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Is there a Middle East?
Conference at Yale University April 21-23, 2006
| Location: | Connecticut, United States |
| Call for Papers Deadline: | 2006-02-15 (Archive) |
| Date Submitted: |
2005-12-27 |
| Announcement ID: |
149065 |
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Is the “Middle East” merely a geopolitical construct conceived and sustained by the West over the course of the twentieth century to serve particular strategic and economic interests? Or, can we trace in this region unifying geographical, historical, cultural and political patterns that indicate some form of internal coherence? A century after the term “Middle East” was first coined by an American naval historian and nearly fifty years since it has become a part of the world’s standard political lexicon it may be an ideal moment to question viability of the term, its definition and its geographic and cultural boundaries in unprecedented ways. Surprisingly very little recent work has been done to interrogate the conceptualization of the Middle East from the perspectives of natural and human geography, history and political theory. This conference aims to fill this lacuna in the scholarship by addressing the above issues within the framework of five to six panels. We encourage papers from political and cultural historians, social scientists, geographers, and political economists. Possible themes include: natural boundaries and linguistic, ethnic and cultural self-definition; the Middle East as a geopolitical construct; Orientalizing the Middle East and Occiendetousis revisited; the Islamic legacy as a source of legitimacy and identity; nationalism and images of the self and other; economic resources and patterns of development; popular culture as a vehicle for cultural integration or disintegration; new media and new publics; the rise of regional elites and the role of their expertise in defining the region.
April 21-23 2006
Yale University
New Haven CT
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Barbara Papacoda
Council on Middle East Studies, Yale Center for International and Area Studies
P.O.Box Box 208206
New Haven, CT, 06520-8206
Email: barbara.papacoda@yale.edu
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