Watch video of panel presentations at the April 7-8 symposium After Dark: Nocturnal Landscapes and Public Spaces in the Arabian Peninsula, co-sponsored by the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and the Harvard Graduate School of Design. And read more about the symposium in the Harvard Crimson and the Ciudades Sostenibles (Sustainable Cities) blog.

In his new book, Paradoxes of Green: Landscapes of a City-State, CMES faculty affiliate Gareth Doherty, assistant professor of landscape architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, captures the tension between staying green and being sustainable. Read a Q&A with Doherty in the Weatherhead Center's Epicenter blog.

On April 7-8, 2017, scholars of history, architecture, design, film, and anthropology gathered to explore nighttime landscapes and public spaces in the Arabian Peninsula at the symposium "After Dark: Nocturnal Activities and Public Spaces in the Arabian Peninsula," organized by the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and the Aga Khan Program at the Graduate School of Design. Michelle Y. Raji covered the symposium for the Harvard

Emrah Yildiz is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Middle East and North African Studies at Northwestern University. He completed his PhD in Anthropology and Middle East Studies at Harvard in 2016. Read more about Q&A with Emrah Yildiz

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

Andreina Seijas, an incoming doctoral student at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, attended the April 7-8 symposium After Dark: Nocturnal Landscapes and Public Spaces in the Arabian Peninsula, jointly sponsored by the Aka Khan Program at the GSD and by Harvard's Center for Middle Eastern Studies. In her Ciudades Sostenibles blog, Seijas writes about the challenges of urban design in the Arabian Peninsula, regarding especially the night-time urban landscape, that participants explored, and she speculates how some of the lessons learned and in progress in the Arabian Peninsula might apply to Latin American cities facing similar challenges.

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.

Harvard’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies opened its first field office in Tunisia last Tuesday in an effort to expand Harvard’s global presence and provide resources for scholarship in the Middle East and North Africa region. Read more in the Harvard Crimson.