North Africa

Roger Owen and William Graham

The Book of Roger

May 15, 2017

Roger Owen, A.J. Meyer Professor of Middle Eastern History Emeritus and a former CMES director, first encountered the Middle East as a young soldier during his national military service in Cyprus from 1955 to 1956, during which time he visited Cairo, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Beirut. He has lived and traveled throughout the region, and spent his academic and professional life at Oxford and Harvard, where he taught, studied, made friends, and tried to understand the Middle East through its politics, economic life, history, and popular culture. He kept an almost daily journal recording his thoughts and feelings, and since 1986 wrote a regular op-ed column for the Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat.... Read more about The Book of Roger

CMES presentation poster

Nostalgia, Memory, Place: Margaux Fitoussi on the Hara of Tunis

May 12, 2017

In summer 2016, Margaux Fitoussi, an MTS candidate at Harvard Divinity School, curated a multimedia exhibition in Tunis about the Hara, the city’s historic Jewish neighborhood, centered around a collection of photographs from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In November at CMES, she assembled a smaller version of the exhibition, premiered EL HARA, a short documentary film about the Hara co-directed with her friend Mo Scarpelli and featuring an interview with the celebrated writer Albert Memmi, and gave a talk about the original exhibition in Tunis and viewers’ reactions to it.... Read more about Nostalgia, Memory, Place: Margaux Fitoussi on the Hara of Tunis

2017 Apr 03

Durability: A History of the Future, 1869-1912

4:00pm to 6:00pm

Location: 

Robinson Hall, Lower Library, Harvard Yard, 35 Quincy St, Cambridge, MA 02138

The Weatherhead Initiative on Global History Seminar presents

Timothy Mitchell
Professor, Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies, Columbia University

Professor Mitchell's talk will focus on Egypt 1869-1912, and construction of durable infrastructure projects such as the first Aswan Dam (1899-1902).

Commentator: Khaled Fahmy...

Read more about Durability: A History of the Future, 1869-1912
2017 Mar 23

Examining the Egyptian-Saudi Dispute Over the Red Sea Islands: Political and Legal Implications for the Middle East

4:00pm to 6:00pm

Location: 

CGIS Knafel 262, 1737 Cambridge St, Cambridge, MA

The WCFIA/CMES Middle East Seminar presents

Khaled FahmyKhaled Fahmy
Shawwaf Visiting Professor of Modern Middle East History, CMES; Professor of History, American University in Cairo... Read more about Examining the Egyptian-Saudi Dispute Over the Red Sea Islands: Political and Legal Implications for the Middle East

2017 Mar 21

Habib Sarori, Yemeni novelist

11:30am to 1:00pm

Location: 

CMES, Rm 102, 38 Kirkland St, Cambridge, MA 02138

The Center for Middle Eastern Studies presents

رحلة في أعماق تجربتي في الكتابة عن اليمن، وعن الحروب الروحية

Habib SaroriSuslov's Daughter
Novelist; University Professor, INSA de Rouen

Please note: this talk will be in Arabic, and it has been moved to 11:30 am.... Read more about Habib Sarori, Yemeni novelist

bizerte tunisia

Traveling beyond the Classroom: J-Term Excursion to Tunisia

February 9, 2017

Brittany Landorf, an MTS candidate at Harvard Divinity School, participated in the Center for Middle Eastern Studies' 2017 winter session study excursion to Tunisia. "The trip reminded me why I love what I study so much, and I returned to campus this semester with renewed energy and new curiosity," Landorf writes. "Sometimes our classrooms can feel so far away from what we are studying (literally and figuratively); I think that immersive learning experiences like this are invaluable." Read more about her experience at the Harvard Divinity School Admissions Blog.

2017 Feb 27

POSTPONED: Mechanizing the Flow: Machines and Politics on the Nile before the British Occupation

4:00pm to 6:00pm

Location: 

CMES, Rm 102, 38 Kirkland St, Cambridge, MA 02138

The CES/CMES Colonial Encounters Working Group presents

Casey PrimelCasey Primel
Volkswagen Postdoctoral Fellow, Weatherhead Initiative on Global History, Harvard University

March 7: this event has been rescheduled to April 17; click here for more information.

Feb 24: this event has been postponed; a new date will be announced soon.
... Read more about POSTPONED: Mechanizing the Flow: Machines and Politics on the Nile before the British Occupation

Hazem Ben-Gacem January 2017

Video: CMES Tunisia Office Inaugural Celebration

January 17, 2017

Hear opening remarks from donor Hazem Ben-Gacem AB '92, CMES Director William Granara, Margot Gill, Administrative Dean for International Affairs, Harvard University, and Malika Zeghal, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Professor in Contemporary Islamic Thought and Life, Harvard University, at the inaugural celebration of the Tunisia Office of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University.

...

Read more about Video: CMES Tunisia Office Inaugural Celebration
Going Nativist

Going Nativist

February 9, 2017

The future of America is as bright or as dark as the future of our immigrants. The battle over the travel ban echoes our history from the founding, slicing deep into the heart of American sympathies: Are refugees and migrants coming ashore to be seen as humble "guests of the nation" or as American as anyone, just for getting through the gate? In the February 9 edition of Open Source, host Christopher Lydon talks with Persian preceptor Sheida Dayani and others about the "who we are" question, between Immigration Nation and Fortress America, traversing all sorts of social, political, and historical terrains. Dayani also reads her poem "The Ordinary Man of this Neighborhood."

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