Middle East Strategy at Harvard

From Mark T. Clark

On October 22-24, 2009, the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA) held its second annual conference, entitled “The Middle East and Africa: Historic Connections and Strategic Bridges.” At the welcoming reception on the first night, Vice President Peter Pham announced the creation of the new, refereed journal, The Journal of the Middle East and Africa, to be released early in 2010. The subjects for the journal—as a reflection of the unique approach of the association—will fall within a broad range of geography, encourage multi- and inter-disciplinary perspectives, and will not shy away from offering scholarship that will have policy-relevance as well as academic merit. As much as we value high quality scholarship at ASMEA, we also believe it is imperative to share such scholarship with elements of the government—and anyone else for that matter—who seek a deeper understanding of the issues in our regions.

ASMEA has made tremendous strides in just two years from its founding. For its first annual conference, it had 19 presentations, two roundtables, and a keynote speech by the association’s co-founder, Bernard Lewis. Lewis and Fouad Ajami co-founded ASMEA to defend free inquiry, expand the boundaries of scholarship, and respond to the growing need for a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary approach to studying the cultures, histories, and issues of the Middle East and Africa. It was therefore fitting that in his speech, Lewis examined the threat to the freedom of scholarly inquiry and the prospects for improving the discipline. As a result that conference, Praeger Security International will soon release ASMEA’s first edited book, entitled Political Islam from Muhammad to Ahmadinejad, in November 2009. The book is based on many of the presentations given at that conference, edited by ASMEA’s Treasurer, Joe Skelly.

For its second conference, ASMEA accepted over 50 presentations from over 100 submissions, with some 42 universities represented on three continents. We also had three special presentations. Ambassador John Bolton, Dr. Gerard Prunier, and Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez made up the roster for the special presentations on topics ranging from the UN in Africa, to racism in the Sudan, to evaluating the sources of interpretations of Soviet involvement in the Middle East from 1967 to 1973. We also had our first cooperative effort with Marine Corps University, in which professors from MCU held their own unique panel of presentations on teaching about this region.

Bernard Lewis gave the keynote speech for the conference. In fact, it is probably fair to say that he, again, stole the show with his lunchtime presentation on “The Iranian Difference.”

The presentations were as diverse in their subject and disciplinary perspectives as is the membership of ASMEA. Members of ASMEA are citizens from 46 different countries, have established a presence on over 350 university campuses in 38 different countries. Members with Ph.D.’s have them in 41 different academic disciplines. All the academic papers that were given at this conference are in the running for selection for ASMEA’s new journal. We welcome submissions from others, as well.

In my view, the energy, excitement, and enthusiasm for this new community of scholars was palpable at this conference. Anecdotally, many people made exceptionally favorable comments on the conference. Several members of MESH were also present, and I would appreciate their evaluation of the conference as well.

We will soon post the video of Lewis’ new talk on ASMEA’s website and list the papers that were presented. Look for announcements of our new journal’s publication. And start planning now to attend next year’s conference.