabia has made significant efforts to promote a distinct Saudi understanding of Islam globally, mainly through international students at Saudi universities such as the Islamic University of Medina. Dr Krell examines how this understanding of Islamic law has influenced Islamic courts in two contrasting contexts: The Gambia and Sri Lanka, two countries with a similar number of graduates from Saudi universities. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with Islamic judges and scholars in both countries, the talk looks beyond simple depictions of “Salafisation” or “Wahhabisation”. It explores both the reasons for, and the consequences of, the differing receptions of Saudi ideas in court practice, and the implications this has for everyday Islamic adjudication in local settings.

    56分

  7. 2025/11/25

    Seeds in the Rubble: Cultural Vitality in the Arab World

    This seminar was delivered at the Middle East Centre on Thursday 20 November by Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi, founder of the Barjeel Art Foundation, and was chaired by Professor Eugene Rogan, St Antony’s College. This seminar was delivered at the Middle East Centre on Thursday 20 November by Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi and was chaired by Professor Eugene Rogan, St Antony’s College. Sultan Sooud Al-Qassemi is an Emirati columnist and researcher on social, political and cultural affairs in the Arab Gulf States. He is also the founder of the Barjeel Art Foundation, an independent initiative established in 2010 to contribute to the intellectual development of the art scene in the Arab region. He has taught 'Politics of Modern Middle Eastern Art' at New York University, Yale University, Georgetown University, Boston College, The American University of Paris, Brandeis University, Harvard Kennedy School, Columbia University and Bard College Berlin. In 2023, Sultan completed a Fellowship at Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin and in 2024, Sultan was a Research Associate at SOAS Middle East Institute, London. Sultan is currently an Instructor at the American University of Sharjah. The past century has been a time of great turmoil in much of the world. Europe, perhaps, bore the brunt of this turmoil, with millions killed and entire cities, such as Rotterdam, Dresden, and Warsaw largely reduced to rubble along with their museums, and cultural institutions. The Arab World has also suffered its share of conflicts, compounding the adverse impact of colonialism on everyday life and culture. Events such as the Nakba in Palestine, and conflicts such as the Lebanese Civil War and the 2003 American invasion of Iraq have left a string of structural and cultural devastation in addition to the toll on human life. However, the Arab World has also seen attempts to rebuild, both in lives and livelihoods, some more successful than others. These fragile steps forward can be derailed as conflicts arise such as in Gaza. Even in such dark cases there are some triumphs of humanity. This talk will attempt to shed light on these sparks of inspiration that reflect the vitality of the Arab World.

    1時間5分

  8. 2025/11/21

    Egypt’s Role, Identity, and Foreign Policy in a River of De-Nile

    This MENA Politics Series Seminar was delivered on Tuesday 18 November in the MEC’s Boardroom by Dr May Darwich (University of Birmingham) and was chaired by Professor Neil Ketchley (St Antony’s College). This paper explains Egypt’s foreign policy stagnation, with a novel argument building on role and identity theories. Egypt’s foreign policy exhibits a case where its regional leadership role has changed (and declined), but its identity emphasising Egyptian leadership persists, thus leading to foreign policy that is widely seen as ineffective. This paper examines the theoretical link — and distinction — between national roles and identities. Drawing on previous role research, we argue that, compared to identities, roles are more behaviourally prescriptive, necessarily relational, and are dependent on others’ expectations and acceptance of them. We also discuss the distinct sources of role change and identity change, setting up the possibility that one may change while the other remains stable. We examine the implications of when roles and identities become out of sync with the case of Egypt’s role decay. While Egypt’s leadership role at the regional role has retreated, the leadership identity persists. For Egyptians, Egypt is a ‘natural’ leader of the Arab world and a pivotal state in regional affairs. Herein, we argue, lays the explanations for why Egypt’s foreign policy has suffered from contradictions and ineffectiveness. Empirically, this paper draws upon historical evidence, official statements, memoirs of Egyptian foreign policy makers, and observation of public debates in Egypt’s public sphere.

    35分
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番組について

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.

情報

  • クリエイター
    Oxford University
  • 配信期間
    15年 - 26年
  • エピソード
    190
  • 制限指定
    不適切な内容を含まない
  • Copyright
    © Oxford University
  • 番組のWebサイト
    Middle East Centre

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