London Middle East Institute at SOAS · the form of bespoke briefing programmes, our Middle East...

London Middle EastInstitute at SOASAnnual Report 2017/2018and Financial Report 2016/2017

Director & CEO: Dr Hassan HakimianExecutive Officer and Company Secretary: Ms Louise HoskingEvents and Magazine Coordinator: Mr Vincenzo PaciAdministrative Assistant: Mr Aki ElborziEditor (Middle East in London Magazine): Ms Megan WangDesigner (Middle East in London Magazine): Ms Shahla Geramipour

LMEI ORGANISATION AND MEMBERSHIP

Staff of the London Middle East Institute

LMEI Advisory Council

LMEI Board of Trustees

Dr Alanoud Al-SharekhDr Hamid KeshmirshekanDr George JofféMs Helen LacknerDr Corinna MullinDr Sharri PlonskiDr Hamid Pouran Professor Tom SelwynProfessor John WaterburyProfessor Sami Zubaida

LMEI Research Associates

Donations, Sponsorship and AffiliationsFounding Patron and Donor of the LMEISheikh Mohamed Bin Issa Al Jaber, MBI Al Jaber Foundation

Institutional AffiliatesBICDO (British Iranian Community Development Association)Bonyad Jaleh EsfahaniBritish Association for Turkish Studies (BATAS)The British-Yemeni SocietyForum IranGingkoLSE Middle East CentreNaghmeh EnsembleThe Petroleum Institute

Institutional Affiliation is £250 per year. Institutional Affiliates are entitled to the same benefits as Individual Affiliates, please see below, along with the free use of a room at SOAS for an event lasting up to two hours, and up to four copies of each edition of the magazine. They will also be acknowledged in LMEI publicity material, including the website: www.soas.ac.uk/lmei/.

Individual Affiliates pay £30 per year, £20 concessions and £10 for students, for which they receive an annual subscription to ‘The Middle East in London’ magazine, inclusion on e-mail and mailing lists for notification of upcoming events, and special rates for LMEI conferences and publications.

Baroness Valerie Amos (Chair), Director, SOASDr Orkideh Behrouzan, SOASProfessor Stephen Hopgood, SOASDr Lina Khatib, The Royal Institute of International AffairsDr Dina Matar, SOASDr Hanan Morsy, African Development BankProfessor Scott Redford, SOASMr James Watt

Lady Barbara Judge (Chair)HE Mr Khaled al-Duwaisan, Ambassador, Embassy of the State of KuwaitMrs Haifa Al Kaylani, Arab International Women’s ForumDr Khalid Bin Mohammed Al Khalifa, President, University College of BahrainDr Alanoud Alsharekh, Senior Fellow for Regional Politics, IISS Mr Farad Azima, NetScientific PlcDr Noel Brehony, MENAS Associates Ltd.Professor Magdy Ishak Hanna, British Egyptian SocietyHE Mr Rami Mortada, Ambassador, Embassy of Lebanon

The aim of the LMEI, through education and research, is to promote knowledge of all aspects of the Middle East including its complexities, problems, achievements and assets, both among the general public and with those who have special interest in the region.

In this task it will build on two essential assets. First, it is based in London, a city which has unrivalled contemporary and historical connections and communications with the Middle East: political, social, cultural, commercial, scientific and educational. Secondly, the LMEI is at SOAS, the only tertiary educational institution in the world whose explicit purpose is to provide training and scholarship on the whole Middle East from prehistory until today.

Director’s Letter------------------------------------------------------Event Highlights------------------------------------------------------Calendar of Events------------------------------------------------------Centre for Iranian Studies------------------------------------------------------Centre for Palestine Studies------------------------------------------------------Publications------------------------------------------------------Research Associates------------------------------------------------------Summer School------------------------------------------------------PhD Theses on the Middle East------------------------------------------------------Acknowledgements------------------------------------------------------Financial Statement------------------------------------------------------Directory of Academic Members------------------------------------------------------

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Contents

LMEI ANNUAL REPORT 2017-2018 4

Director’s Letter

LMEI ANNUAL REPORT 2017-2018 5 LMEI ANNUAL REPORT 2017-2018 5

After a busy year in 2016/17 when much of the Institute’s endeavours focused on the SOAS Centenary year, by 2017/18 we were back to normal business, working to enhance and promote Middle East studies at SOAS in many ways and forms.

This was a particularly busy year for conferences at SOAS: the thirteenth symposium in the Idea of Iran series, ‘The Turko-Timurid Intermezzo’ co-convened by Dr Sarah Stewart (SOAS) and Professor Charles Melville (Cambridge University) and the ‘Faces of the Infinite: Neoplatonism and Poetics at the Confluence of Africa, Asia and Europe’ conference, convened by Professor Stefan Sperl (SOAS).

LMEI also facilitated research networks, administering a GCRF project on ‘Female Employment and Dynamics of Inequality in the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia and Southern Europe’ – whose Principal Investigator was Professor Massoud Karshenas of the Economics Department while I was a Co-Investigator. We also hosted LMEI’s Centre of Palestine Studies’ annual research seminar for postgraduate students working on Palestine, organised as before by Dr Dina Matar. Such events are crucial for SOAS academics, building networks between scholars inside and beyond the School, stimulating research ideas and providing forums to discuss current research and develop future research.

LMEI is particularly proud of its interdisciplinary sub-centres: the Centre for Iranian Studies (CIS) and the Centre for Palestine Studies (CPS). Since their inception (CIS was established in 2010 and CPS in 2012), they have both played a key role in inspiring and innovating teaching and academic interchange at SOAS. For example, CIS has provided a nucleus for the prestigious Kamran Djam and Ehsan Yarshater annual lectures which attract academic expertise from around the world, enhancing the student experience at SOAS and benefiting the large number of members of the public who have a profound interest in Persianate culture and society. Another indicator of such interest has been the keen response to the Persian calligraphy classes – taught by Keramat Fathinia – that have continued to attract enthusiastic practitioners throughout 2017/18.

CPS has also been able to attract senior statesmen and women and scholars of Palestinian affairs to the School to deliver Annual Lectures: in the spring of 2018 our guest was Elias Khoury, the Lebanese writer and intellectual. The Centre’s peer-reviewed publication series with I.B. Tauris continues to thrive with a fourth volume published in 2018. Having served the maximum of two three-year terms Professors Arshin Adib-Moghaddam (CIS) and Gilbert Achcar (CPS) have now stepped down as Centre Chairs and Ms Narguess Farzad and Dr Dina Matar have taken over new Chairs of CIS and CPS respectively. We wish them every success in their new responsibilities.

As a glance at the Events section of this report will show, the Institute continues to provide a wide range of events and activities, from its Tuesday Evening Lectures which concentrate largely on current political and economic affairs to the many cultural events that enable students to engage with the cultural background of the societies that they study. The Middle East in London magazine encapsulates our outreach efforts, drawing on the expertise of its editorial board and SOAS academics and involving an extensive web of outside academics, journalists and cultural practitioners. Each of its five issues across the year gives an indepth insight into individual Middle Eastern countries and themes.

I hope you will acquire a deeper sense of our work as you read this Report. My team and I are very grateful to our wide network of SOAS academic colleagues and external partners without whose support the LMEI would not be able to achieve its aims.


Event Highlights

LMEI ANNUAL REPORT 2017-2018 7 LMEI ANNUAL REPORT 2017-2018 7

In 2017/18 LMEI again provided a wide range of events to reach out to large numbers of the public who are interested in the Middle East while simultaneously enhancing the student experience at SOAS. The flagship Tuesday Evening Lectures programme was supplemented with a wide variety of occasional lectures and book launches and a series of seminars on Turkey. Outreach also took the form of bespoke briefing programmes, our Middle East Summer School in June/July and two new initiatives: support for SOAS’s Economics Department’s Global Challenges Research Fund project on ‘The Dynamics of Gender Inequality in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia’ and the Changing Lives programme in Amman, Jordan.

Throughout the year speakers in the Tuesday Evening Lecture series addressed a number of contemporary issues whether in individual countries or across the MENA region, drawing on current academic and journalistic expertise to address matters of political turmoil, economic development and cultural identity. The series of occasional lectures has a wider historical remit. These lectures, in some cases organised in collaboration with colleagues from other SOAS departments, ranged from religious studies with Hugh Kennedy’s seminal ‘Reclaiming the Caliphate’ to political ideology with Lahouari Addi’s ‘Radical Arabic Nationalism and Political Islam’ to economic theory with Gilbert Achcar’s and Hassan Sherry’s ‘Neoliberal Dogmatism: the IMF and the Arab Spring’. In December 2017 LMEI welcomed its former Director, Professor Robert Springborg, to launch his latest book Egypt, an analysis of why the Egyptian political economy has underperformed so profoundly in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. LMEI staff were involved in the delivery of several major conferences in 2017/18. In November SOAS hosted the third day of ‘Faces of the Infinite: Neoplatonism and Poetics at the Confluence of Africa, Asia and Europe’, a three-day conference convened by the British Academy and SOAS. Its ambitious aim was to generate the first comparative overview of the extent to which Neoplatonist philosophy has permeated poetic forms, styles, themes and figurative language as well as poetic theory in seven principal languages of the greater Mediterranean region, from late antiquity to the modern period. Later that month was the latest Idea of Iran conference. March was also busy with the fifth conference of the International Iranian Economic Association in Amsterdam and the 2018 British Association for Turkish Area Studies Spring Symposium.

Throughout 2017/18 LMEI continued to provide bespoke briefing programmes, both in London and in the Middle East, for senior UNICEF regional staff and Médecins sans Frontières employees. These programmes are always warmly received since they provide participants with a chance to step back from their – often hectic – daily challenges to review their work from a wider intellectual perspective.

LMEI’s summer school in 2017 offered students combinations of Arabic (at two beginners levels), Culture and Society in the Middle East, Government and Politics of the Middle East and Persian (also at two beginners levels). Once again students were drawn from a wide variety of backgrounds, from UK-based students to

students from Europe, the US and the Far East and from mature students to undergraduates, some of whom were already at SOAS studying other subjects. In addition to these academic courses LMEI continued to host practical evening classes in Persian calligraphy taught by Keramat Fathinia, classes which attracted a loyal following in all three terms.


Calendar of Events


The following is a list of the broad range of events organised by the LMEI, either solely or in partnership with other institutions, in the 2017/18 academic year.

Tuesday Lectures on the Contemporary Middle East (Organised by the London Middle East Institute, SOAS)

10 Oct A Quest for Significance: Gulf oil Monarchies’ International ‘Soft Power’ Strategies and their Local Urban Dimensions Steffen Hertog (LSE)Chair: Hassan Hakimian (LMEI, SOAS)

17 Oct A Concise History of Sunnis and Shi‘isJohn McHugo (Centre for Syrian Studies, St Andrews University) Chair: Madawi Al-Rasheed (LSE)

24 Oct The Political Economy of the Kurds of Turkey: From the Ottoman Empire to the Turkish RepublicVeli Yadirgi (SOAS), Nadje Al-Ali (SOAS)Chair: Gilbert Achcar (SOAS)

31 Oct Political Challenges to Diversity in Both Nature and Society in Palestine: Role of Colonialism and Role of Civil SocietyMazin Qumsiyeh (Bethlehem and Birzeit Universities)Chair: Dina Matar (SOAS)Organised jointly with the Centre for Palestine Studies

14 Nov Yemen in Crisis, Autocracy, Neo-Liberalism and the Disintegration of a StateHelen Lackner (LMEI, SOAS)Chair: Gilbert Achcar (SOAS)

21 Nov Kennedy and the Middle East: The Cold War, Israel and Saudi ArabiaAntonio Perra, Birkbeck (King’s College London & MEND)Chair: Sharri Plonski (SOAS)

28 Nov King Salman, the US and the RestMadawi Al-Rasheed (LSE)Chair: Hassan Hakimian (LMEI, SOAS)

12 Dec Lines or No Lines: The Reality of Maps in Sinai Peninsula and the Middle East Ahmed Shams (Durham University)Chair: Hassan Hakimian (LMEI, SOAS)

16 Jan Devastated Lands: Lebanon at the End of the Great War, 1918Eugene Rogan (Middle East Centre, St Antony’s College, Oxford)Chair: James WattOrganised jointly with the Council for British Research in the Levant (CBRL) and the British Lebanese Association

23 Jan Gaza Donald Macintyre (journalist)Chair: Dina Matar (SOAS)Organised jointly with the Centre for Palestine Studies

30 Jan Rethinking and Reclaiming History: Emerging Arab Interest in Jewish Heritage in the Middle East Najat AbdulhaqOrganised jointly with Yair Wallach (SOAS)

06 Feb The Dynamics of Exclusionary Constitutionalism: Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State Mazen Masri (City, University of London), Nimer Sultany (SOAS) and Elian Weizman (SOAS)Chair: Adam Hanieh (SOAS)Organised jointly with the Centre for Palestine Studies and Centre for Jewish Studies

01 May The Syrian Uprising: Domestic Origins and Early TrajectoryFerdinand Arslanian (University of St Andrews), Billie Jeanne Brownlee (University of Exeter), Raymond Hinnebusch (University of St Andrews), Omar Imady (University of St Andrews), Maria Kastrinou (political anthropologist)Chair: Reem Abou-El-Fadl (SOAS)

08 May The Struggle for Borders and Borders of Struggle Sharri Plonski (Queen Mary University of London and London Middle East Institute, SOAS) and Mezna Qato (Kings College, Cambridge)Chair: Gilbert Achcar (SOAS)Organised jointly with the Centre for Palestine Studies

05 Oct Reclaiming the CaliphateHugh Kennedy (SOAS)Chair: Hassan Hakimian (LMEI, SOAS)Organised by the London Middle East Institute

26 Oct Rethinking Fiscal Policy in Arab CountriesKhalid Abu-Ismail, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western AsiaChair: Terry McKinley (SOAS)Organised by the London Middle East Institute and the Department of Economics, SOAS

05 Dec Neoliberal Dogmatism: The IMF and the Arab SpringGilbert Achcar (SOAS) and Hassan Sherry (SOAS)Organised by Development Studies, SOAS and London Middle East Institute

11 Dec Egypt: Seven Years ForwardMohamad Adam (Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy and journalist), Khaled Fahmy (University of Cambridge), Amr Hamzawy (Stanford University), Nancy Okail (Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy)Organised by the London Middle East Institute in association with the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy (TIMEP)

OCCASIONAL LECTURES


19-20 Dec Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) Project Workshop on ‘The Dynamics of Gender Inequality in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia’in Rabat, Morocco

08-09 Mar International Iranian Economic Association (IIEA) Fifth International ConferenceOrganised by the IIEA and the International Institute of Social History (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)

10 Mar The 2018 British Association for Turkish Area Studies (BATAS) Spring SymposiumBill Park (KCL), Tim Stanley (V&A), Gül Berna Özcan (Royal Holloway), Daniela Berghahn (Royal Holloway)Organised by the British Association for Turkish Area Studies and the London Middle East Institute

03-04 May Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) Project Workshop on ‘The Dynamics of Gender Inequality in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia’at SOAS

CONFERENCES, SYMPOSIA & WORKSHOPS

09-11 Nov Faces of the Infinite: Neoplatonism and Poetics at the Confluence of Africa, Asia and Europe Organised by the British Academy and SOAS University of LondonSupported by the London Middle East Institute, British Comparative Literature Association (BCLA) and the Office of Cultural and Scientific Affairs of the Embassy of Spain in the United Kingdom

BOOK LAUNCHES

30 Oct Egypt Robert Springborg (Italian Institute of International Affairs)Chair: Hassan Hakimian (LMEI, SOAS)

21 Feb Law and Revolution: Legitimacy and Constitutionalism after the Arab Spring Nimer Sultany (author & SOAS), Carol Tan (SOAS), Paul O’Connell (SOAS), Martin Loughlin (LSE), Lynn Welchman (SOAS)Chair: Samia Bano (SOAS)Organised by the School of Law, SOAS and London Middle East Institute

19 Mar Towards Socially Just Development in the MENA RegionThomas Claes (German Friedrich Ebert Foundation), Gilbert Achcar (SOAS), Salam SaidChair: Hassan Hakimian (LMEI, SOAS)Organised by the London Middle East Institute and the Department of Development Studies, SOAS

10 Jan The Hadassah and Daniel Khalili Memorial Lecture in Islamic Art and Culture: The Calligrapher, the Painter, and the Patron: A New Perspective on the Freer Khusraw u ShirinSimon Rettig (Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC)Organised by SOAS and the London Middle East Institute. Lecture and reception sponsored by the Khalili family

17 Jan Justice Delayed, Justice Redeemed? Transitional Justice in the Arab RegionNoha Aboueldahab (Brookings Doha Center)Chair: David Wearing (SOAS)

21 Mar Radical Arab Nationalism and Political IslamLahouari Addi (Sciences Po Lyon)Chair: John King (Society for Algerian Studies)Organised by the London Middle East Institute

22 Mar We Crossed a Bridge and It Trembled: Voices from SyriaWendy Pearlman (Northwestern University)Chair: Laleh Khalili (SOAS)

29 May From Barefoot Doctors to Professors of Medicine in 75 YearsAdel AulaqiOrganised by The British-Yemeni Society in association with the London Middle East Institute

22 June Panel Discussion: Building Nations: An Inclusive Approach to Migration in the Gulf Cooperation CouncilChair: Adam Hanieh (SOAS)Organised by Migrant-Rights.org in conjunction with the London Middle East Institute and the Centre for Migration and Diaspora Studies, SOAS

23 June Post-Revolutionary IranMehrzad Boroujerdi (Syracuse University)Organised by Forum Iran in association with the London Middle East Institute


Daniel Zakrzewski (Marburg University), Maria Subtelny (University of Toronto), John E. Woods (University of Chicago), The Idea of Iran: The Turko-Timurid Intermezzo, 18 November 2017

17 Oct One Belt, Many Questions Jonathan Hillman (Center for Strategic and International Studies)Organised by SOAS South Asia Institute in collaboration with the London Middle East Institute & SOAS China Institute

10 Nov The Songs of Songs – A Musical Triptych with Texts by King Solomon, Jalāl al-Dīn Rūmī and St John of the CrossOrganised by the Department of the Languages and Cultures of the Near and Middle East, SOAS with the support of the London Middle East Institute

10 Dec Celebrating Togetherness - an Iranian Community Charity FairOrganised by the British-Iranian Community Development Organisation (BICDO)Hosted by the London Middle East Institute and the Centre for Iranian Studies

13 Dec ‘Bards Apart?’ – A Musical Performance of the Poems of Robert Burns and HafezSamia Mehrez, AUCOrganised by The Iran Society with the support of the Azima Foundation, the British Council, the London Middle East Institute

13 Jan Bonyad Jaleh Esfahani Annual Event Organised by Bonyad Jaleh Esfahani in association with the London Middle East Institute

30 Jan Rethinking and Reclaiming History: Emerging Arab Interest in Jewish Heritage in the Middle East Najat AbdulhaqOrganised by Yair Wallach (SOAS) and the London Middle East Institute

4 Apr Vladimir Schneiderov’s Visit to the Kingdom of Yemen Screening of Vitaly Naumkin’s documentary programme about Russian film-maker Vladimir Schneiderov’s visit to Yemen in 1929Organised by The British-Yemeni Society in association with the London Middle East Institute

24 Apr Human Rights in Egypt and Tunisia after the Arab Spring Maha Azzam (Egyptian Revolutionary Council), Nicola Pratt (University of Warwick), Melek Saral (SOAS)Convenor: Melek Saral (SOAS)Organised by the Centre of African Studies, SOAS in collaboration with the London Middle East Institute and the SOAS School of Law

05 May Concert: Oxford Maqam at Brunei Gallery

OTHER EVENTS Organised by MARSM UK in association with the London Middle East Institute

12 May Concert: A Night of Afghan and Persian Traditional Music Organised by the Naghmeh Ensemble in association with the London Middle East Institute

LMEI Seminars on Turkey (SOAS Modern Turkish Studies Programme)

(Sponsored by Nurol Bank)

27 Oct Turkish TV Series and Their TransnationalizationEylem Yanardağoglu (Kadir Has University, Istanbul)

17 Nov Frontline Turkey: The Turks, the Kurds and the Quagmire Next DoorEzgi Başaran (Journalist, St Antony’s College, University of Oxford)

01 Dec The (Im)possibility of Living Together: Ethnographic Explorations on Inter-communitarian Relationships between Kurds and Süryanis in South-eastern TurkeyZerrin Özlem Biner (Researcher, Contemporary Turkish Studies, LSE)

26 Jan Infidel Izmir, the Kurds and HDP or Gavur Izmir’in Kürtlerle imtihanıZafer Yörük (Izmir University of Economics)

09 Feb Brand Geopolitics? Turkish Airlines and Turkey’s Geopolitical RepresentationsLerna Yanık (Kadir Has University, Istanbul)

16 Mar Architecture and Identity from (Ottoman) Empire to Nation State: The Emergence of Modern IzmirKalliopi Amygdalou (Hellenic Foundation for European & Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP), Athens)


25 Sep- Persian Calligraphy, Nasta’liq Script27 Nov Keramat Fathinia

13 Nov UNICEF MENA Regional Management Team (RMT) Dead Sea Briefing

11-14 Dec Middle East Briefing for Médecins Sans Frontières

08 Jan- Persian Calligraphy, Nasta’liq Script12 Mar Keramat Fathinia

09 Jan- Persian Calligraphy, Nasta’liq Script13 Mar Keramat Fathinia

10-12 Jan Middle East Briefing for UNICEF Regional Emergency Advisor

05-07 Feb Sudan Briefing for UNICEF Sudan Representative

16 Apr Briefing for UNICEF Regional Staff in Tunis

14 May- Persian Calligraphy, Nasta’liq Script16 Jul Keramat Fathinia

15 May- Persian Calligraphy, Nasta’liq Script17 Jul Keramat Fathinia

BRIEFINGS/COURSES

18 Jun- Intensive five-week summer school 19 Jul programme

LMEI MIDDLE EAST SUMMER SCHOOL

01-11 Aug A Unique International Learning Experience 06-14 Apr for SOAS Students in Amman, Jordan

Organised by the AlSadi Changing Lives Programme and the London Middle East Institute

INTERNATIONAL LEARNING EXPERIENCE - AMMAN, JORDAN

AlSadi Changing Lives Programme - International Study Experience, Amman, Jordan, 6 - 14 April 2018


Last year LMEI added another strand to its wide range of activities by responding positively to an invitation from Dr Majid AlSadi of the Changing Lives charity in Amman to bring small groups of SOAS students to Jordan and thereby introduce them to the Middle East, providing them with insights into the Arab world, its people and cultures and encouraging them to appreciate the region more deeply than the stereotyped images so prevalent in the West. Changing Lives is the result of the vision and generous funding of Dr AlSadi, Chairman and CEO of the Eastern Holding Investment Group, who is committed to offering opportunities to young people from around the world.

In 2017/18 we were able to support two Changing Lives trips to Amman: the first of these was in August 2017 and the second – which is pictured below – in April 2018. On both occasions Changing Lives devised intense and enriching programmes to which LMEI was able to contribute by arranging activities to visit LMEI contacts and SOAS alumni in Jordan.

Based in Amman, they were able to experience urban life in the capital, including a visit to the Citadel downtown on the first day to get their bearings. They also visited the British Embassy in Amman, where they were received by the UK Deputy Ambassador – Laura Dauban, herself a former SOAS colleague – who introduced them to the rest of the diplomatic team in Amman, its work and the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s engagement with the country. They also visited UNICEF’s MENA regional office in Amman, where they met other SOAS alumni on the staff and the Jordan National Gallery of Fine Arts, founded by SOAS alumna Princess Wijdan Al- Hashemi. They travelled widely beyond the capital too to visit the countryside and gain an understanding of the environmental challenges facing Jordan in the future with brefings at the environmental centre at Azraq Oasis in the eastern desert and the Royal Botanic Gardens in the hills above the King Talal dam about 25 km north of Amman. The students also benefited from opportunities to volunteer at some of charitable organisations in the country including Basmatik Hatallim at the Gaza Refugee

Camp in northern Jordan and the Al Amal Fund in Amman, which provides a diverse support network for orphans. Both the August and April Changing Lives programmes were warmly received by the student participants. With this success in mind LMEI hopes to be able to take additional groups to Jordan in the years ahead.

Changing Lives


Centre for Iranian Studies


The LMEI has long been the beneficiary of generous support from the Soudavar Memorial Foundation that has enabled it to organise a series of conferences examining the Idea of Iran through history. During the autumn term the thirteen in the series, convened by Professor Charles Melville of the University of Cambridge and SOAS’s Dr Sarah Stewart, turned its attention to the ‘Turko-Timurid Intermezzo’ of the 11th to the 15th centuries. Professor Beatrice Manz, summarised the stance of her fellow speakers when she emphasised that the idea of Iran should not be seen as ‘a unitary conception or a consistent one’. The speakers examined the interplay between Persian culture, Iranian political traditions and Turco-Mongolian dynasties during the period of the intermezzo as the new ruling elites adopted Iranian models to enhance their reputation and validate their status. Tirumid princes and their Turkomen rivals patronised artists working in Iranian traditions – calligraphers, manuscript painters, architects and poets – while bureaucrats and literati who utilised Persian as their main means of expression developed an extensive network throughout Iran, Central Asia and India.

Another regular, key event in the LMEI calendar is the annual Kamran Djam lecture series, funded by the Fereydoun Djam Memorial Trust with the aim of promoting Iranian studies. In February Professor Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi, Professor of Historical Studies, History, and Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations at the University of Toronto was invited to give the 2018 series. In a two-part historical analysis Professor Tavakoli explored the use of modern scientific tropes in Iranian political, cultural and historical discourses from the late nineteenth century to the present day. The first lecture, entitled ‘Jinns to Germs’ explained how a public-health crisis in the nineteenth century led to the use of a wide range of medical and microbiological concepts to narrate Iran’s history and offer prognosis and diagnosis of national, social and political ills. In the second lecture, entitled ‘Engineering Governmentality’ he noted how the Shi’i clerical commitment to constructing a divinely inspired society after the 1979 revolution converged with professional pursuits of engineers and engineering companies.

During the year CIS has developed another format to engage with a public interested in contemporary Iran. In

a series of evening seminars convened by Dr Nima Mina visiting philosophers, academics and cultural historians have addressed Iranian notions of cultural and intellectual identity and analysed political and social narratives at crucial moments in Iranian history. For example, Ramin Jahanbegloo, Executive Director of the Mahatma Gandhi Centre for Nonviolence and Peace Studies in Dehli, spoke about ‘Muhammad Ali Foroughi and the Foundations of Iranian Aufklärung’, examining the impact of nineteenth-century intellectuals such as Foroughi on the shape and fate of modernity and liberalism in Iran. Other speakers examined liberalism in practice: Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi took as his theme the constitutionally sanctioned equality of rights adopted after the Second World War while Anicee van Engeland focussed on the protection and implementation of women’s rights from both Islamic and universalist perspectives in a modern-day Iran where the government is anxious to encourage population growth. Clément Therme and Bahram Ghiassee provided critiques of the Iran Nuclear Accord (JCPOA), Therme seeking to shed light on its political context for Iran’s relations with its regional neighbours and Ghassee positing the future of the accord if President Trump fulfils his electoral pledge to withdraw from the agreement.

Other evening events investigated contemporary cultural practice in Iran through non-traditional media. Fatemeh Takht Keshian explored the notion of cultural identity as reflected in the artworks exhibited in the Tehran Biennales from 1958 to 1966 while Siavash Ardalan, a radio journalist, shared his insights on Persian diasporic journalism and media since the 1990s examining how electronic media can influence Iranian public opinion and impact socio-political change in Iran. In April there was a showing of a new feature documentary about the renowned Iranian writer and filmmaker, Ebrahim Golestan, including his memories of the leading political figures he has met throughout his long career.

At the end of this busy year Professor Arshin Adib-Moghaddem stepped down as CIS Chair, having served for two three-year periods. He is to be replaced by Ms Narguess Farzad, Senior Fellow of Persian at SOAS.

Professor Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi of Toronto University and Dr Hassan Hakimian on the occasion of the 2018 Kamran Djam Annual Lecture


Chair: Seyed Ali Alavi (SOAS)Organised by the Department of Near and Middle East Studies and the Department of Politics and International Studies in collaboration with the Centre for Iranian Studies

01 Feb Film Screening + Q&A: Taq Kasra - Wonder of ArchitectureDirected by Pejman Akbarzadeh

19 Feb Kamran Djam Annual Lecture at SOAS: Scientific Tropes in Modern Iranian Politics: Jinns to Germs Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi (University of Toronto)Chair: Hassan Hakimian (LMEI, SOAS)

20 Feb Kamran Djam Annual Lecture at SOAS: Scientific Tropes in Modern Iranian Politics: Engineering Governmentality Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi (University of Toronto)

21 Feb Rights Governmentality in Post-World War II Iran Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi (University of Toronto)Chair: Nima Mina (SOAS)Organised by theDepartment of Near and Middle East Studies and the Department of Politics and International Studies in collaboration with the Centre for Iranian Studies

20 Apr Film Screening: ‘Ebrahim Golestan, Noghteh, Sare Khat’ A New Documentary on Ebrahim Golestan by Mohammad AbdiChair: Saeed Zeydabadi-Nejad (SOAS)

25 Apr Sexual Politics through Law in Iran: The Narrative Surrounding the 2013 Bills Anicee van Engeland (Centre for International Security and Resilience (CISR), Cranfield University)Chair: Nima Mina (SOAS)Organised by theDepartment of Near and Middle East Studies and the Department of Politics and International Studies in collaboration with the Centre for Iranian Studies

Centre for Iranian Studies (CIS) Events 14 Sep The Circulation of Contemporary Iranian

Literature Houshang Moradi Kermani (writer), Ahmad Dehghan (writer), Afshin Shahneh Tabar (publisher of Candle & Fog) and the American translators Caroline Croskery and Paul SprachmanModerator: Laetitia Nanquette (University of New South Wales, Sydney)

01 Nov Iran after the Nuclear Deal: the Role of Economic, Religious and Political Actors and the Potential Normalisation of Relations with its Regional NeighbourhoodClément Therme (International Institute for Strategic Studies, Middle East Office, Manama, Kingdom of Bahrain)Organised by the Department of Near and Middle East Studies and the Department of Politics and International Studies in collaboration with the Centre for Iranian Studies

18-19 Nov The Idea of Iran: The Turko-Timurid IntermezzoOrganised by the Centre for Iranian Studies, the Department of History, Religions and Philosophies, SOAS and the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of CambridgeSponsored by the Soudavar Memorial Foundation

22 Nov Mohammad Ali Foroughi and the Foundations of Iranian AufklärungRamin Jahanbegloo (Jindal Global University, India)Organised by the Department of Near and Middle East Studies and the Department of Politics and International Studies in collaboration with the Centre for Iranian Studies

06 Dec The Future of the Iran Nuclear Accord (JCPOA) under the Trump AdministrationBahram Ghiassee (University of Surrey)Organised by the Department of Near and Middle East Studies and the Department of Politics and International Studies in collaboration with the Centre for Iranian Studies

10 Jan An Encounter with Siavash ArdalanSiavash Ardalan, journalistOrganised by the Department of Near and Middle East Studies and the Department of Politics and International Studies in collaboration with the Centre for Iranian Studies

24 Jan Reviving Identity: An Investigation of Identity in Iranian Artworks in the period 1958-1966 in relation to a Contemporary Fine Art PracticeFatemeh Takht Keshian

Dr Vesta Sarkhosh-Curtis (British Museum) and Pejman Akbarzadeh (Director), Taq Kasra: Wonder of Architecture, 1 February 2018. Photo: Persian Dutch Network


Centre for Palestine Studies


1917 was the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, a public statement issued by the British government during the First World War announcing support for the establishment of a ‘national home for the Jewish people’ in Palestine, an anniversary that understandably shaped many of the Centre for Palestine Studies activities in 1917/18. Key among these was the ‘The Balfour Declaration, One Century After’ panel discussion on the 26 October 2017. CPS Chair and Professor of Development Studies at SOAS Gilbert Achcar spoke on the theme of ‘Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the Balfour Declaration’, Avi Shlaim, Emeritus Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford spoke about ‘Britain and Palestine: Promises and Betrayals’, Jacob Norris, Lecturer in Middle Eastern History at the University of Sussex, discussed ‘Imperialist Visions of Jews and Arabs in the Balfour Declaration’ and Karma Nabulsi of the University of Oxford reviewed the effects of the declaration ‘Balfour: A Century of Palestinian and International Resistance against Injustice and Imperialism’. The evening was chaired by Dr Dina Matar.

The panel discussion was timed to coincide with an exhibition ‘Memory Metamorphosis’ held from the 25 October to the 30 November in the Wolfson Gallery of SOAS Library. This exhibition, developed at the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies at New York University and brought to SOAS as a result of a collaboration with NYU-London and the Centre for Palestine Studies, sought to showcase efforts to explore and preserve Palestinian diasporic memory through art, ‘when a people’s history, culture and existence are being altered or erased, holding onto memories and passing them down can be an act of resistance’. The exhibition was concluded with a panel discussion on the 23 November with a conversation on Palestine, art and memory with co-curators and contributing artists Jacqueline Reem Salloum and Suhel Nafar and a response to the exhibition by Rafeef Ziadah and Hazem Jamjoum.

The Centre’s keynote event, its prestigious annual lecture, was held on 2 May when Elias Khoury, the Lebanese novelist, playwright, critic and prominent public intellectual, spoke about ‘The Nakba in the Present’. If

2017 was the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, 2018 marked two competing 70th anniversaries – that of the creation of the state of Israel and that of the Palestinian Nakba. Through an analysis of the following themes Khory identified the ongoing effects of what was initiated in 1948: the Nakba as ethnic cleansing, and how it has been depicted in Israeli and Palestinian literatures; the Nakba as a settler-colonial process that is still ongoing; the error in comparing the Nakba to the Holocaust and Edward Said’s concept of ‘the victims of the victims’, and the Nakba as an open book. His lecture was introduced by Professor Wen-chin Ouyang, SOAS Professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature, who paid tribute to Khory’s literary achievements.

For the sixth year running, CPS hosted a one-day research seminar series aimed at providing a platform for PhD students working on Palestine or Palestine-related issues to present their projects and discuss theoretical and research issues. Students from the universities of Cardiff and Exeter, LSE, Sciences Po, Paris and UCL joined SOAS students to give presentations on their research topics. The seminar, held on the 2 February, was convened by Dina Matar and Rafeef Ziadeh. 2017/18 saw the publication of the fourth volume in the SOAS Palestine Studies Series, Representing Palestine; Media and Journalism in Australia since World War 1, by Peter Manning. The publication series is a key element of CPS’s research strategy; authors working on Palestine are welcome to submit their manuscripts for publication in the series.

Professor Gilbert Achcar stepped down as CPS Chair at the end of the academic year having served the maximum of two consecutive three-year terms. We are very grateful to him for all he has done to establish the Centre in that time and look forward to working with the new Chair, Dr Dina Matar.

Elias Khoury, Centre for Palestine Studies Annual Lecture: The Nakba in the Present, 2 May 2018


Centre for Palestine Studies (CPS) Events

University), Jacqueline Reem Salloum (artist), Suhel Nafar (artist)Cosponsored by the Hagop Kevorkian Center at New York University with NYU London and the Centre for Palestine Studies

02 Feb Annual Palestine Research SeminarDaniel Marwecki (SOAS), Anne Irfan (LSE), Sarah Daoud (Science Po, Paris), Hanin abu Salim (Cardiff University), Rafeef Ziadeh (SOAS), Haneen Na’amneh (LSE), Caitlin Procter (Oxford), Tom Brocket (UCL), Julio Moreno Cirujano (SOAS), Kanwal Abdul-Hameed (Exeter University), Dina Matar (SOAS)Organised by Centre for Palestine Studies and Centre Global Media and Communications

02 May Centre for Palestine Studies Annual Lecture: The Nakba in the PresentElias KhouryPresentation of Elias Khoury’s literary achievements: Wen-chin Ouyang (SOAS)Chair: Gilbert Achcar (SOAS)

10 May The ICC and Israel/Palestine: A Case of Overdetermining the Role of International Criminal Justice?Valentina Azarova (Manchester International Law Centre, The University of Manchester) and Triestino Mariniello (Edge Hill University)Chair: Brenna Bhandar (SOAS)

25 Oct- Memory Metamorphosis 30 Nov Artists: Mohammed Al Hawajri, Marguerite

Dabaie, Tanya Habjouqa, Omnia Hegazy, Suhel Nafar, Jacqueline Reem Salloum, Dina MattarOrganised by NYU-London and the Centre for Palestine Studies

26 Oct The Balfour Declaration, One Century AfterGilbert Achcar (SOAS), Avi Shlaim (University of Oxford), Jacob Norris (University of Sussex), Karma Nabulsi (University of Oxford)Chair: Dina Matar (SOAS)

01 Nov Palestine: A Century of Colonialism and ResistanceRabab Abdulhadi (San Francisco State University)Chair: Gilbert Achcar (SOAS)

20 Nov Film Screening: From Balfour to Banksy: Visions and Divisions in PalestineChair: Dina Matar (SOAS)

23 Nov Memory Metamorphosis: An Exhibition on Palestine RememberedRafeef Ziadah (SOAS), Hazem Jamjoum (Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, New York

Memory Metamorphosis: An Exhibition on Palestine Remembered, 23 November 2017. From the left: Hazem Jamjoum (Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies, New York University), Rafeef Ziadah (SOAS), Jacqueline Reem Salloum (artist), Suhel Nafar (artist)


Publications


The Middle East in London – the LMEI’s bimonthly magazine – began 2018 with an issue on Tunisia, which focussed on the state of affairs in the country seven years after the first of the Arab uprisings began. The subject of the February/March issue was Palestine. Two months prior to that President Donald Trump announced that the US would be moving its embassy to Jerusalem. The issue covered the reaction to this announcement and the shifting Middle East alliances that could shape the Palestinian struggles. It also examined tension at the heart of Israel being a ‘Jewish and democratic’ state. The April/May issue focussed on Egypt, just as El-Sissi secured his second term in office. The following issue (June/July) was devoted to China and the Middle East and was produced in partnership with SOAS’s China Institute. Articles examined China’s historical involvement in the Middle East and its regional pragmatism (as well as how this might be changing now, given the shifting stance of the US), and the cultural exchanges that took place along the Silk Roads. The next issue for the autumn will spotlight Iran.

This year the magazine bid a warm farewell to Professor Nadje Al-Ali (SOAS), who has contributed so much to MEL over many years.

Three new members have joined the Editorial Board: Dr Orkideh Behrouzan, a medical anthropologist at SOAS, who specialises in interdisciplinary approaches to mental health in the Middle East; Dr Ceyda Karamursel, also at SOAS, whose work explores slavery and meanings of freedom in the Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic; and Margaret Obank, founder and publisher of Banipal, a literary magazine that publishes contemporary Arabic literature in English translation.

PDF versions of past issues of the magazine are regularly uploaded to our webpages and are free to access and download: https://www.soas.ac.uk/lmei/meil/

The magazine’s sixth annual photo competition is currently underway. In keeping with past practice, we expect to announce the winner in the December 2018/January 2019 issue.

The Middle East in London (MEL)

Volume 14 - Number 1December 2017 – January 2018

£4

THIS ISSUETHIS ISSUE:: TUNISIATUNISIA

Volume 13 - Number 5October–November 2017

£4

THIS ISSUETHIS ISSUE:: SECULARISMSECULARISM

Volume 14 - Number 2February – March 2018

£4

THIS ISSUETHIS ISSUE:: PALESTINEPALESTINE


The Coming of the Mongols

Editorial Board of The Middle East in London

Dr Orkideh Behrouzan, SOASDr Hadi Enayat, Aga Khan University (International) Institute for the Study of Muslim CivilisationsMs Narguess Farzad, SOASMs Nevsal Hughes, Association of European JournalistsDr George Joffé, Cambridge University

Dr Ceyda Karamursel, SOASMrs Margaret Obank, BanipalMs Janet Rady, Janet Rady Fine ArtMr Barnaby RogersonDr Sarah Stewart, SOASDr Shelagh WeirProf. Sami Zubaida, Birkbeck College

Volume 14 - Number 3April – May 2018

£4

THIS ISSUE: EGYPT What to expect from El-Sisi’s second term? The January 25th Revolution as liminal crisis Setting the platform for Egypt’s next economic crisis Egypt is failing its people Workers and military entrepreneurs in neoliberal Egypt The Muslim Brotherhood in El-Sisi’s prisons Giulio Regeni’s murder Psychoanalysis, criminality and the law in post-WWII Egypt PLUS Reviews and events in London

Volume 14 - Number 4June – July 2018

£4

THIS ISSUETHIS ISSUE:: China and the Middle EastChina and the Middle East

Editors: David O. Morgan and Sarah StewartPublished by I.B. Tauris

The seventh volume in The Idea of Iran series. This is the Mongol invasions in the first half of the thirteenth century led to profound and shattering changes to the historical trajectory of Islamic West Asia, sudden conquest from the east was preceded by events closer to home which laid the groundwork for the later Mongol success. In the mid-twelfth century the Seljuq empire rapidly unravelled, its vast provinces fragmenting into a patchwork of mostly short-lived principalities and kingdoms. In time, new powers emerged, such as the pagan Qara-Khitai in Central Asia; the Khwarazmshahs in Khwarazm, Khorosan and much of central Iran; and the Ghurids to the southeast. Yet all were blown away by the Mongols. Distinguished scholars including David O Morgan and the late C E Bosworth discuss the dynasties that preceded the invasion - and aspects of their literature, poetry and science - as well as the conquerors themselves and their rule in Iran from 1219 to 1256.


The Routledge Political Economy of the Middle East and North Africa Series

Series Editor: Hassan Hakimian, LMEIPublished by Routledge

The aim of the Series is to publish both specialist and more general titles pertaining to the political economy of the Middle East and North Africa region – broadly defined as including countries from Morocco to Iran. The Series is overseen by an international Editorial Board (see list below) whose members possess a broad range of expertise and areas of specialism.

Launched in 2003, the Routledge Political Economy of the Middle East and North Africa Series is devoted

to widening in-depth analysis and understanding of the economic and political dynamics of the region. It has been established as a respected source of academic research and publication for MENA students and scholars who are keen to disseminate their latest research on this area.

Submissions from prospective authors are welcomed, and should be sent in the first instance to the series editor ([email protected]). The series is open to single-authored books as well as edited volumes and textbooks. All manuscripts are subject to international standards of peer review.

Editorial Board of The Routledge Political Economy of the Middle East and North Africa

Prof. David Cobham, Heriot Watt UniversityProf. Nu’man Kanafani, University of CopenhagenProf. Massoud Karshenas, SOAS Prof. Jeffrey B. Nugent, University of Southern CaliforniaProf. Jennifer Olmsted, Drew University, New Jersey Prof. Karen Pfeifer, Smith College, Northampton, MassachusettsProf. Wassim Shahin, Lebanese American University (LAU)Prof. Sübidey Togan, Centre for International Economics at Bilkent UniversityProf. Jackline Wahba, University of Southampton

www.routledge.com/Routledge-Political-Economy-of-the-Middle-East-and-North-Africa/book-series/SE0387

Palestinian Citizens of Israel: Power, Resistance and the Struggle for SpaceSharri Plonski

In the third book in the SOAS Palestine Studies series with I.B. Tauris Sharri Plonski looks at Palestinian communities living inside the Jewish state and their attempts to disrupt and reshape the physical and abstract boundaries that contain them. Through extensive fieldwork and numerous interviews, Plonski conducts a comparative analysis of resistance movements anchored in three key sites of the Palestinian experience: the defence of housing rights in Jaffa; the protest against settlement in the Galilee region; and the campaign for Bedouin land rights in the Naqab desert. Her research investigates the dialectical relationship between power and resistance as it relates to socio-spatial segregation and the struggle for national recognition. Plonski’s examination of Palestinian activism and transgression offers valuable insight into the structures and reaches of power from within the Israeli state.

www.ibtauris.com/series/soas%20palestine%20studies

The SOAS Palestine Studies Book Series with I.B. Tauris

Research Associates


Alanoud Al-Sharekh

George Joffé

London Middle East Institute

Alanoud Al-Sharekh conducts research on socio-political, cultural and security issues in the Arabian Gulf, and is a board member of several academic and non-governmental organizations, as well as directing the Abolish153 campaign to end honour killing legislation in Kuwait and the GCC, and the ‘Friends who Care’ project for young girls (under 21) at risk within Kuwait’s social care system. She has been Consultant Researcher on gender and citizenship at the Supreme Council for Development and Planning in Kuwait, Senior Fellow at the International Institute of Strategic Studies, Senior Political Analyst at the Kuwait National Security Bureau and a gender politics consultant for UNIFEM, Freedom House and the UNDP on academic and social outreach projects in Kuwait and the GCC. She has published several books and articles on gender and kinship policies in the GCC and her work won the Arab Prize for best publication in a foreign journal for 2013-2014, and the Voices of Success Kuwait Award in 2012.

George Joffé teaches at the University of Cambridge on the international relations of the Middle East and North Africa and on political theory and North Africa at King’s College, London University. Dr Joffé has been engaged in research and teaching on these regions since 1978 and has published widely on them in academic journals and books as well as editing six books on these and similar subjects. He provides briefings on states in the region for the LMEI and is a member of the Editorial Board of the LMEI’s The Middle East in London magazine. He was formerly deputy-director and acting-director of the Royal Institute of Interntaional Affairs (Chatham House).

Hamid Keshmirshekan

Hamid Keshmirshekan is an art historian, critic and Senior Teaching Fellow at the Department of History of Art and Archaeology, School of Arts, SOAS. He was previously Senior Lecturer at the Advanced Research Institute of Art (ARIA), Iranian Academy of Arts (2013-17) and Associate Fellow at the KRC, Faculty of Oriental Studies and History of Art Department at Oxford University (2004-12). His interests are twentieth and twentieth-first century art from the Middle East, with particular attention to the recent developments in art practice and its relation to the context. Dr Keshmirshekan has taught art history and criticism in British and Iranian universities and has organised several international conferences and events on aspects of modern and contemporary art from Iran and the Middle East, and has contributed extensively to various publications. His latest publications include Contemporary Visual and Performing Arts: An Anthology of Hamid Dabashi’s Essays, edited with an Introduction by Hamid Keshmirshekan (2019), ‘Standardisation and the Question of Identity: On the Dominant Discourses on Contemporary Middle Eastern Art’ (2015), Contemporary Art from the Middle East: Regional Interactions with Global Art Discourses (ed.) (2015), Hunar-i mu’asir-i iran, risheh-ha va nazar-gah-hay-i nuvin (2015), ‘Reclaiming Cultural Space: Artist’s Performativity versus State’s Expectations in Contemporary Iran’ (2013).


Corinna Mullin

Dr Corinna Mullin has been based for the past five years at the University of Tunis, as a Visiting Assistant Professor in International Politics. In the fall of 2017, she will be joining the Political Science Department at John Jay College, The City University of New York. Her research interests include genealogies and political economy of “national security”, anti-/post-/de-colonial theories and struggles, empire, knowledge production, and critical race theory, with a focus on North Africa and West Asia. Prior to moving to Tunisia, Dr. Mullin was a lecturer in Comparative Politics of the Middle East at SOAS. She is a Research Associate at the LMEI, where she has taught the Government and Politics of the Middle East summer course for the past five years.

Hamid Pouran

Before joining the LMEI as a research associate, Hamid Pouran was Iran Heritage Foundation (IHF) Visiting Fellow in Iran’s Environmental Sustainability at the LMEI’s Centre for Iranian Studies and senior research associate at Lancaster University. He was part of the Transatlantic Initiative for Nanotechnology and the Environment (TINE), an international scientific consortium of UK and US universities to better understand fate and behavior of nanomaterials in the environment. Hamid was the convener of SOAS Centenary Conference, Environmental Challenges in the Middle East and North Africa. He was also scientific consultant for a BBC World documentary called Dust Storms. This documentary had major inputs from NASA, USGS and UNEP. He was also guest visiting scholar at Princeton University in 2017.

Helen Lackner

Helen Lackner worked as a consultant in social aspects of rural development for four decades in over thirty countries, mostly in the Middle East, Africa and Europe. She has been involved in Yemen since the early 1970s where she lived in all three Yemeni states for over 15 years. She now focuses on analysis and writing, trying to promote commitment to equitable development and peace in Yemen. Her most recent publications include Yemen’s Peaceful Transition from Autocracy: could it have succeeded? (International IDEA 2016) and Understanding the Yemeni Crisis: the transformation of tribal roles in recent decades (Durham, Luce Fellowship Paper 17, 2016). She is currently working on Yemen in Crisis: the role of neoliberalism and autocracy to be published by Saqi in 2017.

Sharri Plonski

Dr Sharri Plonski is a lecturer at the School of Politics and International Relations at Queen Mary, University of London. Her research sits at the nexus of critical political geography, border spaces and community struggles in Israel/Palestine, with her current projects range from investigations into the ontology of global transport corridors, political settlements in borderland contexts and (settler) colonial relations in the Middle East. Dr Plonski’s first book was published in 2017 as part of the new SOAS Palestine Studies Book Series with I.B. Tauris, under the title Palestinian Citizens of Israel: Power, Resistance and the Struggle for Space.


Sami ZubaidaTom Selwyn

Tom Selwyn is a Professorial Research Associate at the Department of Anthropology and Sociology and the London Middle East Institute. He was awarded an Emeritus Professorial Research Fellowship by the Leverhulme Foundation in 2014. He is widely published in the field of the anthropology of tourism/pilgrimage with regional interests in Palestine/Israel and Bosnia-Herzegovina. He directed/co-directed four major research and development projects in Palestine and Bosnia-Herzegovina for the European Commission between 1995-2005; founded the MA in the Anthropology of Travel, Tourism, and Pilgrimage at SOAS in 2010; and was awarded the Lucy Mair medal by the Royal Anthropological Institute in 2009. Recent publications include “The Future of Palestinian Tourism” in Isaac,R., CM Hall, F. Higgins-Desbiolles (eds), 2016, Power and Politics of Tourism in Palestine, London, Routledge; “Tourism and Sight Prevention” in Andrews, H.(ed) 2016, Tourism and Violence, London, Routledge. “The Rise and Fall of Orientalism in Travel, Tourism, and Pilgrimage: Report from Palestine/Israel”, Tourism, Culture, and Communication, 17, 2017.

Sami Zubaida is Emeritus Professor of Politics and Sociology at Birkbeck, University of London and has held visiting positions in Cairo, Istanbul, Beirut, Aix-en-Provence, Berkeley CA, Paris and New York. His research interests include Middle East Politics, Religion and Law, Nationalism, Food and Culture. Professor Zubaida is a regular contributor to the LMEI’s The Middle East in London magazine and has published extensively on the Middle East, most recently an article in openDemocracy on Islam and Reform. He is also a Professorial Research Associate of the Food Studies Centre, SOAS and has published widely on food and culinary cultures including ‘Drink, meals and social boundaries’, in Jakob A. Klein and Anne Murcott (eds), Food Consumption in Global Perspective: Essays in the Anthropology of Food in Honour of Jack Goody (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) and A Taste of Thyme: Culinary Cultures of the Middle East (ed. with Richard Tapper, Tauris Parke, 2001).

Professorial Research Associates

John Waterbury

John Waterbury became the 14th President of the American University of Beirut in January 1998 and retired from the presidency in July 2008. Before joining AUB, Dr Waterbury was, for twenty years, Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. Dr Waterbury has published widely on the political economy of the MENA region, most recently in The Political Economy of the Middle East, co-authored with Alan Richards. He has also focused since the 1970s on issues of transboundary water resources and the collective action problems that they entail. In 1979 Syracuse University Press published his The Hydropolitics of the Nile Valley, and in 2003 Yale University Press published the sequel, The Nile Basin: National Determinants of Collective Action.


Summer School


The LMEI held its sixth Middle East Summer School in 2018 which included courses in Beginners Persian Language (at either introductory or intermediate levels), Beginners Arabic Language (at either introductory or intermediate levels), ‘Government and Politics of the Middle East’ and ‘Culture and Society in the Middle East’.

This year’s Summer School followed on from last year’s success with twenty-one students from both the UK and overseas taking part in the programme.

Comments from students included:

‘Excellent! Better than I expected. The subjects were exactly what I was looking for.’

‘I would rate the overall organisation, course content and quality of teaching as second to-none.’

‘10 out of 10. SS has been an excellent experience.’


PHD Theses on the Middle East


PHD Theses on the Middle East Completed at SOAS in 2017/18

NAME THESIS RESEARCH AREA

Anthropology Research

“They are Destroying the image of Egypt”: Tourism, Statecraft and Infrastructures of Image Making,

1990-2013

Karin Gerd Charlotta Ahlberg

Janan Al-Asady A Legal Analysis of Iraq’s Upstream Oil Industry Law Research

Jade Ann Al-Saraf A Contrastive Study of Loaned vs. Non-Loaned Lexicon in Iraqi Arabic

MPhil/PhD Linguistics (FT)

Seyed Ali Alavi Iran’s Relations with Palestine: Roots and Development

Politics Research

Law ResearchThe Regulatory Framework of the Real Estate Sector in the Arabian Gulf Countries

Ahmad Aldarbas

Elizabeth Anne Bennett MPhil/PhD Near and Middle East (FT)

A Study of Babylonian Scholarship Applied in the Exploration of the Meaning of Divine and

Sacred Names, as Particularly Exemplified in a Syncretistic Hymn to the Goddess Gula

Rebecca Elizabeth Bradshaw Beyond Identity: The Socio-Economic Impacts of Archaeology on a Non-Descendant

Community in Sudan

MPhil/PhD History of Art and Archaeology

(FT)

MPhil/PhD Religions (PT)

The Significance of the Iranian Constitutional Revolution (1906-1911) for Zoroastrians

in India and Iran

Alexandra Eleni Laura Buhler

Ayse Ebru Akcasu Non-Ottomans of Hamidian Istanbul: Exiles and Expatriates

MPhil/PhD Near and Middle East (FT)

Khairil Husaini Bin Jamil

Traditional Sunni Epistemology in the Scholarship of al-Hafiz al-Khatib al-Baghdadi (463AH/1071CE)

MPhil/PhD Near and Middle East (FT)

MPhil/PhD History (FT)

The Nature of Turkish Authoritarianism; 1930-1945Cihan Celik

Tareq Alrabei Cultural Literary and Postcolonial Studies

Research

Dynamics of Belonging in Bidun Literature

MPhil/PhD Development Studies

(FT)

The Defeat of Hebrew Labour? Neoliberalism, Settler Colonialism, and the Workers’

Movement in Israel

Simon Pierre Englert

MPhil/PhD Development Studies

(FT)

‘This Word, it is for Murle, not Meant for Other People’: The Politics of Murle Identity, Experiences of Violence and of the State in Boma, South Sudan

Diana Maria Felix Da Costa


MPhil/Phd Near and Middle East (PT)

Ash`arism meets Avicennism: Sayf al-Dīn al-Āmidī’s Doctrine of Creation

Laura Hassan

Christian James Vivian Henderson

The Gulf Arab States and Egypt’s Political Economy: Examining New Spaces of Food and Agribusiness

MPhil/PhD Development Studies (FT)

Laila Fathi Forgetting the Unforgivable: Amnesties Following the Algerian War of Independence (1962-2012)

Law Research

NAME THESIS RESEARCH AREA

MPhil/Phd History (FT)

Trade, Politics and Society in a Somali Port Town on the Gulf of Aden: Berbera, 1825-1884

Shane C. A. Marotta

Dominique Shane Oliver Transforming Lebanon MPhil/PhD Politics And International

Studies (FT)

Tahani Safa Ramadan Mustafa Transforming Security Landscapes: Security Sector Reform in the Occupied Palestinian Territories

MPhil/Phd Politics and International

Studies (FT)

Irene Fernandez Ramos Performing Immobility: The Individual-Collective Body and the Representation of Confined

Subjectivities in Contemporary Palestinian Theatre

MPhil/PhD Cultural, Literary and

Postcolonial Studies (PT)

Shamaila Sarwar An Analysis of the Life, Works and Practices of Abu Anees Muhammad Barkat Ali (d.1997)

and the Study of Sufism

Religious Studies Research

MPhil/PhD Media Studies (FT)

Subversive Techniques in Palestinian Films as Modes of Dissent

Zeina Asad A. Shanaah

Saba Tifooni A Crosslinguistic Investigation into the Foreign Language Learning of (Non) equivalent Emotion Words: The Case of Kuwaiti Learners of English

Linguistics Research

George William Warner Imagining Hujja: Proof and Representation in the Works of Al-Shaykh Al-Saduq

Religious Studies Research

Zenobia Sabrina Homan Comparative Palaeography of Mittani Mphil/Phd Near and Middle East (FT)

David Wearing Britain’s Relationship with the States of the Gulf Cooperation Council in the Post-Cold War era

MPhil/PhD Development Studies (FT)

Miyase Yavuz The Role of Ijtihad in Family Law Reforms of Modern Muslim-Majority States: A Case Study of Morocco

MPhil/PhD Law (FT)

Kim Jezabel Zinngrebe Defying the ‘Plan’: Intimate Politics among Palestinian Women in Israel

MPhil/PhD Gender Studies (FT)


Acknowledgements


In 2017/18, as in previous years, LMEI entertained ambitious plans for a wide variety of events, academic and cultural. It would have been impossible for the Institute’s small staff to have succeeded in staging all of these without the assistance of many helpers. Thanks must go to all the SOAS staff who have supported the LMEI over the year: the Conference Office, the Caterers, the AV and IT departments, SOAS photographer Glenn Ratcliffe, the Print Room, Post Room and Estates Department. Particular thanks are due to Jane Wood for her assistance with the Institute’s finances.


Financial Statement


Income

Donations Income from charitable activities: Grant income Training programmes and professional servicesConferences, events and publicationsAffiliations Income from other trading activities: Advertising Interest receivable Total Income Expenditure Expenditure on charitable activities:Training programmes and professional services Conferences, events and publications Affiliations Research Total Expenditure Net income/(expenditure)

Net movement in funds Reconciliation of funds Total funds brought forward

Total funds carried forward

The Statement of Financial Activities includes all gains and losses recognised in the year.All incoming resources and resources expended derive from continuing activities.

Statement of Financial Activities (including Income and Expenditure Account)for the year ended 31 July 2017

Balance Sheet as at 31 July 2017

Current AssetsDebtorsShort term depositsCash at bank and in hand

Creditors: Amounts Falling Due within One Year

Net Current Assets

Total funds of the charityUnrestricted income fundsRestricted income funds

Total charity funds

TotalFunds2016

£

20,75810,873

232,423

264,054

76,044

188,010

178,01010,000

188,010

TotalFunds2017

£

88,479-

218,458

306,937

92,600

214,337

204,33710,000

214.337

RestrictedFunds

£

--

10,000

10,000

-

10,000

-10,000

10,000

UnrestrictedFunds

£

88,479-

208,458

296,937

92,600

204,337

204,337-

204,337

The trustees have prepared group accounts in accordance with section 398 of the Companies Act 2006 and section 138 of the Charities Act 2011. These accounts are prepared in accordance with the special provisions of Part 15 of the Companies Act relating to small companies and constitute the annual accounts required by the Companies Act 2006 and are for circulation to members of the company.

Approved by the Board of Trustees and signed on its behalf by:

Baroness Valerie Amos 21 February 2018 Chair of Board of Trustees

TotalFunds2016

£

225,997

3,29563,10313,64916,063

713

33

322,853

85,701189,505

22,895

9,817

307,918

14,935

14,935

173,075

188,010

TotalFunds2017

£

185, 126

46,70579,53429,987

4,552

975

-

346,879

88,666209,750

22,136

-

320,552

26,327

26,327

188,010

214,337

RestrictedFunds

£

10,000

46,705---

-

-

56,705

6,90347,040

2,762

-

56,705

-

-

10,000

10,000

UnrestrictedFunds

£

175,126

-79,53429,987

4,552

975

-

290,174

81,763162,710

19,374

-

263,847

26,327

26,327

178,010

204,337


Directory of Academic Members


Department of Anthropology and Sociology

Dr Lori Allen, Senior Lecturer in Anthropology

Dr Orkideh Behrouzan, Director of Studies; MA Medical Anthropology

Dr Katharina Graf, Senior Teaching Fellow

Dr Caroline Osella, Reader in Anthropology with reference to South Asia

Dr Ruba Salih, Reader in Gender Studies Dr Gabriele vom Bruck, Senior Lecturer in the Social Anthropology of the Middle East

Brunei Gallery

Mr John Hollingworth, MBE AMA, Head of Galleries & Exhibitions

Department of the History of Art and Archaeology, School of Arts

Professor Doris Behrens-Abouseif, Emeritus Professor

Professor Anna Contadini, Professor of the History of Islamic Art, Head of Department, Director of the ‘Treasures of SOAS’ project

Dr Heather Elgood, MBE, Course Director of the Diploma in Asian Art

Dr Simon O’Meara, Lecturer in the History of Architecture & Archaeology of the Islamic Middle East

Professor Scott Redford, Nasser D Khalili Professor of Islamic Art and Archaeology

Dr Tanja Tolar, Senior Teaching Fellow

Dr Tania Tribe, Senior Lecturer in Art History

Department of Economics

Dr Hannah Bargawi, Senior Lecturer in Economics

Dr Hassan Hakimian, MBI Al Jaber Reader in Economics with reference to the Middle East

Professor Jane Harrigan, Professor of Economics; Research Coordinator

Professor Masood Karshenas, Professor of Economics

School of Finance and Management

Dr Ibrahim Abosag, Senior Lecturer in Marketing

Professor Tony Allan, Professorial Research Associate

Dr Senija Causevic, Lecturer in Marketing

Professor Bassam Fattouh, Professor in Finance and Management for the Middle East

Mr Adel Hamaizia, Senior Teaching Fellow

Dr Sahar Rad, Lecturer in International Management (MENA)

Centre for Gender Studies

Professor Nadje Al-Ali, Centre Chair

Department of Development StudiesProfessor Gilbert Achcar, Professor of Development Studies and International Relations

Dr Adam Hanieh, Reader in Development Studies

Professor Deniz Kandiyoti, Emeritus Professor in Development Studies

Dr Thomas Marois, Senior Lecturer in Development Studies

Dr Veli Yadirgi, Teaching Fellow, Post-Doctoral Research Associate

Department of History, School of History, Religions & Philosophies

Dr Michael Brett, Emeritus Reader

Professor William Gervase Clarence-Smith, Professor of the Economic History of Asia and Africa

Professor G R Hawting, Emeritus Professor

Dr Ceyda Karamursel, Lecturer in the Department of History

Dr George Lane, Senior Teaching Fellow in the History of the Middle East and Central Asia

Dr Derek Mancini-Lander, Lecturer in the History of Iran

Dr Marina Pyrovolaki, Senior Teaching Fellow

Dr Ayman Shihadeh, Reader in Arabic Intellectual History

Dr Mark Weeden, Senior Lecturer in Ancient Near Eastern Studies

Dr Philipp Wirtz, Senior Teaching Fellow


Near and Middle East Section, School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics

Professor Muhammad A S Abdel Haleem, OBE, King Fahd Professor of Islamic Studies

Ms Ayse Berna Akca, Teaching Fellow in Turkish

Mr Ahmad Alkhashem, Senior Lector in Arabic

Professor Abdul Hakim Ibrahim Al-Matroudi, Visting Professor in Arabic (Islamic Law)

Dr Keya Anjaria, Senior Teaching Fellow in Turkish

Dr Helen Blatherwick, Teaching Fellow in Arabic

Ms Maha Collinson, Senior Lector in Arabic

Dr Yorgos Dedes, Senior Lecturer in Turkish

Dr Tamar Drukker, Senior Lector in Hebrew

Dr Ayman El-Desouky, Senior Lecturer in Arabic and Comparative Literature

Dr Nada Elzeer, Senior Lector in Arabic

Dr Hannah Erlwein, Senior Teaching Fellow

Ms Narguess Farzad, Senior Fellow in Persian

Ms Mona Hammad, Senior Lector in Arabic

Dr Marlé Hammond, Senior Lecturer in Arabic Popular Literature and Culture

Professor Hugh N Kennedy, Professor of Arabic

Dr Karima Laachir, Senior Lecturer in Literary & Cultural Studies

Mr Fadi Bassam Mansour, Senior Teaching Fellow

Mr Gamon McLellan, Teaching Fellow in Turkish

Dr Nima Mina, Senior Lecturer in Persian and Iranian Studies

Ms Shabnam Mirafzali, Teaching Fellow in Persian

Mr Wael Odeh, Senior Teaching Fellow in Arabic

Professor Wen-chin Ouyang, Professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature

Mr Mohamed I Said, Principal Lector in Arabic

Mr Muaadh Salih, Principal Teaching Fellow and Arabic Project Co-ordinator

Dr Mustafa Shah, Senior Lecturer in Islamic Studies

Professor Colin Shindler, Pears Senior Research Fellow in Israel Studies

Ms Savitri Sperl, Teaching Fellow in Arabic

Dr Stefan Sperl, Professor of Arabic and Middle Eastern Studies

Dr Yair Wallach, Pears Lecturer in Israeli Studies

Dr Katherine Zebiri, Senior Lecturer in Arabic

School of Law

Dr Lolwa Alfadhel, Senior Teaching Fellow

Professor Mashood Baderin, Professor of Law

Dr Brenna Bhandar, Senior Lecturer in Law

Mr Ian D Edge, Lecturer in Law

Dr Jonathan Ercanbrack, Lecturer in the Law of Islamic Finance

Mr Nicholas H D Foster, Senior Lecturer in Commercial Law

Dr Vanja Hamzic, Senior Lecturer in Legal History and Legal Anthropology

Professor Martin W Lau, Professor of South Asian Law

Dr Makeen F Makeen, Senior Lecturer in Commercial Law

Dr Scott Newton, Reader in Laws of Central Asia

Dr Nimer Sultany, Senior Lecturer in Public Law

Professor Lynn Welchman, Professor of Law with particular reference to the Middle East and North Africa

Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy (CISD)Dr Dan Plesch, Director of CISD and Reader

SOAS Language CentreSaliha Fellache, Lecturer in Arabic

Library and Information Services (LIS)

Ms Dominique Akhoun-Schwarb, Subject Librarian (Middle East & Central Asia)

Mr Burzine K Waghmar, Senior Library Assistant (Acquisitions and Bibliographic Services)


Department of Linguistics, School of Languages, Cultures and Linguistics

Professor Peter Austin, Marit Rausing Chair in Field Linguistics

Dr Monik Charette, Senior Lecturer in Linguistics

Professor Bruce Ingham, Emeritus Professor of Arabic Dialect Studies

Dr Christopher Lucas, Senior Lecturer in Arabic Linguistics

Dr Kirsty Rowan, Senior Teaching Fellow

Dr Mandana Seyfeddinipur, Director, Endangered Languages Documentation Programme

Centre for Global Media and Communications

Dr Dina Matar, Senior Lecturer in Arab Media and Political Communication

Professor Annabelle Sreberny, Emeritus Professor

Dr Saeed Zeydabadi-Nejad, Senior Teaching Fellow

Department of Music

Dr Ilana Webster-Kogen, Joe Loss Lecturer in Jewish Music

Professor Owen Wright, Emeritus Professor of Musicology of the Middle East

Department of Politics and International Studies

Department of Religions and Philosophies, School of History, Religions and Philosophies

Professor Andrew R George, Professor of Babylonian

Professor Catherine Hezser, Professor of Jewish Studies

Professor Almut Hintze, Zartoshty Brothers Professor of Zoroastrianism

Dr Erica Hunter, Senior Lecturer in Eastern Christianity

Dr Mikael Oez, Senior Teaching Fellow

Professor Nicholas Sims-Williams, Emeritus Professor of Iranian and Central Asian Studies

Dr Sarah Stewart, Lecturer in Zoroastrianism

Professor Cosimo Zene, Professor in the Study of Religions and World Philosophies

Dr Reem Abou-El-Fadl, Lecturer in Comparative Politics of the Middle East

Dr Fiona Adamson, Reader in International Relations

Professor Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, Professor of Global Thought and Comparative Philosophies

Dr Bhavna Davé, Senior Lecturer in Politics of Central Asia

Professor William Hale, Emeritus Professor in the Department of Politics and International Studies

Professor Stephen Hopgood, Professor of International Relations

Professor Salwa Ismail, Professor of Politics with reference to the Middle East

Professor Laleh Khalili, Professor of Middle East Politics

Dr Hagar Kotef, Senior Lecturer of Political Theory and Comparative Politics

Dr Mark Laffey, Senior Lecturer in International Politics

Dr Matthew J Nelson, Reader in Politics

Dr Kerem Nisancioglu, Lecturer in International Relations

Dr Moriel Ram, Teaching Fellow

Dr Dara Salam, Teaching Fellow

Dr Shirin Shafaie, Teaching Fellow

Professor Charles Tripp, Professor of Politics with reference to the Middle East

Dr Leslie Vinjamuri, Senior Lecturer in International Relations

Dr Elian Weizman, Lecturer in Middle East Politics

Dr Rafeef Ziadah, Lecturer in Comparative Politics of the Middle East

Sir Joseph Hotung Programme for Law, Human Rights and Peace Building in the Middle East

Professor Iain Scobbie, Sir Joseph Hotung Research Professor in Law, Human Rights and Peace Building in the Middle East

CENTRE FOR IRANIAN STUDIES – SCHOLARSHIPSSOAS, University of London, is pleased to announce the availability of several scholarships in its Centre for Iranian Studies (CIS).

The Centre, established in 2010, draws upon the range of academic research and teaching across the disciplines of SOAS, including Languages and Literature, the Study of Religions, History, Economics, Politics, International Relations, Music, Art and Media and Film Studies. It aims to build close relations with likeminded institutions and to showcase and foster the best of contemporary Iranian talent in art and culture.

MA in Iranian Studies

CISlaunc interdisciplinary MA in Iranian Studies, which will be off ered

Thanks to the generosity of the Fereydoun Djam Charitable Trust, a number of Kamran Djam scholarships are available for BA, MA and MPhil/PhD studies.

For further details, please contact:

Scholarships Offi cer E: [email protected]: +44 (0)20 7074 5091/ 5094W: www.soas.ac.uk/scholarships

Centre for Iranian StudiesDr Arshin Adib-Moghaddam (Chair) E: [email protected] T: +44 (0)20 7898 4747 W: www.soas.ac.uk/lmei-cis

MA in Iranian StudiesDr Nima Mina (Department of the Languages and Culture of the Middle East) E: [email protected] T: +44 (0)20 7898 4315 W: www.soas.ac.uk/nme/programmes/ma-in-iranian-studies

Student RecruitmentT: +44(0)20 7898 4034E: [email protected]

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For details of the Institute’s activities, including lecture programmes, conferences andpublications, and information on how to become an affiliate of the LMEI please contact:

London Middle East Institute, SOAS University of London,MBI Al Jaber Building, 21 Russell Square, London WC1B 5EA

Tel: 020 7898 4330 Email: [email protected] Website: http://www.soas.ac.uk/lmei/

London Middle East Institute at SOAS · the form of bespoke briefing programmes, our Middle East...

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