This research network, which was originally coordinated by Dr Kamran Rastegar, is organised broadly around the questions of culture, resistance, identity and representation in the Middle East. This Network is designed to engage broadly and comparatively with these themes with an aim both to develop this area of cultural and historical inquiry with relation to scholarship on the Middle East, and to contribute to the wider realms of scholarly activity on these themes as they concern other regions and histories.
Since 2008, it has held two workshops at the Universtity of Edinburgh:
22 & 23 February, 2008
Memory, Trauma and Identity in Visual and Literary Representations in the Middle East
16 May 2009
Iraq, Resistance, Memory: A Symposium of Cultural and Academic Exchange
The next workshop will be held on 7-9 May 2010:
PROGRAMME
Where are the Intellectuals? Culture, Identity and Community in the
Modern Middle East
The role of the Middle Eastern intellectual has long constituted an object of study and fascination for scholars, particularly in colonial and post-colonial contexts, where the intellectual was often seen as the main bridge - or interpreter - between the modernity of the West and the ‘traditional’ culture of the East. But the study of Middle Eastern
intellectuals has come a long way since Albert Hourani’s seminal Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, with much work now examining such complex dynamics as the relationships between intellectuals and publics, the role of popular intellectuals within national and transnational social movements, and the significance of secondary or ‘organic’ intellectuals; as much as the philosophical innovations of great luminaries. Intellectuals have long been acknowledged as shapers of nationalism, but how have Middle Eastern intellectuals articulated other identities, such as gender? What role do intellectuals play, in the age of global and mass media, in the formation of culture, identity and community?
For more information on this network please contact:
Ewan Stein
