#  Reorganizing the Middle East, 1912-1948 

 



####  calendar\_today Date and Time 

 **November 13 - November 14, 2018** 

 All day 

####  pin\_drop Location 

 **Center for European Studies, Adolphus Busch Hall, 27 Kirkland St, Cambridge, MA 02138**  



 

 



 

 **The Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University** presents a conference

   ![British soldiers, WWI](/sites/g/files/omnuum9116/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/cmes/files/british-soldiers_7c76045bc51674ca40a564766cf0d40d.jpg?itok=jv2e8XSS) 

 

**Reorganizing the Middle East, 1912-1948** The Balkan Wars of 1912-13 and the First World War led to the collapse and partition of the Ottoman Empire, the establishment of League of Nations Mandates for Mesopotamia, Palestine, and Syria, and the creation of the state system of the twentieth century Middle East. This conference will consider these topics, with particular focus on the mandates system – their place within the post-war international world order, the transition of Middle Eastern territory from Ottoman to British and French governance, the practices of the mandates “on the ground,” and the formation of mandatory political identities, both ephemeral and durable.

 *The conference is free and open to the public.*

 **Pre-registration is required** and may be completed via the conference web site: <https://ces.fas.harvard.edu/events/2018/11/conference-on-balfour-declaration>.

   
***Program***

 **Tuesday, November 13th 2018**

 9:00-9:15 Introduction and Welcome  
**Derek Penslar** (Harvard University)

 9:15-10:30  The First World War, the New International World Order, and the Mandates System  
**Carole Fink** (Ohio State University): *Woodrow Wilson and the Palestine Question at the Paris Peace Conference*  
**Billie Melman** (Tel Aviv University): *Mandated Pasts: Internationalism and the New “Regime of Antiquities” between the Two World Wars*

 10:30-10:45 Coffee break

 10:45-12:30 Drafting Borders? The McMahon-Hussein Correspondence, Sykes-Picot Agreement, and Balfour Declaration  
**Eugene Rogan** (University of Oxford): *The Wartime Partition Diplomacy and the Resolution of the Eastern Question*  
**Motti Golani** (Tel Aviv University): *The Letter That Became a Declaration: Weizmann, the Palestine Mandate and the Balfour Declaration*  
**Derek Penslar** (Harvard University): *The Politics of Gratitude: Jewish Responses to British Wartime Diplomacy*

 12:30-1:30 Lunch

 1:30-3:30 Old Empire to New Empire? From the Ottomans to the British and French  
**Leila Fawaz** (Tufts University): *The First World War in Levantine Memory*  
**Abigail Jacobson** (Hebrew University of Jerusalem): *Transitions between Empires: Jerusalem between Ottoman and British Rule*  
**Elizabeth Thompson** (University of Virginia): *Europe’s Destruction of Arab Democracy in 1920*  
**Dotan Halevy** (Columbia University): *Reconstruction Undone: The Ruins of Gaza and Post-War Palestine*

 3:30-3:45 Coffee break

 3:45-5:15 Mandated Modernity and Alternative Forms of Governing  
**Arie Dubnov** (George Washington University): *Third Empire or Third Temple? A Few Thoughts on the British-Zionist Encounter, 1917-1923*  
**Fredrik Meiton** (University of New Hampshire): *Palestine as a Technological Zone*  
**Hilary Falb Kalisman** (University of Colorado Boulder): *Teachers without borders: Education across Britain's Middle Eastern Mandates*

   
**Wednesday, November 14th 2018**

 9:00-11:00 Mandated Environments  
**Sam Dolbee** (Harvard University): *Locusts and Borders in the Post-Ottoman Middle East*  
**Dale Stahl** (University of Colorado Denver): *‘Such was Noah’s Flood’: A River’s History of Iraq, 1919-1929*  
**Netta Cohen** (University of Oxford): *Palestinian Heat, Jewish Bodies: Zionist Medical and Technological Approaches to the Local Climate in Palestine*  
**Yaron Balslev** (Tel Aviv University): *Treating Urban Waste in Mandatory Palestine*

 11:00-11:15 Coffee Break

 11:15-12:45 Mandatory Identities  
**Zaha Kheir** (University of Oxford): *The Institutionalization of National Identity in Interwar Lebanon and the Yishuv*  
**Hagit Krik** (Hebrew University of Jerusalem): *Being British in Mandate Palestine: A British Community and the Representations of Colonial Rule*  
**Hadas Fischer** (Tel Aviv University): *Colonial Citizenship and Total War in Mandate Palestine*

 12:45-1:45 Concluding Remarks and Lunch

 **Co-sponsors:** Center for Middle Eastern Studies, the Center for European Studies, the Center for Jewish Studies, Harvard University  
**Contact:** [Professor Derek Penslar](mailto:dpenslar@fas.harvard.edu)

 Funding for this conference is generously provided by the Knapp Family Foundation.



 

 



 

 See also:- [ Conference/Workshop ](/eventseries/conferences)
- [ Government ](/research-field/government)
- [ History ](/research-field/history)
- [ 2018-19 ](/academic-year/2018-19)
 
 

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