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Scholarship, Policy, Debate and Conflict: Why We Study the Middle East and Why It Matters

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 March 2016

Lisa Anderson
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Extract

This has been a difficult year for people who study the Middle East – as it has been for people who live there. Memorable mostly for its dilemmas and disappointments, it has not been the kind of year on which one would ordinarily dwell. Yet there are important lessons in this year, lessons about the relationship between scholarship and policy, about the responsibilities imposed by an academic life in a time of deeply divisive debate and conflict, and about why what we do is profoundly important, not just to the small community of our professional peers but for the health of our society and of our world. It is to those questions – and the lessons I believe we must draw from the experience of this year – that I want to devote our attention this evening.

Type
Essays
Information
Review of Middle East Studies , Volume 38 , Issue 1 , June 2004 , pp. 2 - 15
Copyright
Copyright © Middle East Studies Association of North America 2004

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References

1 This essay is an extension of my presidential letter to the MESA membership, published in the Association Newsletter, Winter 2003, and several passages are reproduced from that letter.

2 See The New York Times, “Malaysian Leader’s Talk Attacking Jews Draws Ire from Bush,” The New York Times, October 21,2003; “U.S. General Apologizes for Remarks about Islam,” The New York Times, October 18,2003; “The General Who Roared” The New York Times, October 22, 2003; for Pipes’ remarks, see Militant Islam Reaches America, by Pipes, Daniel (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2002), pp. 102, 124.Google Scholar

3 New York Post, August 25, 2003; New York Sun, July 25, 2003.

4 Kramer, Martin“Title VI in Congress: Not on Our Dime,” http://www.geocities.com/martinkramerorg/2003_10_14.htm.Google Scholar

5 Quoted in The New York Times, April 1, 1993.

6 Edward, Said, “The Morning After,” London Review of Books, October 21, 1993, pp. 4–5.Google Scholar

7 Monastersky, Richard, “Overseas Research Becomes Casualty of War;”Google ScholarCastillo, Daniel Del, “Backlash in the Middle East,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 4, 2003.Google Scholar

8 Associated Press, “Iraq Professors Shaken by Threats,” June 30, 2003.

9 Khalid Raihan, professor of anthropology at King Saud University, quoted by Castillo, Daniel Del“Saudi Arabia’s Identity Crisis,” TheChronicle of Higher Education, July 11, 2003.Google Scholar

10 http://pavand.com/news/, The Chronicle of Higher Education, October 31,2003.

11 Bennet, James, “Palestinian Mob Attacks Pollster,” The New York Times, July 14, 2003.Google Scholar

12 See the website: http://www.democracy-egvpt.org. Ghobashy, Mona El“The case of Saad Eddin Ibrahim reveals deep-seated suspicions about the nature of social research,” Cairo Times, January 24,2001.Google Scholar

13 Arab Human Development Report, Executive Summary, http://www.undp.org/rbas/ahdr, October, 2003, p.3.

14 Arab Human Development Report, Executive Summary, pp.10–12.

15 Arab Human Development Report, Executive Summary, op. cit., p. 2; Jacobson, Jennifer“U.S. Foreign Enrollments Stagnate,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 7, 2003, p. A44.Google Scholar

16 http://www.campus-watch.org.

17 Kramer, Martin“Qui custodiet ipsos custodes? Campus Watch,” at http://www,geocities.com/martinkramerorg/2002_09_18.htm.Google Scholar

18 Kurtz, Stanley“Hearing Both Sides of Title VI,” National Review Online, June 23, 2003.Google Scholar

19 Data on MESA and on historical levels of Title VI funding graciously provided by Executive Director Amy Newhall, October 2003.

20 I treat this dilemma in some detail in Pursuing Truth, Exercising Power: Social Science and Public Policy in the Twenty-first Century (Columbia University Press, 2003).

21 “Education Subcommittee Approves Hoekstra measure to Strengthen International Studies in Higher Education, Ensure Programs Fulfill National Security Needs,” Committee in Education and the Workforce, September 17, 2003.

22 Beinin, Joel“2002 Presidential Address: Middle East Studies After September 11, 2001,” Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, 37 (2003): 8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 “Experts Can Help Rebuild a Country,” The New York Times, July 19, 2003.

24 “ The Case for Evidence-Based Policy,” Urban Institute Annual Report, May, 2003.