The Middle East in World History: Global Connections and Comparisons

Cambridge Middle East History Group Inaugural Conference

Pembroke College, University of Cambridge

10 April 2012

Few of the world’s regions are as closely tied to the broader currents of global history as the Middle East. In spite of this, the turn towards area studies in the 1960s has ensured the predominance of a highly specialised approach to Middle Eastern history which views the region as distinct and largely separate from the world that surrounds it. Recently this has begun to change as a broadening array of scholars step outside the area studies paradigm, focusing instead on the historical intersections between the Middle East and the wider world. They have studied the circuits of economic and cultural exchange, the cross-fertilisation of political and religious ideas, and the great movements of people that have long blurred the boundaries between the Middle East and the ‘outside world’. This conference brings together scholars of this nature in an organised setting for the first time. It aims to provide a forum in which the methodologies of world historians can be systematically applied and debated in the context of the Middle East, ultimately challenging the ways in which we think about and define the region.

Papers are welcomed from a diverse range of chronological and geographical perspectives. Generally the focus will be on the modern history of the Middle East, but this is conceived in the broadest terms and is in no way intended to replicate European conceptions of a distinct, ‘modern’ historical era. Rather it is merely a marker of the conference’s focus on topics which relate to the history of an increasingly globalised world. Panel themes will include but not be limited to the following areas of study:

• Migration and travel
• Religious connections
• Empire and colonialism
• Trade
• Intellectual and cultural exchange
• Diplomacy and political networks

The conference is organised by the Cambridge Middle East History Group and will take place on 10 April 2012. The deadline for the submission of paper proposals is 14 December 2011. All proposals (title and 250 word abstract of your paper) should be sent to cambridgemiddleeast@gmail.com. A publication of the conference papers is also planned. For further details of the conference see http://www.cmehg.org