Book Launch & Author Talk: Carrie R. Wickham, "The Muslim Brotherhood: Evolution of an Islamist Movement"

The Center for Middle Eastern Studies Outreach Program is pleased to present an author talk by

Carrie R. Wickham
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Emory University

Moderated by Tarek Masoud, Associate Professor of Public Policy, Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation, Harvard Kennedy School

About the event:

• A limited number of free copies of The Muslim Brotherhood will be available on a first come, first served basis to Harvard students attending this talk (please have your Harvard ID available).
• This is a brown bag (bring-your-own) lunch event. Cookies and beverages provided.

About the author:
Dr. Carrie R. Wickham is Associate Professor of Political Science at Emory University. She teaches courses on Islam and politics; Middle East politics; and the dynamics of contentious politics in the developing world. Wickham's new book, The Muslim Brotherhood: Evolution of an Islamist Movement, was published this year by Princeton University Press. She is also the author of Mobilizing Islam: Religion, Activism and Political Change in Egypt (Columbia University Press, 2002), and articles she has written have appeared in Comparative Politics; PS: Political Science and Politics; Middle East Policy; Middle East Law and Governance Journal; and the Muslim World Journal of Human Rights.  In recent years, Dr. Wickham has presented lectures at many universities in the United States and abroad. She has also shared her research findings with the National Intelligence Council;  the State Department; the National Security Council; the Supreme NATO Command; the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point; the US Naval Academy; and staff members in Congress. She served as a consultant in the Social and Behavioral Science Partnership Program of the US Department of Homeland Security (2005-2006), and was a core team member of the “Social Dynamics of Activism and Radicalization” Project sponsored by the Science and Technology Expert Partnership (STEP) of the National Intelligence Council (2007). Dr. Wickham received her AB from Harvard and her MA and PhD from Princeton.

About The Muslim Brotherhood: Evolution of an Islamist Movement:

From Princeton University Press: "The Muslim Brotherhood has achieved a level of influence nearly unimaginable before the Arab Spring. The Brotherhood was the resounding victor in Egypt's 2011-2012 parliamentary elections, and six months later, a leader of the group was elected president. Yet the implications of the Brotherhood's rising power for the future of democratic governance, peace, and stability in the region is open to dispute. Drawing on more than one hundred in-depth interviews as well as Arabic language sources not previously accessed by Western researchers, Carrie Rosefsky Wickham traces the evolution of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt from its founding in 1928 to the fall of Mubarak and the watershed elections of 2011-2012. Further, she compares the Brotherhood's trajectory with those of mainstream Islamist groups in Jordan, Kuwait, and Morocco, revealing a wider pattern of change. Wickham highlights the internal divisions of such groups and explores the shifting balance of power among them. She shows that they are not proceeding along a linear path toward greater moderation. Rather, their course has been marked by profound tensions and contradictions, yielding hybrid agendas in which newly embraced themes of freedom and democracy coexist uneasily with illiberal concepts of Shari'a carried over from the past. Highlighting elements of movement continuity and change, and demonstrating that shifts in Islamist worldviews, goals, and strategies are not the result of a single strand of cause and effect, Wickham provides a systematic, fine-grained account of Islamist group evolution in Egypt and the wider Arab world."

Contact: Sarah Meyrick

As a Title VI National Resource Center, CMES is partially funding this program with U.S. Department of Education grant funds. The content of this program does not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Department of Education.