VENUE
Second Floor Common Room
The Heyman Center
Columbia University
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The symposium brings together scholars working across and beyond Middle East and North Africa studies to explore how discursive fields are constituted, and to ask what becomes possible when we read across and against established disciplinary and regional boundaries. Rather than simply juxtaposing area studies frameworks (e.g., Syria or Palestine), we aim to theorize “the regional” anew. This conversation began as an exchange around Syro-Palestine, reflecting on how regional fields—particularly those of Lebanon, Turkey, Tunisia, and Algeria—have been positioned in relation to the Question of Palestine. This positioning has tended to circumscribe the terrain of inquiry, foreclosing other narratives, epistemologies, and questions. Our symposium aims to explore a conceptual vocabulary that resists colonial inheritances and disciplinary segmentation, and that reimagines scholarly methods through forms of relation not yet captured by dominant frameworks.
The two-day program includes a Thursday evening keynote panel featuring four speakers, open to the public and the Columbia community, followed by three closed-door sessions on Friday with a cohort of invited scholars.
SYMPOSIUM CO-ORGANIZERS
Esmat Elhalaby, Assistant Professor in History, University of Toronto
Iheb Guermazi, The Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities at Columbia University
Aamer Ibraheem, Assistant Professor in Anthropology, and a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, University of California, Davis & The Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities at Columbia University.
Adrien Zakar, Assistant Professor of Middle East Studies and the History of Science and Technology, University of Toronto.
This symposium is organized by The Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities and co-sponsored by Center for Palestine Studies, Middle East Institute, and the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies.
CONTACT sofheyman@columbia.edu
THURSDAY PUBLIC KEYNOTE PANEL
Nadia Abu El-Haj
Professor of Anthropology
Columbia University & Barnard College
Khaled Furani
Professor of Anthropology
Tel Aviv University
Ussama Makdisi
Professor of History
University of California, Berkeley
Helga Tawil-Souri
Associate Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication
New York University
FRIDAY ROUNDTABLE
(closed to the public)
Ilham Khuri-Makdisi
Associate Professor of History
Northeastern University
Fadi A Bardawil
Associate Professor of Contemporary Arab Cultures
Duke University
Seda Altuğ
Independent Scholar
Reem Bailony
Associate Professor in History
Agnes Scott College
Youssef Ben Ismail
Assistant Professor of Law, Jurisprudence, and Social Thought
Amherst College
Margaux Fitoussi
Assistant Professor in Anthropology
University of California, Irvine
Idriss Jebari
Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication and Media Studies
Trinity College, Dublin
Saphe Shamoun
PhD Candidate in Anthropology
Columbia University
FRIDAY MODERATORS / DISCUSSANTS
Julia Elyachar
Associate Professor in Anthropology
Princeton University
Marwa Elshakry
Professor in History
Columbia University