Fourth Annual ASMEA Conference Schedule

Thursday, November 3

6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.

Welcome Reception

Remarks by: H.E. Ali Suleiman Aujali, Ambassador of Libya

Friday, November 4

7:30 a.m. – 8:15 a.m.

Breakfast 

8:30 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.

Panel 1

• Terror and Counter-Terror: Israel, the PLO and the Oslo Peace Process
• From Oslo to Cast Lead-15 years of Palestinian PSYOP
• Israel’s Combating Terrorism Campaign against the Palestinian Insurgency, 2000-2011: Measures and Effectiveness
• Islamic Anti-Semitism and the Arab-Zionist Conflict

Panel 2

• Tribes, Faith and Self-Promotion: Forging African Identities
• Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa; Three Cases: Kenya, Uganda, South Africa
• The Epistolary Tradition in the Formation of Islamic Movements of Sub-Saharan Africa: The Case of Shaykh Ahmad Bamba and the Muridiyya
• Becoming Samburu: The Ethnogenesis of a Pastoral People in Nineteenth-Century Northern Kenya
• “It’s Time for Africa!”: South Africa and the 2010 World Cup

8:45 a.m. – 10:00 a.m.

Roundtable A

Turkey Under the AKP: Can Liberalism and Islamism Co-Exist?
(Prof. Mahmut Ersin Kalaycioglu; Prof. Sabri Sayari; Prof. Kemal Silay; Dr. Cuneyt Ulsever; Prof. Birol Yesilada)

10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Panel 1

• Visions of a Failed Peace: Israel, the Palestinian Authority -1993-2011
• Self-Determination, Statehood, and Unilateral Declarations of Independence: The Case of Palestine
• The Failed Peace Process in the Middle East 1993-2010
• Bibi and Barack – Partners for Peace? US-Israeli Relations in the Age of Uncertainty
• Paradigms, Cognitive Dissonance, and Solving the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Panel 2

• Conflict and Progress: Contrasting Paths in Africa’s Development
• Back to the Future? China in Ghana
• Conflict Dynamics in Sierra Leone: An Examination of the Factors Influencing Civil Violence
• Understanding the Dynamic of Sino-Africa Relations: Building Communities of Practice and Socialization
• Interstate Rivals, Group Dynamics and Conflict Progression in the Republic of Congo

10:45 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Roundtable

The Saddam Tapes, 1978-2001: The Inner Workings of a Tyrant’s Regime
(Mr. Michael Eisenstadt; Mr. David Palkki; Dr. Mark Stout; Dr. Shibley Telhami; Dr. Kevin Woods)

12:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.

Banquet Luncheon and Keynote Address

Keynote Address by: H.E. Barham Salih, Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Region

2:15 p.m. – 3:45 p.m

Panel 1

• Islam, Islamism, Imperialism and Da’wa
• The Tablighi Jama’at: Proselytizing Missionaries or Trojan Horse?
• Totalitarian Islamism and the Historical Practice of Politics
• Is Islam Arab Imperialism?
• Islam and the Other: al-Walaa’ wal-Baraa’ and al-Fitrah Doctrines: The Religious Perceptions and the Political Treatment of the Infidels

Panel 2

• Strongmen Politics: State Formation, the Military Class, Foreign Intervention in Africa
• State Formation in the Horn of Africa: Comparing Somaliland to Puntland
• Pax Americana: American Security Interests and Interventions in Africa
• Museveni in Uganda
• “Jeshi la Wananchi la,” The Tanzanian Military, Social Change, and Structural Resiliency: A Network Science Approach

2:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.

Roundtable C

Syria’s Freedom Revolution: The Struggle for a Post-Assad Future

4:15 p.m. – 5:45 p.m.

Panel 1

• The Power of Messages and Perception in the Middle East
• Nazi Propaganda in the Arab World
• “A Disaster of another Kind”: Zionism=Racism, Its Beginning, and the War of Delegitimization against Israel
• The Role of the Mainstream News Media in Jihadi Cognitive Warfare: Pallywood and The Case of Muhammad al Dura
• The Dynamics of Global Demonization of Israel: The Murder-for-Organ-Harvesting Libel and the Flow of Atrocity Stories

Panel 2

• Al Qaida Adaptations and Response: North Africa and Beyond
• The Imperatives and Prerequisites for Future Non-State Islamist Terrorism
• Al Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb: Terrorism and Counterterrorism Initiatives
• Understanding the Threat of Al Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb
• Inspire – The First Year: A Content Analysis AQAP’s English Language Publication

Panel 3

• The Arab Spring and the Fate of Middle East Minorities
• Arabization and its Discontents: The Rise of the Amazigh Movement in North Africa
• Native Christian Fears and Hopes Regarding the “Arab Spring”
• Islamism, Lebanon’s Political System and Political Maronitism: Al-Infitah and Lebanonization
• A New Westphalian Order for the “Other Middle East”

8:00 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.

Film Screenings

The Stoning of Soraya M.
Mugabe and the White African

Saturday, November 5

8:00 a.m. – 8:30 a.m.

Breakfast

8:45 a.m. – 10:15 a.m.

Panel 1

• Explaining Movements, Sustaining Regimes: Islam in Turkey and Iran
• The Comeback of the Hojjatiyeh-New Politics in Old Frames
• “Neo-Iranian Nationalism”: Pre-Islamic Grandeur and Shi’a Eschatology in Iranian Contemporary Politics
• Gulen and the Modernists

Panel 2

• Tribes, Movements and Controlling Interests in the Middle East
• Authoritarian Social Pacts of Syria and Yemen
• A Concept in Question: “Tribes” and “Tribalism” in the Contemporary Analysis of the Middle East and Africa
• The Egyptian Feminist Movement
• Abraham Lincoln’s Legacy in the Middle East and Africa

Panel 3

• The Terrifying and the Tragic: War and Romance in the Pre-Modern Middle East
• Wooden Helmets and Paper Flights, the Mamluks are Off to War: Recent Finds of Medieval Arms and Armour at the Citadel of Damascus
• Local Leaders and Political Systems before Ottoman Tanzimat in Central Palestine: A Case Study of Jayussi and Barqawi Families in Tulkarm
• Love Story: The Desert Journey of Charmion Von Wiegand and Ameen Rihani
• A Spectacle as Sublime as Terrifying: Romantic Tendencies in the Work of Napoleon’s Scholars in Egypt, 1798-1801
• The Egyptian Army Comes of Age-The Siege of Acre (1830-1831)

10:45 a.m. – 12:15 p.m.

Panel 1

• Failed States in the Grasp of Insurgents
• The Importance of Culture in Efforts to Rebuild the Government in Afghanistan
• The Social Fitness of Insurgencies: The Organizational Payoff for Legitimated Power
• Why al-Qaeda is Winning
• Failed States and International Security: The Cases of Afghanistan/Pakistan, Lebanon, and Somalia

Panel 2

• Topics on the Middle East and Africa
• How Does Al-Jazeera Arabic Influence Jordanian Political Attitudes and Identities?
• The Changing Nature of Archeology and the Black Market after the Spring Uprisings
• Remembering the Guerillitas: Cuban Women Combatants in Southern Africa

Panel 3

• Revolutions and Reform in the Midst of the Arab Spring
• Rhetoric and Democracy in the Arab World: The Outlook for the Future
• Green and Orange: What Egyptian Reformers Should and Should Not Learn from the Ukrainian Revolution
• Public Perceptions, Political Violence, and Human Rights in the Middle East
• Are Revolutionary Outcomes Predictable? The Theory and Practice of the Arab Spring

12:45 p.m. – 2:15 p.m.

Panel 1

• Topics on the Middle East and Africa
• Understanding Zionism’s Ideological Foundations in Light of the “New History”: The Case of Yishuv Economic Policy, 1900-1948
• Defining the Enemy as Israel, Zionist, Neo-Nazi or Jewish: The Propaganda War under Nasser’s Egypt, 1952-1967
• Civil Society in Egypt: Strategies for Autonomy under a Hybrid Regime
• Ethiopia and Egypt: Assessment of a Troubled Relation, 1950s to 1991

Panel 2

• Islamism and the Social Order in Iran and Turkey
• Islam as Peacemaker: the AKP’s Opportunity at a Kurdish Resolution
• The Hidden Imam and Khomeini’s Revolution
• The Character of the Iranian Social Order and Civil Society
• US-Iranian Relations During and Since the Khatami Presidency

Panel 3

• Politics, Power and People in the Maghreb
• Between “Authoritarian” and “Empowered” Slum Relocation: Social Meditation in the Case of Ennakhil, Morocco
• Moroccan Islamists and Minority Politics: Adaptations in a Non-Homogenous Polity
• The Military in Algeria-Changing Rule, Consistent Ideas