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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 May 2019
Our conference this year celebrates crossing borders with the theme “Without Boundaries: The Global Middle East, Then and Now.” In this spirit, I would like to reflect on some of what we have been facing recently in Middle East studies. We have seen challenges to the free circulation of people, ideas, and knowledge, and to the kinds of contacts and exchanges that invigorate our work. And, ironically enough, as restrictions on travel, study, and research have proliferated, the purloining of the cultural property of the region has been proceeding apace. Researchers, students, and scholars in general can move less and less, while the flow of cultural materials from the Middle East to the west has been moving more and more in ways that raise serious ethical questions. MESA and many of its members have been actively engaging these issues, and I will return to some of our accomplishments later in this piece.
Judith E. Tucker is President of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) and Professor of History at Georgetown University. She presented her address on November 16, 2018.
2 Clancy-Smith, Julia A., Mediterraneans: North Africa and Europe in an Age of Migration, c. 1800-1900 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011)Google Scholar; Khuri-Makdisi, Ilham, The Eastern Mediterranean and the Making of Global Radicalism, 1860-1914 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013)Google Scholar.
3 See Schäfer, Isabel, “The Cultural Dimension of the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership: A Critical Review of the First Decade of Intercultural Cooperation,” History and Anthropology 18, no. 3 (September 2007): 333–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
4 For the official U.S. statement on withdrawal, see: Heather Nauert, “The United States Withdraws From UNESCO,” U.S. Department of State, October 12, 2017, accessed March 6, 2019, https://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2017/10/274748.htm.
5 On the impact of the ban, see the ACLU summary: Manar Waheed, “The Effects of the Muslim Ban One Year Later,” ACLU, December 4, 2018, accessed March 6, 2019, https://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights/effects-muslim-ban-one-year-later.
6 Marcus Teretius Varro, De Re Rustica, Book One, part 2, accessed 30 November 2018, http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Varro/de_Re_Rustica/1*.html#1.
7 See the summary report of the Association of American Universities: https://www.aau.edu/sites/default/files/AAU-Files/Key-Issues/Federal-Budget/Appropriations-Tables/Education-Supplemental-FY19-Budget-Information.pdf.
8 For a helpful discussion of issues of custody, access, and provenance, see Bastian, Jeannette Allis, “A Question of Custody: The Colonial Archives of the United States Virgin Islands,” The American Archivist 64, no. 1 (Spring–Summer, 2001): 96–114CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
9 See also, Juan Pablo Sánchez, “How the Parthenon Lost Its Marbles,” National Geographic, April 2017, accessed March 25, 2019, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/archaeology-and-history/magazine/2017/03-04/parthenon-sculptures-british-museum-controversy/.
10 See also Jennie Cohen, “Egypt's Most Wanted: An Antiquities Wish List,” History, May 3, 2011, accessed March 25, 2019, https://www.history.com/news/egypts-most-wanted-an-antiquities-wish-list.
11 See, Zachary Small, “After $31 Million Sale of 3,000-Year-Old Assyrian Relief, Experts and Artists Denounce Christie's,” Hyperallergic, November 2, 2018, accessed November 30, 2018, https://hyperallergic.com/469108/31-million-sale-of-3000-year-old-assyrian-relief/.
12 Wallot, Jean-Pierre, “Building a Living Memory for the History of Our Present: New Perspectives on Archival Appraisal,” Journal of the Canadian Historical Association 2 (1991): 282CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
13 See, Christian Lowe, “Algeria, France tussle over archives 50 years after split,” Reuters, July 4, 2012, accessed November 30, 2018, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-france-algeria-archives/algeria-france-tussle-over-archives-50-years-after-split-idUSBRE86307L20120704.
14 Amit, Gish, “Salvage or Plunder? Israel's ‘Collection’ of Private Palestinian Libraries in West Jerusalem,” Journal of Palestine Studies 40, no. 4 (Summer 2011): 6–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
15 Sela, Rona, “The Genealogy of Colonial Plunder and Erasure – Israel's Control over Palestinian Archives,” Social Semiotics 28, no. 2 (2018): 201–29CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
16 Karabinos, Michael Joseph, “Displaced Archives, Displaced History: Recovering the Seized Archives of Indonesia,” Bijdragen tot de Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 169, no. 2/3 (2013): 279–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
17 For a very helpful discussion of the ethical and legal issues from an archivist's perspective, see Caswell, Michelle, “‘Thank You Very Much, Now Give Them Back’: Cultural Property and the Fight over the Iraqi Baath Party Records,” The American Archivist 74, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2011): 211–40Google Scholar.
18 For accounts of the ISIS files controversy, see: Maryam Saleh, “Protection or Plunder?” The Intercept, May 23, 2018, accessed November 2018, https://theintercept.com/2018/05/23/isis-files-podcast-new-york-times-iraq/; Avi Asher-Schapiro, “Who gets to tell Iraq's history?” LRB blog, June 15, 2018, accessed November 2018, https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2018/june/who-gets-to-tell-iraq-s-history.