#  Disasters in and of the Middle East: Event, Place, Intensity (Day 1) 

 



    ![Burning of the Old Seraglio, Constantinople](/sites/g/files/omnuum9116/files/styles/hwp_5_4__480x385/public/2025-03/H3K1B6.jpg?itok=00Bi-a5Q) 

 



 

####  calendar\_today Date and Time 

 **March 29, 2025** 

 10:00AM - 06:00PM EDT 

####  pin\_drop Location 

 **CGIS South Bldg, Tsai Auditorium, Concourse level, 1730 Cambridge St, Cambridge, MA 02138**  



 

 



 

**The Disaster Studies Initiative** at the **Center for Middle Eastern Studies** presents a conference

***Disasters in and of the Middle East: Event, Place, Intensity***

Foregrounding the Middle East and North Africa in scholarly discourse on disasters, the Disaster Studies Initiative at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University is pleased to announce an international conference, to take place March 28 to 30, 2025.

The MENA region has been the site of earthquakes, famine, floods, wars, conflicts, genocides, massacres, and other environmental, industrial, and technological catastrophes. One recent example, the devastating 2023 earthquake sequence in Turkey and Syria, was the catalyst for the formation of the Disaster Studies Initiative at CMES. Within disaster studies, however, the region is rarely the focus of discussions on changing environments or diverse responses to superlative events.

In the present time, under the shadow of an intensifying climate crisis, is it still possible to think of disasters such as earthquakes, floods, fires, and wars as significant events? Are they political events at all? For whom are they non-eventful, and for whom are they still experienced as shocks and ruptures? If they are no longer considered to be analytically or politically relevant events, what are we to make of the landscape, trauma, pain, and avenues of desirable change that disasters often generate? How, then, should we deal with disasters—both past and present?

CMES thanks the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs for their generous support.

This conference was organized by Cemal Kafadar, Elif Irem Az, Jesse Howell, and Evangeline McGlynn.

[Link to Day 2 of the conference](/event/disasters-and-middle-east-event-place-intensity-day-2 "Disasters in and of the Middle East: Event, Place, Intensity (Day 2)").

[Link to Professor Kim Fortun's Opening Keynote of the conference on March 28](/event/disaster-analytics-hermeneutics-poetics-and-pedagogies-building-disaster-studies-remooring "Disaster Analytics, Hermeneutics, Poetics and Pedagogies: Building Disaster Studies, Remooring Academia").

[Link to Professor Aidan Seale-Feldman's Closing Keynote of the conference on March 30](https://cmes.fas.harvard.edu/event/rupture-and-repair-towards-critical-phenomenology-disaster).

[Link to the conference program](https://cmes.fas.harvard.edu/sites/hwpi.harvard.edu/files/ds_conf_program.pdf).

Speakers include  
Onder Akgul, Northwestern University  
Irem Az, Harvard University  
Christina Banalopoulou, University of Milan  
Tylor Brand, Trinity College Dublin  
Jordan Cannon, Harvard University  
Ali Çapar, Çankırı Karatekin University  
Christopher Dole, Amherst College  
Begum Ergun, Boston University  
Kim Fortun, UC Irving  
Matthew Ghazarian, Yale University  
Peter Habib, Emory University  
Zuhal Ibidan, Bogazici University  
Leila Khodabaksh, Catholic University of Eichstäett-Ingolstadt  
Cyntia Kreichati, McGill University  
Evangeline McGlynn, Harvard University  
Soha Mohsen, UC Davis  
Nathaniel Moses, Harvard University  
Moad Musbahi, Princeton University  
Burcu Ozdemir, Graduate Center CUNY  
Eda Ozel, Postdoctoral Researchers, Istanbul  
Aidan Seale-Feldman, Notre Dame University

**Co-sponsor:** Weatherhead Center for International Affairs

**Contact:** [Liz Flanagan](mailto:eaf073@fas.harvard.edu)



 

 



 

 See also:- [ Conference/Workshop ](/eventseries/conferences)
- [ Anthropology ](/research-field/anthropology)
- [ History ](/research-field/history)
- [ 2024-25 ](/academic-year/2024-25)
 
 

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