News & Announcements

Excerpt from an October 24th installment of the “Inside the Middle East" Q&A Series, with Hicham Alaoui, Visiting Fellow at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and D.Phil. Candidate at Oxford University, on current trends in North African politics including Tunisia’s nascent democracy, North Africa’s unique position in the Middle East region, and the ongoing protests in Morocco’s Rif region.

The Middle East Initiative will be well represented at this year's Annual Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) in Washington, D.C., November 18-21. Many current and former MEI fellows and affiliates will present research on a broad variety of topics during the conference. Below is a complete list of MEI-related participants, with links to their panels and topics.

Turkish writer and journalist Mustafa Aykol sits with Joseph Ataman, Editor-In-Chief of the Journal of Middle Eastern Politics and Policy, to talk about Turkey, religion, and Turkish politics in the future.

Excerpt from an April 3rd installment of the “Inside the Middle East" Q&A Series, with Dr. Moncef Marzouki, former President of Tunisia from 2011 to 2014, on Tunisia's Arab Spring uprising, transition to democracy, and ongoing struggle for human rights and economic and social development, including his own role in Tunisia's historic transition.

An audio recording from a February 28, 2017 MEI Speaker Series event with Shafeeq Ghabra, Professor of Political Science at Kuwait University.

Audio recording of a February 27, 2017 MEI Book Talk with Dr. Christopher Phillips, Senior Lecturer in the International Relations of the Middle East at Queen Mary, University of London and an Associate Fellow at the Chatham House Middle East and North Africa programme on his latest book The Battle for Syria: International Rivalry in the New Middle East.

A collection of multimedia recordings of sessions of the Building Bridges joint study group on the Syrian Refugee Crisis, led by Lara Jirmanus, MD, MPH, and sponsored by the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University and the Middle East Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School.

Audio recording of a February 2, 2017 MEI Book Talk with Dr. Olivier Roy, Joint Chair Robert Schumann Centre for Advanced Studies, Chair in Mediterranean Studies, European University Institute on his most recent book Jihad and Death: The Global Appeal of the Islamic State.

Audio recording of a January 30, 2017 panel discussion on the 2016 Arab Human Development Report from the United Nations Development Programme on Youth and the Prospects for Human Development in a Changing Reality, featuring Jad Chaaban, Lead Author of the report and Associate Professor of Economics at the American University of Beirut (AUB), Ishac Diwan, MEI Visiting Scholar and Chaire D'Excellence Monde Arabe at Paries Sciences et Lettres, Melani Cammett, Professor of Government, Harvard University and Adel Abdellatif, Senior Strategic Advisor, Regional Bureau for Arab States, United Nations Development Programme. .