Maryam Alemzadeh (Princeton) Siavush Randjbar-Daemi (St Andrews), author of The Quest for Authority in Iran: a history of the presidency from revolution to Rouhani (2017), give a talk for the Middle East Centre Friday Seminar Series. Chaired Professor Edmund Herzig (Faculty of Oriental Studies, Oxford)
Scholars have shown the dictatorial function of the par ... Show More
Mar 2025
The chaos (fawḍà) Bashshar al-Asad warned against – Damascus University 10th November 2005 – and present-day Syria
On Friday 21 February 2025, Professor Johannes Waardenburg gave the Middle East Centre’s Friday seminar Biography: Professor JST Waardenburg teaches the general history of the Arab world at the IULM in Milan. As a
historian, he specialises in the period of the Ba‘th party in powe ... Show More
51m 18s
Feb 2025
Israeli Public Opinion, War and Prospects for Peace
Political strategist and public opinion researcher, Dr Dahlia Scheindlin, shares her analysis of public opinion surveys before and during the war in Gaza. Israelis have shown increasingly hardline, right-wing, nationalist trends in public opinion surveys in recent years, leading ... Show More
1h 10m
Sep 2019
Elizabeth S. Kassab, "Enlightenment on the Eve of Revolution: The Egyptian and Syrian Debates" (Columbia UP, 2019)
The "Arab Spring" shook the world in 2011, revealing profound dissatisfaction throughout the Middle East and North Africa, as people throughout the region took to the streets demanding dramatic political change. The uprisings have been analyzed by scholars, journalists, and other ... Show More
59m 23s
Nov 2021
Rose Wellman, "Feeding Iran: Shi`i Families and the Making of the Islamic Republic" (U California Press, 2021)
Since Iran's 1979 Revolution, the imperative to create and protect the inner purity of family and nation in the face of outside spiritual corruption has been a driving force in national politics. Through extensive fieldwork, Rose Wellman examines how Basiji families, as members o ... Show More
43m 56s
Jan 2023
324. The Protest in Iran and What It Means | Masih Alinejad
Dr Jordan B Peterson and Masih Alinejad discuss the current situation in Iran, the growing unrest as revolution beckons, and the need for support from the world stage. Alinejad recounts her personal experiences growing up in Iran, being exiled, and multiple kidnapping attempts or ... Show More
1h 29m
Aug 2021
Mark Farha, "Lebanon: The Rise and Fall of a Secular State under Siege" (Cambridge UP, 2019)
Why has secularism faced such challenges in the Middle East and in Lebanon in particular? In light of dominating headlines about the spread of sectarianism and the so-called death of Arab secularism, Mark Farha addresses the need for a thorough examination of the history of secul ... Show More
56m 51s