ASMEA is a new academic society dedicated to promoting the highest standards of research and teaching in Middle Eastern and African studies, and related fields. It is a response to the mounting interest in these increasingly inter-related fields, and the absence of any single group addressing them in a comprehensive, multi-disciplinary fashion.

ASMEA is, first and foremost, a community of scholars concerned to protect academic freedom and promote the search for truth to reach new heights in inquiry. The Association will advance the discourse in these fields by offering its members new opportunities to publish and present ideas to the academic community and beyond. ASMEA will offer its assistance to established and new scholars, including un-tenured faculty, graduate students, and those in related fields to expand the body of scholars and knowledge.

Through its forthcoming annual conference, journal, newsletter, and new website, the Association hopes to become the professional association of choice for discerning scholars and interested members of the public, and will strive for excellence in all of its many pursuits. Please join us in creating a community that will serve as the bedrock for the next generation of scholars and teachers upon which our collective future depends.

Professor Bernard Lewis

Professor Fouad Ajami

Army Colonel Says U.S. Needs Better Focus in the War on Terror
(5/15/2008) Matt Korade, Congressional Quarterly
To better understand the Quranic basis of jihad as practiced by extremists without sifting through a library of interpretations, you should read one book above all others, says Lt. Col. Joseph Myers. “The Quranic Concept of War,” by Pakistani Brig. Gen. S.K. Malik in the late 1970s, isn’t much studied in the West.

Sudan: Looming Crises, Strategic Opportunities
(5/15/2008) J. Peter Pham, World Defense Review
While international attention remains riveted on the ongoing humanitarian crisis in the western Darfur region – it has been less than two weeks since an Antonov transport belonging to the Sudanese military bombed a school, waterworks, and a busy marketplace in the villages of Um Sidir, Ein Bassar and Shegeg Karo, respectively, leaving at least fourteen civilians dead and scores wounded, many of them women and children – an even larger conflict is on the verge of breaking out in South Sudan, even as a bold attack on Khartoum last weekend put the fragility of the Sudanese state in dramatic relief.

News Analysis: Competing Meetings Kick Up Sand in Middle-East Studies
(5/02/2008) Richard Byrne, The Chronicle of Higher Education
When the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa, or Asmea, held its inaugural meeting here last weekend, the siege mentality felt by its members "many of whom are conservative researchers" was palpable.
Even the group's renowned co-founder, Bernard Lewis, sounded a note of desolation about the state of Middle East studies in his keynote address at the meeting. Freedom to study and write on the topic of Islam, said Mr. Lewis, a professor emeritus of Near Eastern studies at Princeton University, was under assault by a Cerberus of "postmodernism," "political correctness," and "multiculturalism" in academe.