Due to limited seating, the event is open to invited guests and the Harvard community only.

Members of the general public please email cmes@fas.harvard.edu if you have a connnection to Roger Owen or his work and are interested in attending this event.

Session presentation documents have been posted as a link next to the speaker, as available.

NOTICE: Due to unforeseen circumstances, we regret that presentations for Salim Tamari, Eve Troutt Powell and Sami Zubaida have been cancelled for the afternoon of Monday, May 5. Ali Gheissari will now present on Monday afternoon instead of Sunday.  Be sure to review the below schedule for updated information.

Sunday, May 4, 2008

Location: Center for Government & International Studies (CGIS), S-020 (Belfer Case Study Room), 1730 Cambridge Street

3pm Welcome and Introductions ~ Cemal Kafadar

3:20pm - 5:20pm

Session: Ottomans, Egypt and Qajars (20 minutes per presentation)

Chair: George Scanlon, American University in Cairo

• Abdelaziz Ezzelarab, American University in Cairo, Exploring Egyptian Business History: The Experiment of the Economic and Business History Research Centre (EBHRC)
• Khaled Fahmy, New York University, Implementing Shari'a: Lessons from 19th Century Egypt
• Alexander Kitroeff, Haverford College, The Greeks in Egypt Revisited
• Robert Mabro, Oxford University, Some Features of the Other Alexandria
• Roy Mottahedeh, Harvard University, The Muslim Festivals of Cairo
• Sevket Pamuk, Boğazici University and London School of Economics, A Comparison of the Ottoman and Egyptian Experiences with External Debt in the Nineteenth Century

5:20pm - 5:50pm Discussion and Q&A

Monday, May 5, 2008

9:30am - 10:30am

Session: Imperialism and Historiography (20 minutes per presentation)

Chair: Roger Louis, University of Texas, Austin

• Martin Bunton, University of Victoria, BC, Frames of Reference for the Study of Land in Palestine
• Joanna de Groot, University of York, From Owen to Darwin: The Makings and Unmakings of Imperial Histories
• Huricihan Islamoğlu, Boğazici University, Negotiating the 'Modern' in the 19th Century Middle East

10:45am - 11:45am

Session Continued: Imperialism and Historiography (20 minutes per presentation)

Chair: Mary Christina Wilson, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

• Çağlar Keyder, SUNY Binghamton, The Politics of Globalization, Then and Now
• Zachary Lockman, New York University, Palestine and the Rand: Race, Violence and the Historiography of Settler-Colonialism
• Ilan Pappé, University of Exeter, Perpetuating an Occupation: Israel's Fait Accompli Policies in Palestine, 1967-1970

11:45am - 12:15pm Discussion and Q&A

1:50pm - 3:30pm

Session: ‘General' History of the Middle East (20 minutes per presentation)

Chair: Carol Hakim, University of Minnesota

• Najwa Al-Qattan, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, Tut Tut`a Beirut, 1846: A Mulberry Shari`a Court
• Houchang-Esfandiar Chehabi, Boston University, The Importance of Beirut for Iranian Modernity
• Eberhard Kienle, Ford Foundation, Cairo; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, Authoritarian Revival in the Middle East, or Deliberalization on a Global Scale?
• Tim Mitchell, New York University, Carbon Democracy
• Nadim Mseiss, Bir Zeit Universty, The Palestinian left: Past, Present and Future

3:45pm - 4:45pm

Session Continued: ‘General' History of the Middle East (20 minutes per presentation)

Chair: Virginia Aksan, McMaster University

• Gabi Piterberg, UCLA, The Bible of an Autochthonous Settler: Ben Gurion Reads the Book of Joshua
• Sarah Shields, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Colonel Paulis and Kirkuk
• Ali Gheissari, University of San Diego, Merchants Without Borders: Trade, Travel and a Revolution in late Qajar Iran

4:45pm - 5:15pm Discussion and Q&A

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

9:30am - 10:30am

Session: Contemporary Middle Eastern Politics and History (20 minutes per presentation)

Chair: Marsha Posusney, Bryant University

• Jon Alterman, CSIS, The King's Education: Authoritarian Adaptability in the Middle East
• Dina Khoury, George Washington University, Citizenship, Memory and War in Iraq
• Paul Kingston, University of Toronto, Problematizing the State-Society Divide: Civil Society Politics in Postwar Lebanon

10:40am - 11:40am

Session Continued: Contemporary Middle Eastern Politics and History (20 minutes per presentation)

Chair: Marsha Posusney, Bryant University

• Joseph Sassoon, London, The Iraqi Refugees Post-2003: A New Crisis in the Middle East
• Peter Sluglett, University of Utah, Whither Iraq?
• Joe Stork, Human Rights Watch, The Political Economy of Human Rights in the Middle East

11:40am - 12:10pm

Discussion and Q&A

12:10pm Closing Remarks ~ Peter Sluglett

*Additional paper by Percy Kemp, What Rome, What Athens, and What Barbarians?